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From “Convict” to “Victim”: Commemorating Laborers on Hokkaido's Central Road

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Jesús Solís
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In 2015, the Japanese government applied to have UNESCO grant World Heritage status to “Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Kyushu-Yamaguchi and Related Areas.” The serial nomination was comprised of eleven key industrial sites related to iron and steel production, shipbuilding, and coal mining, all instrumental to Japan's “rapid industrialization” during the Meiji period. The “Executive Summary” of the nomination file argued that those sites were deserving of World Heritage status because of their contribution to “Japan's unique achievement in world history as the first non-Western country to successfully industrialize.” The nomination document also attempted to link Japan's modern industrial success to its current status as an economic superpower. The report begins with a letter by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, which claims that the Meiji era “reflect[s] that period of transformation, fundamental to the essence of Japan today and her position in global society.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 17 , Issue 6: Special Issue: Dark Tourism and the History of Imperial and Contemporary Japan , March 2019 , e4
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2019

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