Organizer and Chair: Michael S. Molasky, Connecticut College
Discussant: Takashi Fujitani, University of California, San Diego
Japan established its credentials as a modern nation-state partly by expanding its boundaries in East Asia. Among the earliest successes of Japanese imperialism was the gradual "absorption" of the Ryûkyû Islands, which were officially incorporated into the body politic in 1879 as "Okinawa Prefecture." Yet even as a prefecture, Okinawa occupied a liminal space within the imagined community of modern Japan: unlike Taiwan and Korea, Okinawa did not, strictly speaking, constitute a Japanese colony; neither, however, was it viewed as a full-fledged member of the Japanese nation. The tremendous losses Okinawa incurred in 1945 and the ensuing American occupation further complicated Okinawa's ambiguous relationship with Japan.
Our two-part panel explores this ambiguous relationship and the critical insights it offers for the study of modern Japan. The first session concentrates on issues of nationalism and imperialism. Greg Smits discusses Ryûkyûan responses to Japanese domination during the 17th and 18th centuries. Ichirô Tomiyama and Alan Christy examine various Japanese nationalist discourses and their impact on the formation of "Okinawan" subjectivity in the early 20th century. The panel's second session explores the legacies of World War II, the American occupation, and Okinawa's reversion to Japanese prefectural status in 1972. Linda Angst discusses one paradigmatic narrative of the Battle of Okinawa: the high school student nurse corps known as Himeyuri. Michael Molasky examines the 1970 critique of Japanese nationalism by Okinawan opponents of the reversion policy. Yoshinobu Ota analyzes representations of "Okinawan-ness" in two television shows aired in 1993.
Incipient Nationalism: Two Ryûykûan Responses to Japanese Domination
Gregory Smits, Eastern Washington University
The Kingdom of Ryûkyû came under Japanese control in 1609 when an army from Satsuma invaded with bakufu approval. From that time, Japan (the bakufu and Satsuma), controlled Ryûkyû's external affairs. Ryûkyû's ambivalent political status prompted its political and intellectual leaders to deal with the Japanese power that was ever-present though often in the background.
This paper examines two responses to this Japanese power, one during the seventeenth century and one during the eighteenth. Shô Shôken (1617-1675) advocated the adoption of Japanese culture and political institutions and abandoning traditional Ryûkyûan practices that Japanese might regard as "backward" (e.g. women playing a prominent role in certain affairs of state). Shô Shôken advocated a turn to Japan and acceptance by Ryûkyûans of Japanese domination as inevitable.
A generation later, Sai On (1682-1761) regarded Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as the key to Ryûkyû's future. He stressed that despite Japan's domination, Ryûkyû's destiny was really in the hands of Ryûkyûans. By mastering and implementing Confucian teachings, he argued, Ryûkyûans could create a society as materially and morally prosperous as any of its larger neighbors. Sai On used Neo-Confucian thought quite freely, interpreting it to fit his own political agenda.
This paper examines the earliest systematic attempts to define Ryûkyûan identity under the pressure of Japanese domination. It also compares Sai On's neo-Confucian based "nationalism" with contemporary definitions of nationalism.
Tottering on the Edge: Okinawa as Prefecture and Colony
Alan S. Christy, University of California, Santa Cruz
When news of a plan to rescind Okinawa's prefectural status was leaked in 1908, it caused panic among Okinawan elites. The plan was justified as a more effective way to administer the economic development of Okinawa by tying it directly to the growth-potential of Taiwan and the administrative efficiency of the governor-generalship. But Okinawan elites saw the plan both as a cultural humiliation and a further restriction of their access to power. The very fact that the plan was proposed signified the unstable position of Okinawa between the inner territory ("naichi") and outer territories ("gaichi"), or colonies, in the Japanese empire.
This paper is a consideration of the meanings of naichi in prewar Japan and the problem of naming Okinawa in its ambivalent position between the naichi and the colonies. For example, what does the fact that ethnologist Origuchi Shinobu strictly used "Ryukyu" before the war, and only "Okinawa" after the war suggest about the possibilities of a politics of difference in prewar Japan? In particular, I will discuss how the varying criteria for inclusion in the naichi interacted with terms such as "Okinawa-ken," "Ryukyu," "Nanto" and "Ryukyuko." Mapping out the way these terms were articulated in relation to each other helps us understand the politics of assimilation and discrimination that were central to Okinawa's prewar Japanese experience. Noting the variety of ways to name Okinawa also reminds us that the place of Okinawa in Japan, and the nature of the Japanese polity, were not unproblematic or uncontested.
Becoming Japanese
Ichiro Tomiyama, Kobe City University of Foreign Studies
When we talk about the modern history of Okinawa, we are always presented with a difficulty. Is Okinawa a colony or a part of Japan? In modern Okinawa, the two identities, "Japanese" and "Okinawan," have become intricately related. These two identities thus take on a complicated and contradictory relation to one another, and this relation extends to the politics of the study of Okinawa. Scholars who focus on Japan tend to emphasize Okinawa's rapid assimilation into the Japanese cultural and political body, while those who focus on Okinawa tend to define modern Okinawa as a colony of Japan. Whenever we presuppose the concept of the nation-state, as in the case of Japan, we are troubled with this sort of indeterminacy or liminality in relation to Okinawa.
My paper examines how this complex history shaped the process through which Okinawans "became Japanese." This indeterminacy clearly derives from Japan's simultaneous emergence as both a nation-state and a modern empire. But this indeterminacy or liminality is not only a problem for Okinawa or Japan, and I would like to consider the broader issues of nationalism and colonialism from the perspective of Okinawa-a site which can be classified as neither inside nor outside the nation-state-and I will thereby attempt to question the problematic connection between colonialism and post-colonialism.