TY - JOUR
T1 - Mnemonic reciprocity
T2 - Activating Sydney’s Comfort Women statue for decolonial memory
AU - Graefenstein, Sulamith
AU - Kennedy, Rosanne
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/6
Y1 - 2024/6
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Comfort Women
KW - connectivity
KW - decolonial memory
KW - memory activism
KW - memory frictions
KW - mnemonic reciprocity
KW - semi-public memory
KW - statue politics
KW - transnational memory
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85196041558&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/17506980241243039
DO - 10.1177/17506980241243039
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85196041558
SN - 1750-6980
VL - 17
SP - 480
EP - 499
JO - Memory Studies
JF - Memory Studies
IS - 3
ER -