Mnemonic reciprocity: Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory

IF 1.4 2区 心理学 Q1 CULTURAL STUDIES
Sulamith Graefenstein, Rosanne Kennedy
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Abstract

This article introduces the concept of mnemonic reciprocity to examine the dynamics of exchanges between local memory activists and other community members after a Comfort Women statue was installed in 2016 on the grounds of Sydney’s Ashfield Uniting Church. Contributing to the scholarship on grassroots memory activism and on the global travels of the Comfort Women statue, we take a feminist, decolonial approach that identifies points of connectivity between the disparate communities that have come together in the semi-public location of the church for selected commemorative events. Based on an analysis of the ways in which mnemonic reciprocity is fostered through exchanges between Korean-Australians and Indigenous Australians, we suggest that the statue’s commemorative functions, when activated on the level of the local, are doubly decolonial. The Comfort Women statue activates the memory of Japan’s imperialism in South Korea and beyond in the semi-public locality of suburban Sydney. In addition, when articulated critically, the Peace Statue can help to decolonise memory in Australia, contributing to intimate, small-scale acts of a reconciliatory and reparative nature. This case, we argue, demonstrates first that it is crucial to identify the particularities governing the place in which a carrier of memory, such as a statue, is re-territorialised. Second, by showing that localised acts of mnemonic reciprocity can strengthen community relations, it offers an alternative to the nationalist memory wars between South Korea and Japan that have been repeated in many diasporic communities where statues have been erected.
记忆互惠:激活悉尼慰安妇雕像,促进非殖民化记忆
本文引入了记忆互惠的概念,以研究 2016 年在悉尼阿什菲尔德联合教堂(Ashfield Uniting Church)的场地上安装慰安妇雕像后,当地记忆活动家与其他社区成员之间的交流动态。作为对基层记忆行动主义和慰安妇雕像全球旅行学术研究的贡献,我们采用了一种女权主义的非殖民主义方法,确定了不同社区之间的连接点,这些社区聚集在教堂的半公共场所,参加选定的纪念活动。通过分析韩裔澳大利亚人和澳大利亚土著人之间的交流促进记忆互惠的方式,我们认为,当雕像的纪念功能在地方层面被激活时,它具有双重的去殖民主义性质。慰安妇雕像激活了悉尼郊区半公共场所对日本帝国主义在韩国及其他地区的记忆。此外,如果以批判的方式加以阐述,和平雕像还有助于澳大利亚的非殖民化记忆,促进具有和解与补偿性质的小规模亲密行为。我们认为,这个案例首先表明,识别记忆载体(如雕像)重新领土化的地方的特殊性至关重要。其次,通过展示本地化的记忆互惠行为可以加强社区关系,它为南韩和日本之间的民族主义记忆战争提供了一种替代方案,这种记忆战争在许多竖立了雕像的散居地社区一再上演。
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来源期刊
Memory Studies
Memory Studies Multiple-
CiteScore
2.30
自引率
18.20%
发文量
75
期刊介绍: Memory Studies is an international peer reviewed journal. Memory Studies affords recognition, form, and direction to work in this nascent field, and provides a critical forum for dialogue and debate on the theoretical, empirical, and methodological issues central to a collaborative understanding of memory today. Memory Studies examines the social, cultural, cognitive, political and technological shifts affecting how, what and why individuals, groups and societies remember, and forget. The journal responds to and seeks to shape public and academic discourse on the nature, manipulation, and contestation of memory in the contemporary era.
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