Memoryscapes of War

In recent times, ‘memoryscapes’ of the war of 1937-1945 in Asia (by which we mean both the sites and the circuits – physical and virtual – through which war remembrance is produced and reproduced) have become increasingly popular. With the onset of a new regionalism characterised by increasing ‘flows’ of people, ideas and capital across Asian borders, the audience for war heritage and remembrance has, at the same time, become more diversified and complex. The memoryscapes presented here – museums, monuments, battlefields and other sites and practices – reveal the war’s continuing memorialization in a changing regional context. Their study is intended to uncover the new narratives, old myths, and sometimes multiple levels of meaning which these various sites now contain in their portrayal of the 1937 to 1945 conflict.