Historic Joy Kogawa House: Toward an Ethical Memoryscape

小川樂屋：談文學地景中的記憶正義

10.6161/jgs.2017.86.02

王芮思(Ruey-szu Wang)

Historic Joy Kogawa House ； Obasan ； memoryscape ； silence ； commemorative ethics ； 小川樂屋 ； 《歐巴桑》 ； 記憶地景 ； 沉默 ； 紀念倫理

地理學報

86期（2017 / 09 / 01）

3 - 23

英文

This paper examines the cultural controversies surrounding Historic Joy Kogawa House. Japanese Canadian author Joy Kogawa's semi-autobiographical novel Obasan (1981) discloses the injustice incurred by Japanese Canadians from the Canadian federal government during and after World War II and has exerted enormous impact on the political and literary scene in Canada. Against the triumphant backdrop of cultural activists' successful preservation of Joy Kogawa's childhood house in 2006, this paper probes into the significant absence of Japanese Canadian support for this memorial project, which has established a particular spatial narrative as well as masking its incoherence. While such memoryscape is deemed righteous by some and offensive by others, this paper argues that a simple ethical dichotomy would not sufficiently valorize the subjective complexities invested in this site of memory. Through drawing attention to the ethics of silence in the context of the Kogawa House memorial project, this paper emphasizes that ethical remembrance can only sustain in the ongoing negotiation amongst different attempts to remember ethically.

本文以日裔加拿大作家小川樂的童年居所作為主要研究對象，探討其在小川樂1981年出版小說《歐巴桑》中的文學再現，從而成為紀念加拿大聯邦政府在二戰時期迫害境內日裔公民的的象徵性地景；對比其在2006年成為加拿大溫哥華市定文化資產「小川樂屋」的過程中，因被高舉為日裔加拿大人的共同記憶所引發之種種文化爭議。文中梳理了文化工作者如何將小川樂屋塑造為虛實交錯的展覽空間，既試圖在現實生活中為小說《歐巴桑》寫下一個圓滿結局、又巧妙地對其中所牽涉的主體複雜性視而不見；更進一步剖析何以在文化工作者「正義終得伸張」的成功語境背後，多數日裔加拿大人竟意外地對於該記憶地景的設置無言以對，甚而嚴厲抨擊。文末批判了當前紀念倫理研究所定義之記憶正義的侷限性，時常以對錯二分法來理解記憶正義，甚而認為在創傷面前受事者不得保持緘默，否則將成為迫害歷史的共犯，有鑑於此，本文以日裔加拿大人的「沉默」作為維繫小川樂屋記憶正義之機制為例，提出紀念倫理應建立於相衝突之記憶主體不斷彼此協商的動態過程中。

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