Testimony at the Threshold: Hibakusha and the Struggle to Make Nuclear Memory Politically Consequential in Japan (1945-2025)

Abstract

This presentation investigates why hibakusha (atomic bombing survivors) remain publicly visible yet politically ineffective within nuclear governance. I argue that the problem lies not in survivor silence, but rather in a longer structure of political inaudibility that prevents testimony from becoming consequential. Through historical and interpretive analysis of postwar certification systems, the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, survivor advocacy, the 2023 G7 Hiroshima Summit, and descendant-centered relay, I show how institutions narrow what counts as credible harm, separate evidence from care, and limit ceremonial acknowledgements to keep policy detached from hibakusha lived experience. I demonstrate that nuclear memory becomes something more than simply preserved or lost. Nuclear memory represents an active struggle over who is listening, who can define harm, whose accounts count, and what obligations should follow when institutions face human consequences. Early recognition systems tied injury to exposure criteria rather than lived consequence, making many forms of nuclear harm harder to register politically (Sato 2022). I conclude by proposing Response, Review, Co-Definition, and Succession as a framework for understanding what political uptake would require and how nuclear memory might be transformed to make institutions more receptive and less able to render hibakusha testimony inaudible.