Detoxifying chemical warfare on touristic Rabbit Island: questions on Japanese reactionary war ecology and memory

On the eightieth anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, memories of wartime pollution resurfaced. This study examines Ōkunoshima, a former Japanese chemical warfare site, through memory studies and tourism. Ethnographic fieldwork was conducted over a decade including in-depth interviews, observations, research dialogues, symposia, and analyses of visitors’ comments and historical documents. Three pairs of dualities emerge from our analysis: the blending of dark history and contemporary tourism, ambivalent roles of victim and perpetrator, and the blurring of authenticity and (com)modification. We argue that the spatial and temporal transformation of the historical site into a tourist destination risks severing the site’s violent past from its commemorative function, encouraging willed amnesia and complicating Japan’s war memory, particularly the victim-perpetrator binary. Recasting the former military chemical factories on Ōkunoshima as a haven for cute rabbits aligns with a Japanese reactionary ecology mindset, which carries remnants of imperial wartime ideology. These dynamics continue to sustain Japan’s century-long silence regarding the environmental consequences of chemical warfare. Derived from ethnographic fieldwork, the researchers elaborate the concept of memory seduction to explain how constructed authenticity – shaped by tourism narratives – replaces direct historical experience at war sites.