Competing Logics of Commemoration

Abstract

Recent studies in collective memory point to the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration that takes humanity, rather than nationality, as a primary frame of reference. But these studies have yet to specify how cosmopolitan commemoration emerges and articulates with existing nationalist commemoration. To solve this problem, we examine the “history problem” between Japan and South Korea by focusing on how relevant political and civic actors negotiated cosmopolitanism and nationalism in commemorating Japan’s past colonial rule and wartime atrocities. In light of our historical analysis, we argue that a synthesis of theories of institutional logics and social movements is useful in illuminating how the emergence of cosmopolitan commemoration is embedded in specific networks of political and civic actors as mobilizing structures, and how the content and trajectory of its articulation with nationalist commemoration depends on political opportunities available to competing networks aligned differently with the two logics of commemoration.