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Chappell, Elizabeth
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.00102012
Abstract
This thesis contends that thus far interpretations of Hiroshima privilege the event over the lived experience of hibakusha, as the survivors are known. The result may be that an imbalance has been created which seems to privilege the unprecedented use of an atomic bomb in warfare over those lived experiences (Chappell 2016: 120). This asymmetry rests on a complex ground of extrinsic and intrinsic factors which have led to the silencing and self-silencing of hibakusha. I address this asymmetry by focusing on hibakusha narratives within the multidimensional context of the aftermath of the bombing and through face-to-face research with now elderly hibakusha with clear memories of childhood before the atomic bomb and a lifetime of experience to draw upon.
The formal period of research spanned three years (2012–2015), during which I conducted formal interviews with 12 individual hibakusha including one hibakusha family. From these, I have selected three main participants for analysis and interpretation. Applying a dialogical lens to hibakusha personal narratives is key to understanding the shifting positionality of hibakusha as they are variously reticent about, actively contest, or, conversely, emotionally commit to their category membership as ‘hibakusha’. Through close examination of hibakusha narratives in the process of their becoming I address the way in which the researcher can better orient themselves and their subject position in relation to these emergent narratives. For this I draw on the work of feminist scholars Rosi Braidotti on nomadic subjectivity (2006) and Donna Haraway (1991) as well as on Norman K. Denzin’s ideas about studying personal narrative as a means of developing ‘new methods, new ways of talking about self and society’ (Denzin and Lincoln 2011: xi). This, I contend, allows hibakusha perspectives to be understood in diverse ways, thus challenging the lack of accountability associated with decontextualised knowledge claims.