일본 근대산업유산의 세계유산 등재를 둘러싼 기억정치와 학문지형 - 한일 및 영미 연구동향 비교분석(2015~2025)

Abstract

This article analyzes the politics of memory and historical debates surrounding the inscription of Japan’s modern industrial heritage on the UNESCO World Heritage List, with particular attention to research trends on the issue of Korean forced labor in Korea, Japan, and Anglophone scholarship. The inscription processes of Japan’s Meiji Industrial Revolution sites and Sado Gold Mine provoked significant controversy between Korea and Japan. In response, diverse forms of critique and counter-narratives have emerged across academic circles. Korean scholarship has primarily focused on criticizing historical denialism and condemning the Japanese government for provoking international disputes. Japanese scholarship, by contrast, has often shifted the discussion toward emphasizing the autonomy of local residents and civil society, or toward broader critiques of modernization itself. In the Anglophone context, critical attention has been directed toward the Japanese government’s “whitewashing” of memory and historical revisionism, alongside calls for constructing alternative heritage narratives through transnational cooperation. These scholarly debates, emerging on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the inscription of Japan’s modern industrial heritage, offer important insights into the future direction of international cooperation and contestation surrounding memory and heritage.