“Registers of Empathy” of Visitors towards the “Painful History” of South Korea within South Korean National Museums

This thesis examines the emotional representation of “painful history” in two museum and heritage site in South Korea dealing with the Japanese colonial period (1910-1945). The concept of “painful history” is used to describe the specific context of South Korea still coming terms with colonial trauma. The aim of the research is to understand the emotional engagement of museum visitors with this period of history presented in two case studies, Independence Hall of Korea, and Seodamun Prison Hall.

The study reveals strongly “the poetics of the displays” that aim to promote national pride in both sites, focusing particularly on the experience of ordinary people of resisted Japanese occupation. At the same time, there is a tension within these sites in presenting highly emotionally charged painful history (particularly around violence and torture of South Korean citizens), and asking visitors to move beyond negative emotions towards the Japanese. The visitor interviews reveal a range of emotional engagements, including negative emotions such as rage, anger and shame and guilt. Building on Smith’s work on registers of engagement, this thesis explores the notion of “hot and cold empathy” and ultimately develops the notions of “registers of empathy” to explore how these different emotional engagements enable visitors to process their museum visits in an empathetic way.

The thesis contributes to the emergent field of museum studies in South Korea, concluding that to understand their social role, museums need to recognise the negative dimension of the visitor emotional engagement. Furthermore, this emotion-based research of visitors in museums in South Korea can offer a new aspect to museum studies in other countries, particularly related to museum narratives and visitor meaning making around painful history from the perspectives of the victims.