Unending past? Memory, relational identity and the ‘history problem’ in Japan-South Korea relations

Deacon, Chris (2024) Unending past? Memory, relational identity and the ‘history problem’ in Japan-South Korea relations. PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Abstract

Critiquing existing rationalist and conventional constructivist accounts, this thesis offers a novel theorisation of the 'history problem' in Japan-South Korea relations – that is, persistent conflict and antagonism between these countries in relation to the history of Japan's colonial rule of Korea (1910-45) and broader wartime conduct. In particular, it addresses the questions of how the history problem is (re)produced, why it has endured, and how it may be transformed. To do this, the thesis draws on poststructuralist IR theory concerning identity, memory and foreign policy to develop the concept of mnemonic encounters – sites of relational national identity construction through practices of remembering and forgetting shared history – and conducts a discourse analysis of over 1,500 texts across politics, media and culture from both countries in the original Japanese and Korean. is discourse analysis focuses on three prominent elements of the history problem – the forced labour issue, the comfort women issue, and the Dokdo/Takeshima territorial dispute – and identifies both mainstream and alternative mnemonic practices and identity discourses concerning these matters in each of Japan and South Korea. In doing so, the thesis demonstrates how the history problem has been discursively reproduced through these representational practices and, in turn, argues that the history problem has endured because its persistent reproduction has been caught up in the reproduction of important elements of the very national communities of Japan and South Korea. Finally, the thesis also theorises how alternative mnemonic practices and identity discourses may constitute the source of an eventual transformation of the status quo of the history problem. These findings have important implications not only for understanding Japan-South Korea relations, but also for broader questions concerning the role of the past, and its relationship with national identity, in contemporary international politics.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Additional Information:	© 2024 Chris Deacon
Library of Congress subject classification:	D History General and Old World > DS Asia J Political Science > JZ International relations
Sets:	Departments > International Relations
Supervisor:	Callahan, William A.
URI:	http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/4811

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