Remembering Hiroshima

Abstract

This article seeks to explore the bio-politics of memory, focusing on intersections of gender, memory, peace/war and activism.1 The article rests on the belief that states use bio-politics to construct, manipulate and maintain national identity and collective memory and addresses, in particular, three myths that still influence the field of international relations: the myth of gender neutrality; the notion that verbal representations should be privileged over physical and/or sensual expressions; and the myth of objectivity and the need to distance the study of IR theory from the practice of social activism. The article begins with a discussion of bio-politics and collective memory in general and then focuses on ways of remembering the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It concludes with some examples of narratives by survivors which employ sensual memory that challenge the way we think about expressions and representations of war. These examples were gathered by the Popoki Peace Project, a grass roots peace organization. The article suggests that theories of bodily and sensual expressions of memory can be useful in peace activism and can provide different understandings of war experiences. It suggests that making visible some of the differences obscured in the formation of the collective memory of national trauma can be a way to begin to acknowledge the precarity of life and to prepare the way for forgiveness.