Memory and Non-Place: Visual Testimonies of Japanese American Internment During World War II

This article addresses the little-known history of Japanese Latin American internment during WWII. Classified as ‘illegal aliens’ and ‘enemy aliens’, 2,264 Japanese Latin Americans were stripped of citizenship from their home countries, denied rights in the United States, and ultimately deprived reconciliation due to their undocumented status. Using the traces of this history as a case study, I explore the strategic memories Japanese Latin Americans create about non-place – spaces of statelessness or states of exception – that allow them to make claims about state violence committed against them under these conditions, and, second, argue that demands for justice against political violence entail not only bringing light to erased histories but also developing engaged acts of reception that account for survivors’ claims to the memories of non-place. Visual testimonies, such as the Denshō Digital Archive and the short documentary Hidden Internment: The Art Shibayama Story (2004), affectively connect a viewer/listener to the memory of trauma, to an inexpressible haunting, and thus are critical platforms for creating a collective memory between survivors and the digital generation of postmemory.     

Coming to Terms with Violence: Sacrifice,collective memory and reconciliation in inter-war Finland

This article connects notions of collective memory to the notion of cultural memory. Special interest is given to the role of national myths and other cultural reservoirs in organizing Finnish collective memories during the period from the Civil War of 1918 until the beginning of the Second World War. First the author seeks to uncover the ways both sides of the conflict utilized cultural reservoirs in their memory cultures. Then the author looks into ways in which the Social Democrats especially tried in the late 1930s to transform divisive and even traumatic experiences resulting from the Civil War into socially productive narratives. The transformation of the memory of the internal and reciprocal violence into unifying self-sacrifices proved to be the most crucial act in Finnish memory culture during the first half of the 20th century. This interpretation dates the first acts of public reconciliation to the late 1930s, or the time before the Winter War.     

Heritage on the move. Cross-cultural heritage as a response to globalisation,mobilities and multiple migrations

Globalisation is creating new perceptions of social and cultural spaces as well as complex and diverse pictures of migration flows. This leads to changes in expressions of culture, identity, and belonging and thus the role of heritage today. I argue that common or dominant notions of heritage cannot accommodate these new cultural identities-in-flux created by and acting in a transplanetary networked and culturally deterritorialized world. To support my arguments, I will introduce ‘Third Culture Kids’ or ‘global nomads’, defined as a particular type of migrant community whose cultural identities are characterised high patterns of global mobility during childhood. My research focus on the uses and meaning of cultural heritage among this onward migrant community, and it reveals that these global nomads both use common forms of heritage as a cultural capital to crisscross cultures, and designate places of mobility, like airports, to recall collective memories as people on the move. These results pose additional questions to the traditional use of heritage, and suggest others visions of heritage today, as people’s cultural identities turn to be now more characterised by mobility, cultural flux, and belonging to horizontal networks.     

Issues of mutuality and sharing in the transnational spaces of heritage – contesting diaspora and homeland experiences in Palestine

Wars, colonialism and other forms of violent conflict often result in ethnic cleansing, forced dispersion, exile and the destruction of societies. In places of diaspora and homelands, people embody various experiences and memories but also maintain flows of connections, through which they claim mutual ambitions for the restoration of their national identity. What happens when diaspora communities ‘return’ and join homeland communities in reconstruction efforts? Drawing on heritage as metaphorical ‘contact zones’ with transnational affective milieus, this study explores the complex temporalities of signification, experiences and healing that involve both communities in two specific sites, Qaryon Square and Al-Kabir Mosque, located in the Historic City of Nablus, Palestine. Conflicts at these two sites often become intensified when heritage experts overlook the ‘emotional’ and ‘transnational’ relationships of power that revolve around the diverging narratives of both communities. This study proposes new methodological arts of the contact zone to enhance new ways in heritage management that can collective engage with the multiple and transnational layers of heritage places beyond their geographic boundaries and any relationship with defined static pasts. Such engagement can help explore the contentious nature of heritage and the resonances it may have for reconciliation in post-violent conflict times.     

