TY - JOUR
T1 - Between War and Peace, Past and Future
T2 - Experiencing the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
AU - Brescó de Luna, Ignacio Bresco de
AU - Li, Yuanhang
AU - Wagoner, Brady
N1 - © 2022. The Author(s).
PY - 2023/9
Y1 - 2023/9
N2 - Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is widely known as a universal symbol of peace, but there have not been studies of how people actually experience and interpret it. This article presents a detailed case study of a visit to the memorial by using an innovative methodology based on the use of subjective cameras (subcams). Results show that despite the monolithic idea of peace that the memorial officially represents, it is experienced and interpreted in terms of a constant tension which exposes conflicts in post-war Japan memory politics. The dichotomies of war/peace, death/ life, past/future, and old /new emerge as part of the participant’s encounter with different situations during his visit. This is particularly clear where he perceives border zones and points of intersection. The article concludes by interpreting these dichotomies through the notion of themata, as elementary dichotomies that underlie a social debate around a specific topic. Specifically, two themata are proposed: one revolving around the temporal problematisation of the past and the future in the memory politics of the A-Bomb, and the other revolving around the spatial dichotomy between the old and the new underlying Hiroshima’s urban renewal.
AB - Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park is widely known as a universal symbol of peace, but there have not been studies of how people actually experience and interpret it. This article presents a detailed case study of a visit to the memorial by using an innovative methodology based on the use of subjective cameras (subcams). Results show that despite the monolithic idea of peace that the memorial officially represents, it is experienced and interpreted in terms of a constant tension which exposes conflicts in post-war Japan memory politics. The dichotomies of war/peace, death/ life, past/future, and old /new emerge as part of the participant’s encounter with different situations during his visit. This is particularly clear where he perceives border zones and points of intersection. The article concludes by interpreting these dichotomies through the notion of themata, as elementary dichotomies that underlie a social debate around a specific topic. Specifically, two themata are proposed: one revolving around the temporal problematisation of the past and the future in the memory politics of the A-Bomb, and the other revolving around the spatial dichotomy between the old and the new underlying Hiroshima’s urban renewal.
KW - A-Bomb
KW - Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park
KW - Memorials
KW - Memory politics
KW - Subjective camera
KW - Themata
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140108744&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12124-022-09723-2
DO - 10.1007/s12124-022-09723-2
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 36261774
SN - 1932-4502
VL - 57
SP - 1002
EP - 1023
JO - Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science
JF - Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science
IS - 3
ER -