Catastrophe, commemoration and education: On the concept of memory pedagogy

Abstract

Dealing with memories of catastrophes is undoubtedly important for education. Yet, how is such an education possible? On which theoretical basis can we describe it? In this article, I build a bridge between ‘Memory Studies’ and educational studies with regard to the topic of ‘catastrophe’ and thus present a provisional general theory of education, such as ‘Memory Pedagogy’ in analogy to ‘Memory Studies’. After describing the category ‘catastrophe’, I outline the basic differentiation between ‘communicative memory’ and ‘cultural memory’ in the field of Memory Studies. I will demonstrate how this basic differentiation can be connected to education through the concept of ‘Bildung’ in German philosophy. On the basis of these preliminary remarks, I highlight the potential of Memory Pedagogy by interpreting a case of catastrophe education, the project ‘Picture of Atomic Bomb’ (PAB). Based on the analysis of the PAB project, I insist that functions as a generator of communicative memory concerning catastrophes through education. Additionally, I point out that the transition from communicative memory (kommunikatives Gedächtnis) to cultural memory (kulturelles Gedächtnis) in the meaning of Jan and Aleida Asmann can also be observed in the PAB project.

Keywords:

• Catastrophe
• memory pedagogy
• memory studies
• cultural memory
• communicative memory
• translation

Acknowledgements

This paper dates back to a lecture at the winter seminar of ALPE (Asian Link of Philosophy of Education), which was organized by Prof. Ruyu Hung at the National Chiayi University in Taiwan on 25–27 January 2019. It draws on elements from my essays that were published in Japanese (Yamana, 2017a, 2019a, 2019b) and in German (Yamana, 2019c). I am honored that the editorial board of the “EPAT” encouraged me to submit the manuscript, so that my concept of Memory Pedagogy is even more widely known in English-speaking areas. I thank Mr. Jarula M.I. Wegner and Mrs. Kimberly Kovacs for supporting the English translation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The idea that led to the creation of the concept of Memory Pedagogy derived from a research group (2013–2016, cf. Yamana & Yano, 2017) that I organized on the topic of transmitting the memories of ‘Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake’. The earthquake occurred on 17 January 1995. It reached a magnitude of 7.3. During this time, great damages occurred near the epicenter of the earthquake, which was about 20 km southwest of the city center of Kobe. 6,434 people died, 3 went missing, and 43,792 were injured. We initially sought to analyze the ways in which the memories of the natural catastrophe were passed on afterwards. However, as our discussions progressed, the interest of our research group shifted to a more fundamental issue of the relationship between catastrophe memories and education. At that time, I noticed the absence of a basic theory to discuss catastrophe education. Memory Pedagogy is a first approach to fill this theoretical gap.

2 The cooperative research project on catastrophe education (Yamana & Yano, 2017) made me aware of the similarities between war museums and natural catastrophemuseums. In this research project, Mayumi Sakamoto analyzed the ‘Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution’ in Kobe, the largest natural catastrophe museum in Japan (Sakamoto, 2017). Some of the features of the Natural Disaster Museum presented by Sakamoto seemed to overlap with the features of the ‘Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum’ that I also investigated (Yamana, 2017a). So far, there has not been a full-scale comparative study of these two types of museums.

3 For example, ‘Gedenkstättenpädagogik’ is mainly about dealing with the memory of past Nazism. Cf. Eberle (2008).

4 Astrid Erll is one of the leading researcher of Memory Studies and established the ‘Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform’ at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main as an international center for Memory Studies in Germany.

5 Erll outlines a possible combination of the both fields of ‘cultural memory’ with a scheme for ‘systems and models of cultural memory’ (Erll, 2011, p. 108).

6 The meetings of Witness A and Student B took place in the living room of Witness A’s house on 25 July 2017, 16 August, 27 October, 6 November, 25 November, 15 December, 26 January 2018, 23 April, 14 May, 11 June and 29 June. No video camera was used to record the meetings in order to minimize influencing the meetings by the act of observation. At the time of observation, I wrote a transcript. Complementary, I recorded their conversation with an IC recorder with the permission of Witness A and Student B, and transcribed the recording. Besides observing the meetings, I conducted semi-structured interviews with both, Witness A and Student B. At the start of the interviews, my main interests were: (1) motivation and biographical background for participating in the PAB project, (2) feelings and inner experiences during the meetings, (3) possible experienced changes resulting from their communicative activities, and (4) occurrence of fear and anxiety while remembering and hearing the catastrophic stations in Hiroshima and how it was overcome. This research focuses mainly on the meetings of Witness A and Student B. Therefore, the number of cases is highly limited, and I do not claim that its results necessarily apply to all other cases of the PAB project. To counter the weakness of this research project, I conducted additional interviews with other students and witnesses at the ‘Exhibition of Picture of Atomic Bomb’ at Motomachi High School on 4 July 2017, and at the ‘Exhibition of Picture of Atomic Bomb in Hiroshima’ at the JMS Aster Plaza on August 12 and 13 of the same year. I conducted a similar interview at the ‘Exhibition of Picture of Atomic Bomb’ held at the Hiroshima International Convention Center on 6 and 7 August 2018. However, these additional interviews offer insufficient data and therefore further investigation appears necessary.

7 There are certainly also other theoretical approaches to describe the ‘asymmetrical symmetry’ in the cross communication of the PAB project. Yet, since Luhmann’s system theory focuses on communication and the negotiation of paradoxes in particular, this theory appears highly appropriate in this case.

8 In the interviews I conducted, most of the high school students said that they were intolerably shocked by the testimonies of the unimaginable experiences of the A-bomb survivors. Yasutsugu Ogura has been investigating the PAB project since its beginning and also comes to the same conclusion (Ogura, 2013, p. 234ff.).

9 As we are just experiencing in the spring of 2020, the spread of COVID-19 through increased mobility due to globalization is stoking racial discrimination, which in extreme cases could develop into persecution. Furthermore, should a natural catastrophe occur during the pandemic, health officials would face an additional dilemma: displaced people would have to live in shelters because of the natural catastrophe, while living in close quarters with others is prohibited to avoid spreading the virus.

Additional information

Funding

This research project was supported by the JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science) KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP15K04226, JP16K04710 and JP19K02498.

Notes on contributors

Jun Yamana

Jun Yamana is a Professor at the University of Tokyo. He has taught a number of courses on Philosophy of Education. His recent special area of interest and research is in the “Memory Pedagogy”, which analyzes educational theories and practices from the perspective of cultural memory (collective memory) and commemoration developed in the field of Memory Studies. He has collaborated with German educational researchers on various philosophical and historical research projects since he studied at the Humboldt University in Berlin in the 1990s. He published a number of publications in Japanese and also in German.