Musical memory,heritage and local identity: remembering the popular music past in a European Capital of Culture

This paper explores the relationship between rock music, collective memory and local identity, by focusing on events connected to Liverpool's status as European Capital of Culture 2008. The first part of the paper describes these events and how memories of local rock music were attached to heritage and local identity and mobilised to validate Liverpool as a capital of culture, whilst in turn the city's Capital of Culture status served to validate particular ways of remembering the local musical past. The second part of the paper considers the broader significance of these events by relating them to three pan-European trends in cultural policy: the development of the cultural and heritage industries; the protection and promotion of local culture and identity; and the fostering of cultural diversity and integration. It highlights the general significance of the popular music past for cultural policy in Europe, but also the politics of popular music memory and how it involves a complex and dynamic process of negotiation that relates to cultural policy in particular ways. The paper concludes by arguing that popular music offers a specific and productive focus for research on cultural policy, heritage and local identity in Europe.     

Restitution over coffee: truth,reconciliation, and environmental violence in East Timor

Truth commissions have become an almost obligatory component of the process by which national societies attempt to reconstruct themselves in the aftermath of, and recover from, periods of violent, authoritarian rule, and/or war, especially of the civil variety. Proponents of truth commissions see them as indispensable to promoting reconciliation between former adversaries as well as a transition to a more just, democratic, and peaceful political order, while serving as an important component in nation-state-(re)building. This paper analyzes and critiques the boundaries that typically define the tasks of truth commissions with a focus on East Timor’s. It contends that commissions achieve less than they might in terms of their goal of facilitating a justice-infused notion of reconciliation between conflicting parties because of their tendency to focus on individual acts or events of violence, while giving relatively little weight to systemic or structural forms of violence. To substantiate this argument, the paper analyzes the relationship of coffee—East Timor’s primary export commodity—to the violence and terror that the country’s truth commission addresses. In doing so, the paper illustrates the dynamic links between violence and the environment and how said environment comes to embody that violence and to reproduce it in various forms. It also demonstrates the limits of truth commissions as conventionally defined as they relate to matters of social justice. In doing so, it potentially points the way toward more ambitious, and more successful, truth-telling and reconciliation processes—if we assume the goal is to promote a just and peaceful coexistence between former adversaries. The framework employed is one of a Third World political ecology of violence, one that understands violence not only in terms of direct acts of physical brutality, but also in terms of indirect acts and social structures that cause injury.     

From universal to local: perspectives on cultural landscape heritage in South Africa

The concept of cultural landscapes relates to the multifaceted links between people, place and identity. From a professional perspective, the concept refers to a category of designated conservation areas with specific biocultural heritage values. From a local perspective, it may refer to a landscape that is associated with the provision of a culturally-specific sense of identity and belonging. We explore these two perspectives through a comparative analysis of three cultural landscapes in South Africa, the ‘expert’ designated Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape and the Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape, and the local associative landscape of emaXhoseni, which is not formally recognised. We propose that a biocultural diversity perspective of heritage not only recognises the inextricable relationship between nature and culture, but it also gives prominence to the beliefs, values and practices of local people, and to strengthening their agency to safeguard their heritage in ways and forms that are relevant to them.     

The international heritage doctrine and the management of heritage in Sarajevo,Bosnia and Herzegovina: the case of the Commission to Preserve National Monuments

Since the formal end to the conflict of dissolution of Yugoslavia in 1995, cultural heritage has been given a central role in post-war recovery and reconstruction, and in the development of sustainable peace in the region. This role reflects the pivotal function accorded to heritage in post-conflict settings within the international heritage doctrine, while re-assessing the crucial role of culture in ‘building peace in the minds of men and women’ (UNESCO) and in creating ‘greater understanding of one another among the peoples of Europe’. I will present and analyse the current formal/legal system of heritage construction and reconstruction in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), its relations with the international heritage doctrine and its implications on the local process of memorialisation of armed conflict. As I will argue, one fundamental pitfall of the international heritage doctrine fashioned by UNESCO and the Council of Europe is that it implicitly relies on the nation-state as the carrier and developer of collective cultural memory and identity, overlooking settings where the primary mode of group identification and legitimisation occurs at different (lower) levels, as in BiH.     

