For communities who have been the target of political violence, the after-effects can haunt what remains of their families, their communities, and the societies in which they live. Terrain of Memory tells the story of the Japanese Canadian elders who built a memorial in 1994 to mark a village in an isolated mountainous valley in British Columbia with their history of internment. It explores memory as a powerful collective cultural practice, following elders and locals as they worked together to transform a site of political violence into a space for remembrance. They transformed a valley where once over 7,000 women, men, and children were interned into a pilgrimage site where Japanese Canadians can mourn and also pay their respects to the wartime generation. This is a compelling story about how collectively excavating painful memories can contribute to building relations across social and intergenerational divides.

Kirsten Emiko McAllister's profile page

Kirsten Emiko McAllister is an associate professor in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University.

The novelty of the subject, distinctive methodological approach, engaging voice, and sophisticated analysis makes Terrain of Memory a worthwhile selection for public history classes seeking to model how to understand both past and present meanings of monuments and memorials, though the more analyti-cal sections may be more appropriate for advanced rather than introductory.

The Public Historian, Vol 34, No 4

Terrain of Memory is a powerful contribution to cultural studies and memory work...employing an approach that scrutinizes with exacting honesty her moments of crisis, blockages, and breakthroughs, McAllister unfolds a scholarly activist praxis that is ethical, inventive, inimitable, and suffused with dramatic emotional struggle.

University of Toronto Quarterly, Vol 81, No 3