World heritage and the local politics of memory: the Miike coal mine and fu no isan

Abstract

This article investigates the complex relations between heritage and memory through an analysis of the UNESCO World Heritage ‘Sites of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution’ and its component Miike coal mine. When discussing this World Heritage Site, scholars and the media have focused on the diplomatic controversy over the history of forced labour between Japan and South Korea, interpreting it as a new example of a dispute over history in East Asia. However, this understanding oversimplifies the relations between heritage and memory. Based on fieldwork research and documentary analysis, this article investigates the diversity and complexity of the collective memory of Miike coal mine from a local perspective. The results show that there is a sharp dissonance between the World Heritage story and some of the ex-miners’ memories, which focus on the negative past, fu no isan. Documentary analysis shows that fu no isan has two different but closely related meanings: negative legacy and negative heritage. Fieldwork research reveals that the various commemorations of fu no isan in the local community, mainly based on ex-miners’ social networks, constitute a form of vernacular memory, independent from the official memory of the World Heritage. Finally, I conclude that heritage can be public memory, rather than just official memory, as long as it is open to plural memories of the past.