{"id":5402,"date":"2019-03-14T23:39:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-14T14:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www-archive.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp\/ipcr\/?p=5402"},"modified":"2019-03-20T14:50:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-20T05:50:06","slug":"fy2015iv-5matsuno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www-archive.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp\/ipcr\/en\/fy2015iv-5matsuno\/","title":{"rendered":"IV-5. “Memories and Discourse in Search of Justice: An Analysis of the Conflict over Acts of the Japanese Military during WW II in Asia” (H26-27 FY2014-2015)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In the research team\u2019s previous project \u201cWar memories in Southeast Asia and the rebuilding of relations over post-war reconciliation\u201d (FY2012-2013), we conducted interviews with survivors and witnesses of the \u201ccomfort women\u201d system during the Second World War, about the past and their current situation in Sulawesi, Indonesia, and gathered related Japanese materials. Based on these materials, the current research makes an attempt to describe the idea of \u201cjustice\u201d that these survivors and their communities came to establish and to clarify how and why that concept of \u201cjustice\u201d and the often-heard Japanese discourse, especially the discourse and logic that deny \u201cthe issue of confort women\u201d, don\u2019t cohere with each other.<\/p>\n
The research analyzes the idea of \u201cjustice\u201d embraced by the victims and communities that experienced the Japanese military\u2019s war-time atrocities in a historical and social context in order to grasp what should be understood of the demands of these people in a holistic fashion. The reason to justify this approach comes from our conclusion in the previous research that the \u201cdamage\u201d they suffered should be more properly understood as a holistic concept that covers a wide range of experience from violence to the impact at a later stage in their lives. The survivors demand justice not just for what happened during the war, and they want to say that not just to Japanese soldiers. The research also poses a question of whether or not the diametrically opposed discourses, one that demands justice and the other that denies the issue, is essentially impossible.<\/p>\n
The significance of the research will (1) establishing facts about cases in Sulawesi, Indonesia, which have not been surveyed so far, and (2) describing the general picture of \u201cconsciousness\u201d about damage based on interviews. The research will also make a constructivist analysis to the epistemological world of the discourse of denial as one that does not see this wholeness.<\/p>\n
Expected results of the research are as follows. It will contribute to the on-going debate by adding a new case from Sulawesi, Indonesia, in which the Japanese military, a Japanese company and the local community were intertwined. It will also bring a new argument to the on-going debate by clarifying the fact that unless the conflict of perception is not reconciled at a level different from the level of acknowledgement of facts it will be difficult to overcome the gap of conflicting discourses.<\/p>\n