Research Projects
Field of Reconciliation
Research of the Japanese Colonial Period by Constructing the System of Transnational Archives
Project Leader
College of Letters
Professor Yuko Yamazaki
Constructing a new framework for historical research, which will promote reconciliation and mutual understanding between Asia and Japan
Asia and Japan are often described as "near and yet far." The differences in each country’s perception of history have cast a long shadow over their relations. In many cases, even in academic circles, the circumstances concerning each other’s countries have come to be narrated with emotional or political context, unrelated to the existence, or lack thereof, of proven historical sources. This project was started to unravel such deep emotional entanglements lying between Japan and Asia.
Headed by project leader Yuko Yamazaki, the project members have carried out joint research over several decades to the present day, and constructed a cooperative network. The objectives of this project are to expand the cooperative circle of the network it is based upon in China, Indonesia, and other Asian countries, to share information on historical sources between the next generation of researchers, and to construct a new framework for historical research that can rationally and empirically clarify historical fact with a common research base. Through this project, the aim is to drive reconciliation and mutual understanding between Japan and Asia, towards a future where we can join hands "beyond love and hate."
This project will create a "Modern East Asian History Research Digital Archive (tentative title)," with historical sources relating to Japanese colonial rule, and make this public on a website. More specifically, a catalog is to be created that lists the usage and overview of historical sources, as well as their names and the places they are kept, focusing on surviving historical sources concerning the Korean peninsula, Taiwan, and mainland China during the period of the Japanese colonization of Asia (1895-1945). The unique feature of this archive will not simply be information about the ownership of the sources, but summaries and points of note concerning their use from the perspective of researchers who have actually visited the places where these sources are kept, and used them.
In addition, this project will implement joint international research through the members who share information concerning historical sources. Research meetings and workshops, where sources that participants have come across will be discussed, will take place; the information from these workshops will also be published on the website. Currently, the aim is to make the website public during 2017, while further enhancing the contents; in the future, the plan is to move forward with multiple languages, such as Chinese and Korean, as well as Japanese.
