Reckoning with War’s Legacy: Trauma, Memory, and Pathways to Peace

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue delves into the complex and enduring legacy of the Asia–Pacific War, moving beyond simplified narratives to explore the multifaceted processes of peace, memory, and reconciliation. It seeks to address the critical gap that often exists between politicized national histories—constructed to shape identity and political direction—and the lived, often traumatic, experiences of people on all sides of the conflict. The articles within explore these dissonances through various lenses, questioning how nations make peace with a difficult past.

We begin by analysing the remarkable, though rare, case of post-war reconciliation between Australia and Japan, tracing the journey from “bitterest of enemies” to firm allies and the potential for the “re-humanisation” of a former foe. Subsequent papers scrutinize the fraught processes of war memorialization, revealing how unacknowledged personal and historical trauma can complicate these efforts. This includes examining how states may preserve symbolic “chosen glory,” while erasing the material “deathscapes” of war cemeteries, thereby creating ambiguous loss and unresolved grief for bereaved families.

The collection also challenges monolithic remembrances by contrasting the dominant Japanese narrative of “trauma” with the perspective of “liberation” held by Allied prisoners of war and Asian forced labourers. Finally, it re-evaluates the function of political apologies, arguing they must be the start of a sincere, long-term dialogue for healing, not merely a performative act that fulfils structural requirements. Together, these contributions offer a critical examination of how nations reckon with their wartime pasts, arguing that confronting contested histories and traumas is essential for building a truly peaceful future.

Prof. Dr. Akihiro Ogawa
Guest Editor

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• Asia–Pacific war
• peace and reconciliation
• collective memory
• war trauma
• national identity
• post-war relations
• memorialization
• political apologies
• historical narratives
• re-humanization of the enemy