Insurgency,heritage and the working class: the case of the Theatre of Union Nº6 of the Coal Miners of Lota,Chile

This paper examines the construction and preservation history of the Theatre of Union Nº6 of the Coal Miners in Lota, Chile, a city whose identity has been redefined due to changes in the capitalist economy, becoming known as an ‘ex-coal mining community’. Drawing on insurgent planning theory and through a political, economic and social analysis of the history of this national monument, the paper explores how grassroots heritage movements, grounded on their historical memory of social struggle, question authorised voices in the field, influencing the production and definition of their urban heritage. The strategies used by these groups are discussed in the context of the emergence of social movements at the beginning of the twentieth century, the influence of the Modern Movement in Chile as a symbol of social justice, and the communities’ current preservation efforts. Through interviews, participant observations, archival research and analysis of the physical built environment, I argue that moving across ‘invited’ and ‘invented’ spaces of participation, Lotinos are capable of disrupting hegemonic conceptions of heritage, using it for their own social, cultural and economic purposes and creating opportunities for a more inclusive and democratic cultural process.     

The pit: landscape scars as potential cultural tools

A huge and continuously growing pit is about to divide the Swedish mining town of Malmberget into two halves. What once was the town centre is now a 200 metres deep hole, and private homes and key buildings like the old school and the church have had to be demolished or moved. The pit is a human imposed ‘landscape scar’ epitomising the town’s lost golden age of mining, its present situation of decline and uncertain future prospects – despite a recent recovery in the mining industry. Although the pit is decisively present in the local community, it is not articulated as significant, especially not from a heritage perspective. Why is this so? In this article, we examine the pit as a potential cultural tool for heritage processes, and find that it is indeed used by individuals in this respect, but not in collective memorialisation. We conclude that landscape scars definitely can constitute critical cultural tools, although they may not always need to be labelled as belonging to an ‘authorized heritage discourse’. Instead, the potential of the landscape scar is to enhance the amount and recognition of shared memories in the local community.     

作为“遗产线路”的文物南迁与“遗产线路”概念再认识

文物南迁是20世纪30至50年代为保护故宫等机构文物而进行的文物大迁徙活动。这次迁徙在20余座城市留下了丰富的史迹遗产和报纸档案资料。文物南迁至今已有近百年历史,期间由于战争与和平、文物价值与文化认同的变迁,南迁之举被不断赋予了新的历史价值和精神文化意义,使得这一历史事件的遗迹可以被放到"遗产线路"的视角下去看待,并对该遗产概念的发展完善具有推动作用。     

Competing discourses of built heritage: lay values in Irish conservation planning

Built heritage conservation has traditionally been shaped by professionals through an ‘authorised heritage discourse’, emphasising expert knowledge and skills, universal value, a hierarchy of significance, and protecting the authenticity of tangible assets. However, while the purpose of built heritage conservation is widely recognised to be broad, encompassing cultural, social and economic benefits, it takes place in the presence, and on behalf, of a wider public whose values and priorities may differ starkly from those of heritage power-players. Drawing on the perspectives of a range of built heritage actors in three small towns in Ireland, this paper contributes to these debates, exploring the competing values and priorities embedded within lay discourses of heritage. Based on critical discourse analysis of interviews with local actors, the paper identifies that collected memory and local place distinctiveness, contributing to a sense of local identity, are of central importance in how non-experts construct their understanding of built heritage. In the Irish context, this is particularly important in understanding social and cultural statutory categories of heritage interest. The paper concludes on the implications for policy and practice and, in particular, the need to more effectively take account of non-expert values and priorities in heritage and conservation decision-making.     

