Research Colloquium (10/21): Commemorating the Suffering of the Voiceless: Contested Memories, Hate Caravans, and Forever Foreigners

Commemorating the Suffering of the Voiceless: Contested Memories, Hate Caravans,and Forever Foreigners

YOUNGMI LIM

Associate Professor of Sociology at Musashi University

October 21, 2019, 12:40 - 13:50 (Monday)

Alumni House Lounge, ICU

ABSTRACT:
Deteriorating Japan-South Korea relations, particularly since the 2018 South Korean Supreme
Court ruling on the redress of war-time conscripted laborers stirs controversies. Caught in the
middle are Zainichi Koreans, migrants to Japan, who settled in Japan during Korea's
colonization, and their descendants. In this presentation, Professor Lim traces conflicts over war-
time conscripted labor migration in the Japanese print-market. Against this backdrop, Prof. Lim
introduces a case study of the doomed fate of a local museum's permanent exhibit on conscripted labor and the museum's de-facto dissolution as an NPO, following its 2011 encounter with hate demonstrators. This small museum's dysfunction suggests that the commemoration of the voiceless faces immense challenges without state endorsement and local subsidiaries. As revisionist historical claims have gone mainstream, efforts in commemorating and reclaiming the voices of the deceased are increasingly marginalized.

About the speaker: Youngmi Lim (Ph.D. in Sociology, City University of New York-Graduate Center) is an associate professor of Sociology at Musashi University. The recent publications include: "Korean Fan Dance for Fun: Performing Alterity in Contemporary Japan," Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 80 (2): 192-222; "Responding to Hate in Contemporary Japan: Fragmenting Factors Obstructing Effective Ethnic Advocacy," Social Science Japan
Journal 21(2): 213-233.