The “Nagasaki Syndrome”: museums, postcolonialism and subaltern resistance

Abstract

A diagnosis and a warning. Since the end of the twentieth century, and with greater emphasis since the rise of the different variants of the environmental movement, the narrative structures of Europe’s major postcolonial exhibitions are embracing what I refer to the Nagasaki Syndrome. This syndrome, inspired by the dropping of the two atomic bombs that ended World War II, consists of treating historical phenomena —that is, social phenomena, such as conquest, exile or slavery— as if they were natural phenomena: without subjects, without reasons and without any responsible parties. Based on the analysis of three specific cases from Spain, France and Portugal, the paper aims to analyze the political consequences of treating historical phenomena as if they were natural phenomena, not unlike a drought or an earthquake. In other words, what ontological and epistemological effects do these discourses have on our relationship with history? How do they affect the fight against climate change and the construction of dissident and counter-hegemonic narratives? How do they affect democratic participation, memory transmission and, above all, the communal development of our capacities for tolerance and respect?