International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.2, 2025

 

 

Nakazawa Hideo

 

The European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH) is a successful example of revitalizing the coal industry as a cultural resource, followed by the Asian Network of Industrial Heritage (ANIH), which was established in 2022. After the TICCIH Taipei Declaration 2012, the movement to preserve coal heritage in East Asia has been promoted, with the authorization and listing of heritage sites in countries such as China, South Korea, and Japan. However, this movement is just a recent phenomenon, preceded by periods of forgetting. There are four types of “routes” for the preservation and utilization of coal heritage. The most commonly imagined would be the wide-area tour route, which visualizes and promotes the touring of industrial heritages beyond borders. However, there should be also the second route based on the life cycle of coal from mining to consumption, the third route focusing on the time and space of people working in and out of coal mines, and lastly, the fourth route that future generations will newly discover. The importance of preserving not only the facilities and documents, but also the memories and records of individual workers, is emphasized to enable future generations to demonstrate creativity.