Shingo Iitaka: Leisure Tourism and Memories of War

The Rock Islands Southern Lagoon is located in Koror State, Republic of Palau, in the Micronesia region of Oceania. This area, consisting of limestone islands and coral reefs, is a treasure trove of diverse organisms and contains traces of past human life such as caves and rock art; consequently, it was registered as a UNESCO World Mixed Heritage site in 2012. While it has long been known as a mecca for divers worldwide, the number of visitors to Palau increased further upon registration, and currently, over 120,000 people visit annually compared to the native population of approximately 18,000. Upon departure, each person is required to pay a $100 Pristine Paradise Environmental Fee, which is added to the airfare in advance.

Ten years prior to the World Heritage registration, I was staying in Palau for a long period as a graduate student to conduct field research. Because I was settled and living in a rural village area, I was never able to go to the Rock Islands. Fieldworkers heading to surrounding regions often talk about the hardships of local life, but in my life in Palau, there were no protozoan infections or eating of bizarre foods. After returning to Japan, I used to boast about my local life by mentioning how I stayed focused and never once went to the Rock Islands despite them being right under my nose. However, I now regret that I missed a precious opportunity to observe the social conditions at the tourism sites before the World Heritage registration.

It was only after I began working at a university that I was finally blessed with the opportunity to visit the Rock Islands. In general sightseeing tours, along with activities such as snorkeling, sites such as decaying fighter planes and caves used for positions were included as viewing points representing traces of the Japanese-American combat at the end of the Pacific War. Perhaps because tour participants are drawn to the contrast between the two, they eagerly point their cameras. As indicated by the title of the collection of essays I recently contributed to, Leisure and Death (Kaul and Skinner eds., University Press of Colorado, 2018), death is also consumed within leisure tourism.

In recent years in Palau, along with the increase in tourists, Pacific War battlefields have been developed as tourism resources. In this process, the people of Palau are also remembering the Pacific War from a perspective different from that of the warring nations, Japan and the United States. Moving forward, I want to continue focusing on the dynamics of local war memories in relation to leisure tourism, but I also want to remember the time when I could not go to the Rock Islands.