Frontiers of Memories in Contemporary Asia

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The participants would like to take this opportunity to discuss how do we proceed with our writing project of editing the book Frontiers of Memories in Contemporary Asian Cities with Hong Kong University Press. The project is arising from our shared interest in the cross-border dimensions of difficult heritage in East Asia – a theme that has inspired much fascinating debate with colleagues at recent international conferences in Hangzhou, Bangkok and Fukuoka (Japan) from 2018-2019.

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Drawing on recent work in the fields of Critical Heritage Studies, History Interdisciplinary Area Studies, this volume analyses how there packaging of ‘difficult pasts’ as heritage can serve either to reinforce borders, or transcend them, or even achieve both simultaneously, depending on the political agendas that inform the heritage-making process. For this purpose, we here compile a selection of recent scholarship examining both the making and consumption of difficult heritage in contemporary Asia – a region where the connections between memory of past conflict and contemporary political tensions are complex and fraught. We are aiming at finalizing the manuscript for review by the end of summer and having it published by early 2022.