“The making of Japanese: Assimilation policy in Okinawa and in Hokkaido”

Speaker Rosa Caroli　（Professor, East Asian Institute, University of Venice;
Guest Staff, Institute of International Japan-Studies,
Hosei University）

・Date　 Monday, 4 August 2008, 14:00-16:00
・Place Hosei University Ichigaya Campus, ’58 Building 2F, Institute of
・International Japan-Studies Seminar Room.

A two-hour Special Seminar was held in the Hosei University Institute of International Japan-Studies seminar room on Monday, 4 August from 14:00 to 16:00 to welcome Rosa Caroli (Professor, East Asian Institute, University of Venice; Guest Staff, Institute of International Japan-Studies, Hosei University). It began with a lecture by Rosa Caroli, titled “The making of Japanese: Assimilation Policy in Okinawa and in Hokkaido”, which then led to an enthusiastic discussion.

As a result of the dissolution of domains and establishment of prefectures in early Meiji, attention focused on the formation of a Japanese consciousness to expel any former village and fief consciousness. However, this caused particular difficulties in Okinawa and Hokkaido, who had never been considered “Japan”, but now faced becoming administratively part of Japan for the first time. Caroli explained how the troubled process of cultural assimilation was implemented in both Okinawa and Hokkaido, by first painting a clear picture of the diversity between the two regions. There were differences in aspects of population, economic and cultural standards, and the problems that would arise through their assimilation with Japan cannot be told in the same breath. Nevertheless, she suggested that a fundamental shared by both regions was colonialzation by the Japanese, which caused Okinawans and Ainu to uphold their “otherness” over “sameness” vis-a-vis Japanese, and which led to movements, in the recent postwar period, by Okinawans and Ainu re-establishing their own cultural identities.

Report by Abiko, Shin (Director, Hosei University Institute of International Japanese Studies; Professor, Faculty of Letters)