The Cultural Aspects of Disaster in Japan: Silent Tributes to the Dead and Memorial Rocks

Abstract

This paper investigates several researches on “collective memory,” and examines the contribution of these approaches toward the sociological and historical inquiry. The theory of collective memory could be said a new trend in the sociology of knowledge, which seeks to theorize the social construction and social position of knowledge related to the past, as well as the collective dynamics surrounding memory. Collective memory is also seen as an inter-subjective memory as an intermediate variable, this paper suggests that the theory of collective memory can be studied through an analysis of symbolic content itself and its dynamics with wider society. Facilities that commemorate the victims of disaster and the disasters themselves provide a material framework for collective memory. This “place of memory” is a place of mnemonic practice where various groups construct their memories. This paper has focused on ‘silent’ tributes to the victims of disasters in Japan and has mainly two aims. First, introduce recent Japanese situation in cope with disaster after Tōhoku earth Quake 2011. Second, to try to have theoretical re-examination on the sociological theories of collective memory especially focused on its epistemological aspects ‘extended mind’ or ‘mediated mind’ theories.