This dissertation investigates how different stakeholders have competed over the interpretation and commemoration of the Aum Affair. The Aum Affair was a series of crimes committed by new religious movement Aum Shinrikyō between 1988 and 1995, which culminated in the gassing of the Tokyo subway system using sarin in March 1995. The Tokyo attack was the largest act of terrorism in post-war Japan. I combine qualitative methods of media analysis, interviews, and participant observation to analyse how different stakeholders have narrated and commemorated the Aum Affair. I propose ‘collective trauma’ as a revised theory of ‘cultural trauma’ to describe an event which is represented as harmful and indelible to collective memory and identity. In contrast to ‘cultural trauma’, which stresses the importance of symbolic representations of traumatic events, ‘collective trauma’ considers other ‘material’ processes – such as establishing facts, collective action, state responses, and litigation – which also contribute to trauma construction. My overarching argument is that various stakeholders – including state authorities, mass media, public intellectuals, victims, and former Aum believers – have constructed the Aum Affair as a collective trauma in multiple and conflicting ways. Many media representations situated Aum as an evil ‘cult’ which ‘brainwashed’ believers and intended to take over Japan through terror. State authorities also responded by treating Aum as a dangerous terrorist group. In some instances, these binary representations of Japan locked in a struggle against an evil force led to municipal governments violating the civil rights of Aum believers. Some individuals such as public intellectuals and former believers have challenged this divisive view by treating Aum as a ‘religion’, not a ‘cult’, and locating the root causes of Aum’s growth in Japanese society. Additionally, victims and former members have pursued divergent goals such as retributive justice, financial reparations, and social reconciliation through their public actions. A key conclusion of this dissertation is that whilst confronting horrific acts of violence may require social construction of collective trauma using cultural codes of good and evil, the entrenchment of these symbolic categories can result in lasting social tension and division.

This dissertation discusses the rebuilding of cities after war in the context of the changing character of warfare and the increased expectations for societies to deal with difficult pasts. Departing from studies that approach post-war reconstruction focusing on the functional dimension of infrastructural repair and housing relief or on debates about architectural form, this dissertation examines reconstruction through the lens of the process of 'coming to terms with the past'. It explores how understandings of victimhood and responsibility influence the rebuilding of urban space. Conversely, it argues that cities and architecture, through the meanings ascribed to them by various actors, play an important role in dealing with the past. Building on the moral philosophy of Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt, it discusses the potential of reconstruction for societies to work through the past, then it engages with frictions highlighted by three situations of rebuilding after different types of war. First, it examines the rebuilding of Belgrade as the capital of socialist Yugoslavia after the aerial bombings typical of the Second World War. Second, it analyses reconstruction debates in the same city after the 1999 NATO bombings, a high-tech operation, framed by NATO as a preventative, humanitarian intervention against a 'perpetrator' state. Third, it discusses rebuilding processes in Sarajevo, where destruction was inflicted between 1992 and 1995 by actors internal to the country, albeit with international ramifications, exemplary of Mary Kaldor's 'new wars'. Based on thirteen months of fieldwork conducted in Belgrade and Sarajevo between 2012 and 2015, it analyses intentions and consequences of reconstruction acts. It suggests the potential and the challenges of a reflective reconstruction, which engages critically with the past, and of a syncretic place-making reconstruction, which focuses on place and its agonistic promise. Its main contribution is to highlight the essential relationship between reconstruction and coming to terms with the past, arguing for an understanding of reconstruction with regards to conflict itself.

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In this thesis, I argue that discourses of victimhood, victory, and xenophobia underpin both Sinhalese and Tamil nationalist and religious fundamentalist movements. Ethnic discourse has allowed citizens to affirm collective ideals in the face of disparate experiences, reclaim power and autonomy in contexts of fundamental instability, but has also deepened ethnic divides in the post-war era. In the first chapter, I argue that mutually exclusive narratives of victimhood lie at the root of ethnic solitudes, and provide barriers to mechanisms of transitional justice and memorialization. The second chapter includes an analysis of the politicization of mythic figures and events from the Rāmāyaṇa and Mahāvaṃsa in nationalist discourses of victory, supremacy, and legacy. Finally, in the third chapter, I explore the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam’s (LTTE) rhetoric and symbolism, and contend that a xenophobic discourse of terrorism has been imposed and transferred from Tamil to Muslim minorities. Ultimately, these discourses prevent Sri Lankans from embracing a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nationality, and hinder efforts at transitional justice. By shedding light on the discourses underlying popular nationalist movements, I hope to promote understanding and further post-war reconciliation between ethnic groups in Sri Lanka. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)