Forgetting to remember,remembering to forget: late modern heritage practices,sustainability and the ‘crisis’ of accumulation of the past

This paper considers the implications for cultural heritage of observations regarding individual and collective memory which suggest that the process of forgetting is in fact integral to remembering – that one cannot properly form new memories and attach value to them without also selecting some things to forget. Remembering is an active process of cultivating and pruning, and not one of complete archiving and total recall, which would overwhelm and cause us to be unable to make confident decisions about which memories are valuable and which are not. I argue that the same is true of heritage; that as a result of its increasingly broad definition, and the exponential growth of listed objects, places and practices of heritage in the contemporary world, we hazard becoming overwhelmed by memory and in the process rendering heritage ineffective and worthless. I refer to the consequence of this heterogeneous piling up of disparate and conflicting pasts in the present as a ‘crisis’ of accumulation of the past. To deal with this crisis adequately, we must pay increased attention to the management of heritage. This should not only refer to processes of preservation and conservation, but also to active decisions to delist or cease to conserve particular forms of heritage once their significance to contemporary and future societies can no longer be demonstrated. Deaccessioning and disposal must become a key area of attention for critical heritage studies in the coming decades if heritage is to remain sustainable and uphold its claims to relevance in contemporary global societies.     

Ethnographic reflections on ‘oppositional heritage discourse’ in two post-earthquake Italian cities

This article explores the politicisation of cultural heritage during the aftermath of the 1980 earthquake in Naples and the 2009 earthquake in L’Aquila. It begins by critically addressing the positions of Tomaso Montanari and Salvatore Settis, two prominent heritage intellectuals at the forefront of national campaigns to restore the damaged historic centre of L’Aquila. Both have been instrumental in shaping an ‘oppositional heritage discourse’ in Italy that underscores the civic virtues of the nation’s cultural patrimony while simultaneously railing against its marketisation. Reflecting upon observations in L’Aquila, where locals involved in protests at government inaction have been scolded by fellow inhabitants for their lack of obeisance to cultural heritage, and drawing on longstanding ethnographic research in Naples, where heritage campaigns against redevelopment in the historic centre in the 1980s were later incorporated into an ambitious regeneration agenda, the article argues that this oppositional heritage discourse is not only premised upon idealist notions of collective identity but also, as a result of its attempts to legislate the boundaries of heritage citizenship and its disavowal of philologically incorrect relationships with historic centres, it ultimately provides tacit support to the very same neoliberal urban processes against which it claims to take a stand.     

Convict ancestry: a neglected aspect of Australian identity

Abstract Claiming descent from convicts who were sent to Australia during the early period of British settlement is more than just about blood ties, it is also an aspect of national identity for many Australians. Analyses of nationally representative survey data show that younger, left‐leaning, working class Australians are most likely to identify as convict descendants, while older, high income, educated, city dwellers are least likely to identify. Our findings also suggest that the ‘hated stain’ of convict ancestry is senescent, and will diminish with intergenerational replacement. Yet claims to convict descent remain divided along status lines. Interest in convicts and claims of convict heritage may comprise an element of ‘popular taste’, but as a consequence of this popularity, ‘convict chic’ is rejected by educated elites. Embraced by ‘middle Australia’, but shunned by cosmopolitan elites, convict ancestry is a neglected aspect of Australian identity. Whether claims of convict ancestry are ‘real’ or ‘imaginary’, the power of foundation myths to provide shared memories is evident in the salience of convict connections in Australia.     

‘The Sun Always Shines in Perth’: a Post‐Colonial Geography of Identity,Memory and Place

In this paper I explore some of the textual possibilities of post‐colonial geography. Using the conceptual tool of place as a palimpsest, I trace some geographies of memory across selected colonial and post‐colonial texts. By focusing on the relationship between representations of ‘sunny Perth’ and ‘Nyungah Perth’, I tease out some of the more general theoretical issues which pertain to a politics of place and space within this (post)colonial Australian context. The nexus of memory, place and cultural identity is central to my analysis. I give particular attention to the ways in which cultural memories are inscribed in some very specific and very ordinary places, and how these places become site‐markers of the remembering process and of identity itself.     

