Newsletters and Essays

This study trip was extremely productive in introducing me to the concept and issues related to reconciliation studies in diverse geographical locations. It helped me build networks, visit sites, and forge friendships with scholars from diverse backgrounds, including history, anthropology, law, practicing priests, and activists working in the conflict zones.

My broad research topic for this project is to explore the role of small private museums in Japan in addressing issues of historical reconciliation. My interest in museums emerged during my one-year stay in the UK while researching my doctoral dissertation topic. Living in the UK and visiting prominent museums like the Victoria and Albert Museum in London made me aware of the huge socio-political role museums continue to play today. This project allowed me to study private museums in Japan and I started by focusing on the role of a small private museum in Tokyo called the Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace (WAM).

WAM is located in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 2005 and one individual responsible for founding this museum was Yayori Matsui (1934-2002). She worked for a prominent newspaper, called Asahi Shimbun. Ms. Matsui was a women’s rights activist who upon her death donated her assets for establishing WAM. The significance of WAM lies in as far as I know being the only museum in Japan focusing on the issue of Japan’s military sexual slavery during WWII.

My first paper presentation on WAM was at a conference Travels Beyond The Holocaust: Memorialization, Musealization, and Representation of Atrocities in Global Dialogue at The Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria from June 25 to 28, 2024. This Annual Conference was organized as part of a five-year project and has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC). This project examines more than fifty memorial museums dedicated to WWII and recent genocides in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. Fortunately, my paper was selected and I could be part of this intellectually stimulating conference. By good luck, the keynote speaker and chair of my panel was Prof. Carol Gluck who is a well-known scholar of modern Japan at Columbia University (USA). Her keynote speech was entitled “Memory on the Move: The “Comfort Women” and their Afterlives.” My paper for this conference focused on the influence of Holocaust museums on WAM and the crucial role this museum is playing in creating civic engagement among the locals. It was titled, “Museums as Sites of Civic Engagement: The Case of Women’s Active Museum on War and Peace, Japan.” Prof. Gluck freely shared her knowledge about this subject and provided insightful comments. I learned immensely by listening to scholars who presented similar cases across varied geographical locations such as the United States, Columbia, Belgium, Spain, New Zealand, and Taiwan. Though I could not stay till the end of this conference as I had to meet my colleagues in Germany, I could continue developing my ideas in Germany and Italy.

On June 27^th, I traveled to Germany from Austria by train. The long train journey gave me a glimpse of the local scenery of both countries. In the evening, I arrived at Jena, a quiet and beautiful German city, where I was introduced to the other project members and the kind faculty of Jena University—Prof. Martin Leiner and Laura Villanueva. In Germany, we visited the Leipzig Nazi Forced Labour Memorial and the Buchenwald Memorial. The first memorial museum is based on the history of forced labor of over twenty million people from Europe under national socialism by Germany. The latter was built in 1937 outside of Weimar as a concentration camp. According to the data provided by this memorial, it housed prisoners from more than fifty countries and this place witnessed German crimes where mass murders and human experiments were conducted. Reading the historical documents, seeing the displayed photographs, listening to old recordings, and experiencing the concentration camp had a deep impact on me. The day we visited the Buchenwald Memorial, it was hot but despite that, Prof. Leiner patiently and kindly took us around this concentration camp and showed us how it functioned. Visiting these sites reaffirmed my idea that when such institutions are opened to the public it can initiate a positive change.

Our last and longest stop was in Italy to attend the 5^th Annual IARS conference at Assisi from July 1^st to 4^th, 2024. The conference theme was “Reconciliation and (Social) Justice.” Here also I presented on WAM but highlighted on the initiatives taken by the museum to promote justice. The title of my conference paper was, “Curating for Social Justice: Discussing Small Private Museums in Japan.” Some of the questions that I received from my visit to three countries include: What has been the role of men in WAM, how does the museum manage lack of funding, how does it give voice to the victims of sexual slavery by the Japanese military and how is WAM different from other such museums in Asia. Such conversations continued during the meal and coffee breaks. For instance, a scholar based in Berlin discussed how a statue in Berlin that was erected to commemorate “comfort women” has taken on a very different meaning for the local German women. Scholars from Poland and Columbia shared their insights about museums in their countries in addressing conflict and reconciliation. At this conference, I learned about issues related to reconciliation from various regions such as Ethiopia, Cyprus, Greece, Germany, and Myanmar. These conversations and exposure widened my perspective on my topic.

Additionally, learning about the research motivation and experiences of my colleagues and new friends who have already spent a few years studying reconciliation, while enjoying Italian pizza, gelato, or the late-night walk in Rome, has introduced me to the limitations and challenges of reconciliation in a conflict situation. I hope we will continue to discuss our research progress with each other in the years to come.

The scale of scholarly collaborations, and friendships across geographical distances would not have been possible without the inception of this project on international reconciliation studies by Prof. Toyomi Asano. I am extremely grateful to Prof. Asano and Prof. Naoyuki Umemori for making me a part of this project. I will always cherish memories from this trip!