Contesting ‘Local’ Commemoration of the Second World War
The case of the Changi Chapel and Museum in Singapore
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8383100 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hamzah Muzaini (0000-0002-5634-5783, Durham University, corresponding author), B S A Yeoh (0000-0002-0240-3175, National University of Singapore) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-17 |
| Publication date | 2005-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Geographer (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0004-9182 • E-ISSN: 1465-3311 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00049180500050789 |
| OpenAlex | W2031109350 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 15 |
This paper concerns the performance of national war memory at the Changi Chapel and Museum, a site honouring the many prisoners interned in Japanese-Occupied Singapore—especially at Changi—during the Second World War. In the light of the global nature of ‘the Changi story’, and the predominantly transnational nature of its present in situ memorialisation, we first examine how the Singapore state has sought to ‘localise’ the site to make it equally appealing to Singaporeans, as a place where a sense of their ‘shared history’ may be invoked. We then explore the Singaporeans' views about the site and its reconfiguration as a national icon, arguing how the state's task of ‘localising’ the site has been a vexed process due to myriad factors such as ethnic and religious plurality, and the already foreign-centric bias of prevailing knowledge about Changi. Following that, we show how this performance of national memory is also inflected by Australia's national remembrance of the same event. More broadly, we highlight the contested process of ‘localising’ such war memoryscapes as national iconography, suggesting how it may be more fruitful to conceive them as ‘international memoryscapes’, or places to which all individuals can relate regardless of race or national affiliations
Archaeology · Art history · Chapel · Icon · Media studies · Sociology · State (computer science · World War II · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
Issues in conserving ‘orphan heritage’ in Asia
Chosen Ground — The Significance, Objectives and Progress of The Adam Park Project (Tapp)
Producing/consuming memoryscapes
Military landscapes
Exhibition Review Essays and Exhibition Reviews
Contested Trans-national Heritage
Beyond child's play
The selected representation of contested prison history
Scale politics, vernacular memory and the preservation of the Green Ridge battlefield in Kampar, Malaysia
Did Singapore Have to Fall?
For Transformative Knowledge and Postnationalist Public Spheres
The Production of Locality
From Heroes' Groves to Parks of Peace
Reading representations of women’s war experiences in the Changi Chapel and Museum, Singapore
The first world war memorials in New South Wales
Authenticity on the Ground
Cast in Stone
Contesting Places of Memory
Museums as Contested Sites of Remembrance
The Construction of Nationhood
Empowering Place
RePlacing Memory
| Unique citing works | 9 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,45 |
| Citation span | 2006 - 2021 (16) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 9 |