The spirit of place of Bhaktapur,Nepal

There is no clear approach to defining the authenticity of the ‘spirit and feeling’ of a place or how it could inform heritage conservation. I argue that the notion of spirit of place may be defined in a manner that directly links it with the concept of cultural significance of historic places, how it is understood by a community and with heritage conservation goals and development needs of that place. Residents in the World Heritage Town of Bhaktapur, Nepal, were interviewed to explore their shared understanding of its spirit of place. The residents identify the spirit of place of Bhaktapur in terms of four interrelated place dimensions; that is, the ‘sense of sacrality’, the ‘sense of community’, the ‘sense of historicity’ and the ‘sense of serenity’.     

Fragmentation and forgetting: Sarajevo’s Vijećnica

In this article I argue that the crisis of common collective heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina is negatively affecting continued peace building processes in the country through an examination of the reconstruction of Sarajevo’s Austro-Hungarian city hall – the Vije?nica. Without a state-level ministry of culture, heritage that attests to a common cultural past uniting the three major ethno-religious groups in the country has suffered immeasurably, especially in comparison to ethnically specific cultural heritage. After the Second World War, the Vije?nica began to embody shared collective memories through its function as the National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Nacionalna i Univerzitetska Biblioteka Bosne i Hercegovine). The building’s destruction during the Siege of Sarajevo cemented its place within the Bosnian psyche as a collective memory institution, but its reconstruction is transforming the discourses surrounding the building and the collective memories it embodies. By investigating the reconstruction process and the post-war separation of the National and University Library from the Vije?nica, I show that common collective heritage matters for peace building, and that in Sarajevo, the decay and neglect of such institutions not only mirror the splintering dynamics of ethno-religious nationalism, but also perpetuate them.     

World Heritage listing and changes of political values: a case study in West Lake Cultural Landscape in Hongzhou,China

World Heritage themes and frameworks, as well as the criteria for assessing the ‘outstanding universal values’ (OUV) of World Heritage sites, have been extensively criticised for being Eurocentric. Asia is a region of extraordinary levels of cultural, religious and ethnic diversity, which often comes into conflict with UNESCO understandings of heritage. Due to the influence of UNESCO, and the persuasiveness of the heritage discourses it authorises, Asian nations tend to utilise assessments and management ideologies that derive from a European viewpoint. This paper explores the changes in the political role of heritage during the process of World Heritage listing of a Chinese cultural heritage site, West Lake Cultural Landscape of Hangzhou. The study is based on three and a half months of fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou. Firstly, I examine how the government officials and experts formulated the nomination dossier, and explore their purposes in seeking World Heritage listing and their understanding of heritage. In addition, tensions between governments’ understanding of the values of the site and those of UNESCO and ICOMOS will be mapped. Secondly, I examine how the Chinese government used the World Heritage ‘brand’ and policies to construct national and local narratives during and after the World Heritage listing. In this paper, I argue that both national and local governments are quite cynical about the listing process, in that they not only recognise they are playing a game, but that the game is ‘played’ under Eurocentric rules and terms. They know some Chinese values do not fit into UNESCO’s conception of ‘outstanding universal value’ (OUV), and they have ‘edited out’ those Chinese values, which could not be explained to Western experts, and utilised the discourses of international policy and expertise. Ultimately, these values and ‘rules’ frame the management of the sites to some extent, as the Chinese government must not, in order to maintain the WH listing, deviate too much from the rules of the game.     

Book Reviews

Heritage is important for the social and cultural health of communities, whilst local stewardship of cultural heritage has the capacity to empower and recover cultural identity. This paper describes a recent project in Lakhnu – a small rural village in Uttar Pradesh, India – to restore a nineteenth century villa formerly used as the village school as an educational facility. In this discussion, we draw attention to the right of groups to manage their culture. The loss of cultural heritage is linked to a loss of identity. We argue that heritage projects have the capacity to empower communities to sustain their heritage and identity and provide useful places for social and material advancement through the concept of a shared ‘symbolic estate’. At Lakhnu, we plan to evoke grass-root conservation where local communities become the rightful stakeholders and decision-makers who are encouraged and facilitated in the realisation of their right to cultural heritage and to stimulate growth and build capacity for the community.