Places of Pain and Shame : Dealing with 'Difficult Heritage'

Places of Pain and Shameis a cross-cultural study of sites that represent painful and/or shameful episodes in a national or local community#xE2;#xAC;"s history, and the ways that government agencies, heritage professionals and the communities themselves seek to remember, commemorate and conserve these cases #xE2;#xAC;#x1C; or, conversely, choose to forget them. Such episodes and locations include: massacre and genocide sites, places related to prisoners of war, civil and political prisons, and places of #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;benevolent#xE2;#xAC;" internment such as leper colonies and lunatic asylums. These sites bring shame upon us now for the cruelty and futility of the events that occurred within them and the ideologies they represented. They are however increasingly being regarded as #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;heritage sites#xE2;#xAC;", a far cry from the view of heritage that prevailed a generation ago when we were almost entirely concerned with protecting the great and beautiful creations of the past, reflections of the creative genius of humanity rather than the reverse #xE2;#xAC;#x1C; the destructive and cruel side of history. Why has this shift occurred, and what implications does it have for professionals practicing in the heritage field? In what ways is this a #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;difficult#xE2;#xAC;" heritage to deal with? This volume brings together academics and practitioners to explore these questions, covering not only some of the practical matters, but also the theoretical and conceptual issues, and uses case studies of historic places, museums and memorials from around the globe, including the United States, Northern Ireland, Poland, South Africa, China, Japan, Taiwan, Cambodia, Indonesia, Timor and Australia.

1. Remembering places of pain and shame, William S. Logan and Keir Reeves 2. Let the dead be remembered: interpretation of the Nanjing Massacre memorial, Qian Fengqi 3. The Hiroshima "Peace Memorial": Transforming Legacy, memories and landscapes, Yushi Utaka 4. Auschwitz-Birkenau: The challenges of heritage management following the cold war, Katie Young 5. "Dig a hole and bury the past in it": Reconciliation and the heritage of genocide in Cambodia,Colin Long and Keir Reeves 6. The Myall Creek Memorial: History, Identity and reconciliation, Bronwyn Batten 7. Cowra Japanese War Cemetry,Ali Kobayashi and Bart Ziino 8. A cave in Taiwan: comfort women's memories and the local identity,Chou Ching-yuan 9. Postcolonial shame: heritage and the forgotten pain of civilian women inernees in Java, Joost Coté 10. Difficult memories: the independence struggle as cultural heritage in East Timor,Michael Leach 11. Port Arthur, Norfolk Island, New Caledonia: convict prison islands in the antipodes, Jane Lennon 12. Hoa Lo Museum, Hanoi: changing attutudes to a Vietnamese place of pain and shame,William S. Logan 13. Places of Pain as tools for social justice in the "new" South Africa: black heritage preservation in the "rainbow" nation's townships, Angel David Nieves 14. Negotiating places of pain in post-conflict Northern Ireland: Debating the future of the maze/prison/Long Kesh, Sara McDowell 15.Beauty Springing from the breast of pain,Spencer Leineweber 16. "No less than a palace: Kew asylum, its planned surrounds, and its present-day residents, Keir Reeves and David Nichols 17. Between the hostel and the detention centre:possible trajectories of migrant pain and shame in Australia, Sara Wills