Difficult Heritage In Nation Building

This book explores South Korean responses to the architecture of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea and the ways that architecture illustrates the relationship between difficult heritage and the formation of national identity. Detailing the specific case of Seoul, Hyun Kyung Lee investigates how buildings are selectively destroyed, preserved, or reconstructed in order to either establish or challenge the cultural identity of places as new political orders are developed. In addition, she illuminates the Korean traditional concept of feng shui as a core indigenous framework for understanding the relationship between space and power, as it is associated with nation-building processes and heritagization.

This book explores South Korean responses to the architecture of the Japanese colonial occupation of Korea and the ways that architecture illustrates the relationship between difficult heritage and the formation of national identity. Detailing the specific case of Seoul, Hyun Kyung Lee investigates how buildings are selectively destroyed, preserved, or reconstructed in order to either establish or challenge the cultural identity of places as new political orders are developed. In addition, she illuminates the Korean traditional concept of feng shui as a core indigenous framework for understanding the relationship between space and power, as it is associated with nation-building processes and heritagization. By providing a detailed study of a case little known outside of East Asia, ‘Difficult Heritage’ in Nation Building will expand the framework of Western-centered heritage research by introducing novel Asian perspectives.

How does a city and a nation deal with a legacy of perpetrating atrocity? How are contemporary identities negotiated and shaped in the face of concrete reminders of a past that most wish they did not have? Difficult Heritage focuses on the case of Nuremberg – a city whose name is indelibly linked with Nazism – to explore these questions and their implications. Using an original in-depth research, using archival, interview and ethnographic sources, it provides not only fascinating new material and perspectives, but also more general original theorizing of the relationship between heritage, identity and material culture. The book looks at how Nuremberg has dealt with its Nazi past post-1945. It focuses especially, but not exclusively, on the city’s architectural heritage, in particular, the former Nazi party rally grounds, on which the Nuremburg rallies were staged. The book draws on original sources, such as city council debates and interviews, to chart a lively picture of debate, action and inaction in relation to this site and significant others, in Nuremberg and elsewhere. In doing so, Difficult Heritage seeks to highlight changes over time in the ways in which the Nazi past has been dealt with in Germany, and the underlying cultural assumptions, motivations and sources of friction involved. Whilst referencing wider debates and giving examples of what was happening elsewhere in Germany and beyond, Difficult Heritage provides a rich in-depth account of this most fascinating of cases. It also engages in comparative reflection on developments underway elsewhere in order to contextualize what was happening in Nuremberg and to show similarities to and differences from the ways in which other ‘difficult heritages’ have been dealt with elsewhere. By doing so, the author offers an informed perspective on ways of dealing with difficult heritage, today and in the future, discussing innovative museological, educational and artistic practice.

This book studies how people negotiate difficult heritage within their everyday lives, focusing on memory, belonging, and identity. The starting point for the examination is that temporalities lie at the core of understanding this negotiation and that the connection between temporalities and difficult heritage remains poorly understood and theorized in previous research. In order to fully explore the temporalities of difficult heritage, the book investigates places in which the incident of violence originated within different time periods. It examines one example of modern violence (Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina), one example of where the associated incident occurred during medieval times (the Gazimestan monument in Kosovo), and one example of prehistoric violence (Sandby borg in Sweden). The book presents new theoretical perspectives andprovides suggestions for developing sites of difficult heritage, and will thus be relevant for academic researchers, students, and heritage professionals.

This handbook presents cutting-edge and global insights on sustainable heritage, engaging with ideas such as data science in heritage, climate change and environmental challenges, indigenous heritage, contested heritage and resilience. It does so across a diverse range of global heritage sites. Organized into six themed parts, the handbook offers cross-disciplinary perspectives on the latest theory, research and practice. Thirty-five chapters offer insights from leading scholars and practitioners in the field as well as early career researchers. This book fills a lacuna in the literature by offering scientific approaches to sustainable heritage, as well as multicultural perspectives by exploring sustainable heritage in a range of different geographical contexts and scales. The themes covered revolve around heritage values and heritage risk; participatory approaches to heritage; dissonant heritage; socio-environmental challenges to heritage; sustainable heritage-led transformation and new cross-disciplinary methods for heritage research. This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars in heritage studies, archaeology, museum studies, cultural studies, architecture, landscape, urban design, planning, geography and tourism.

Reimagines the fields of transitional justice and cultural heritage, showing how law shapes cultural identities in unanticipated yet powerful ways.

When Emperor Hirohito announced defeat in a radio broadcast on 15th August 1945, Japan was not merely a nation; it was a colossal empire stretching from the tip of Alaska to the fringes of Australia grown out of a colonial ideology that continued to pervade East Asian society for years after the end of the Second World War. In Overcoming Empire in Post-Imperial East Asia: Repatriation, Redress and Rebuilding, Barak Kushner and Sherzod Muminov bring together an international team of leading scholars to explore the post-imperial history of the region. From international aid to postwar cinema to chemical warfare, these essays all focus on the aftermath of Japan's aggressive warfare and the new international strategies which Japan, China, Taiwan, North and South Korea utilised following the end of the war and the collapse of Japan's empire. The result is a nuanced analysis of the transformation of postwar national identities, colonial politics, and the reordering of society in East Asia. With its innovative comparative and transnational perspective, this book is essential reading for scholars of modern East Asian history, the cold war, and the history of decolonisation.