Individual and Collective Memory of WWII in the Pacific: How Can Archaeology Contribute?

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Memory, Archaeology, And The Social Experience Of Conflict and Battlefields" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In June and July of 1944, the US and Japan waged war on the island of Saipan. This battle not only included those combatants, but also the largest civilian population yet encountered. Most historical accounts are written from the perspective of the US or Japanese and largely ignore those voices of the non-combatant civilians. Alternatively, the act of a public, inclusive, and accessible archaeology can expose, literally through excavation, the voices and experiences of a multitude of participants from the most obvious of the combatants, to the most silenced of the non-combatants. Additionally, because it is public, inclusive, and accessible it places that past squarely within the public eye allowing them to consider both the individual and sometimes contested collective memories of war. This paper will explore an archaeological program that attempts a public, inclusive, and accessible approach to understanding the battle and the resulting memories uncovered.     

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Historical Memory, Archaeology, And The Social Experience Of Conflict and Battlefields

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 147