Helena Meyer-Knapp

Observation of student groups: Each site visit lasted several hours and most sites were visited more than once. Each visit entailed observations made out in the open – at the Thousand Cranes memorial in Hiroshima for example, or at the Arlington Cemetery in Washington DC and also observations inside the buildings described as museums. The observations were recorded using video and still photography. Often it was possible to record the spoken, site-specific explanations given by tour guides and teachers. Occasionally I interacted with students or their teachers, but only to ask which schools and regions they came from. In Washington DC the site visits included three trips on major tour bus circuits, taken at different seasons, recording the guides’ comments about the significance of the sites. An associate visited Pearl Harbor on my behalf.

Texts and displays: The physical construction and public meanings associated with museums and memorials have been subjected to a surprising amount of discussion and debate in both countries. Some of this is public and political debate, and some is academic debate about public memory and the various rhetorical forms associated with war and peace-making. In collecting data for this project, decisions about how and whether to record specific views and texts were governed by the behavior of the people at the sites, not by the intensity of the political or academic debate about the sites. Sometimes, also, I recorded placards and views that particularly caught my attention as a knowledgeable visitor. I delayed undertaking a detailed analysis of the scholarship relating to museums and public memory about the war until after most site visits were complete.