@article{ART002871815},
author={Youngjin Lee},
title={The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site},
journal={Asia Review},
issn={2234-0386},
year={2022},
volume={12},
number={2},
pages={269-300}
TY - JOUR
AU - Youngjin Lee
TI - The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site
JO - Asia Review
PY - 2022
VL - 12
IS - 2
PB - 아시아연구소
SP - 269
EP - 300
SN - 2234-0386
AB - This article examines how the local community responds to the effects of ‘heritagization’, looking at the hidden memories of the Miike Coal Mine, an asset of the ’Site of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’, which was registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015, from a regional historical perspective. Being Japan’s largest coal mine with a history of 124 years, the Miike Coal Mine is recognized as a representative mnemonic site with symbolic value in any account of modern Japanese industrialization. However, the official narrative of ‘the birthplace of the industrial revolution in early modern Japan’ has many limitations in capturing various emotional memories within the community about the Miike Coal Mine. For example, the official narrative minimizes the Mitsui Miike Strike (1959-1960) , known as Japan’s most severe postwar labor dispute and the coal dust explosion (1963) , which still remain in the collective memory of the Miike community and thus, are remembered in widely varying memory practices due to opposing views and emotional confrontations among community members surrounding these events. In addition, the official rhetoric touted in the World Heritage, which emphasizes the rapid industrialization of early modern Japan, closes eyes to dark memories such as the abuse of Korean and Chinese forced laborers at Miike Coal Mine during the Asia-Pacific war and sufferings of prisoner laborers deployed in the early days of coal mines. In this regard, the attempt to explore the dark history of the Miike Coal Mine concealed under its ‘mythical memory’ as the birthplace of the Meiji Japan’s Industrial Revolution in this manuscript may be understood as a variation of Walter Benjamin’s aesthetic treatise aimed to construct the dialectical image as a true picture of the past .
KW - Site of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution;negative legacy;Miike Coal Mine;memory politics;heritagization;dialectical image
DO -
UR -
ER -
Youngjin Lee. (2022). The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site. Asia Review, 12(2), 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. 2022, "The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site", Asia Review, vol.12, no.2 pp.269-300.
Youngjin Lee "The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site" Asia Review 12.2 pp.269-300 (2022) : 269.
Youngjin Lee. The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site. 2022; 12(2), 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. "The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site" Asia Review 12, no.2 (2022) : 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site. Asia Review, 12(2), 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site. Asia Review. 2022; 12(2) 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site. 2022; 12(2), 269-300.
Youngjin Lee. "The History of Light and the Memory of Darkness: The ‘Negative Legacy’ of Miike Coal Mine, World Heritage Site" Asia Review 12, no.2 (2022) : 269-300.
