Hiroshima TracesTime, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory

Out of the Dark: The Challenges of Branding Post-Disaster Tourism Ten Years after the Great East Japan Earthquake

“…However, such attempts may align with locals' concerns about spreading a negative image of their hometowns when promoted as "dark tourism" destinations (Sakaguchi, 2021). In this sense, the promotion of post-disaster tourism repeats branding concepts seen in other dark tourist destinations in Japan, such as the promotion of tourism to sites related to WWII under the name of "peace tourism" (Yoneyama, 1999;Zwigenberg, 2014), or the presentation of tragic legacies in ways that do not question responsibility (Sharpley & Kato, 2021;Wu et al, 2013). Although interviews with practitioners revealed that the focus on positive images may help survivors cope with their experiences and be empowered through contributing to disaster education (Tanaka et al, 2013), some survivors criticized this focus on positive aspects within the recovery or do not find their experiences represented properly.…”

“…https://doi.org/10.58345/BJOV5890 | 8 memory of historical tragedies such as World War II, researchers have criticized that mainly positive aspects have been put to the foreground (Sharpley & Kato, 2021;Wu et al, 2013). For example, visiting the 1945 atomic bomb sites of Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the former battlegrounds of World War II in Okinawa has been redefined positively through the term "peace tourism" (Yoneyama, 1999;Zwigenberg, 2014). At such sites, war itself is usually condemned but questions of responsibility and Japan's role as an aggressor are rarely discussed.…”

Student-centered, “embodied inter-referencing” as antiracist and anticolonial pedagogy

“…Written from the perspective of a Japanese protagonist who survived the war and the ensuing U.S. occupation, “American Hijiki” decenters the Western (or American) worldview and perspective of transpacific history. At one level, it troubles, if not subverts, America’s “good war” narrative produced in the mid-twentieth century by the U.S. “empire for liberty” in the context of the Cold War (Yoneyama, 2017 , p. 472) by vividly portraying the everyday experience of war trauma and how the U.S. occupation has emasculated Japanese men particularly and Japan generally. At a broader level, however, as student Jasmine Snau pointed out, the title “American Hijiki” and the Japanese people’s encounter with an unknown Western product (black tea leaves) with no equivalent Japanese word “encapsulates the discordance of culture.” It reveals linguistic and cultural untranslatability, the presence of a paradigm that cannot easily be assimilated into another; Western culture becomes an alien rather than the universal self that literally comes from the sky.…”

“…Given Japan’s own status as a former colonizer and occupier in Asia, I grappled with the following question: How can I engage students with Nosaka’s story without reproducing Japan’s self-victimizing narrative and downplaying the country’s own history of colonialism and racism in Asia? As Yoneyama ( 1999 ) pointed out, Japan’s self-victimizing narratives were formed in the immediate postwar period around U.S. air raids, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately contributed to the forgetting of Japan’s imperial aggression and victimization of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Is it possible at all to effectively discuss the “critical differences, the historical specificities and the asymmetrical positions that distinguish Japan from its neighboring countries” using this text (Yoneyama, 1999 , p. 12)?…”

“…As Yoneyama ( 1999 ) pointed out, Japan’s self-victimizing narratives were formed in the immediate postwar period around U.S. air raids, and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ultimately contributed to the forgetting of Japan’s imperial aggression and victimization of Asians and Pacific Islanders. Is it possible at all to effectively discuss the “critical differences, the historical specificities and the asymmetrical positions that distinguish Japan from its neighboring countries” using this text (Yoneyama, 1999 , p. 12)?…”