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ID:
143664
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| Summary/Abstract |
The tension between silence and vocalization, embrace and rejection, of Ainu ancestry has been a key factor in negotiating Ainu subjectivity since Ainu territories were colonized in 1869. As early as 1799, expressions of Ainu ethnicity were alternately cloaked and exaggerated as Japan vacillated between assimilation and segregation policies in eastern Hokkaido Ainu communities. Officially recognized as Japan's indigenous peoples in 2008, Ainu subjectivity has become increasingly politicized as the state and other stakeholders seek to define Ainu ethnicity for future legislation. Today Ainu belonging is frequently gauged by bodily metaphors of a vocalized blood. Cultural sensibility and blood are often conflated in Ainu discourses of identity: Ainu revivalists report that a sensation of “clamoring blood” (J: chi ga sawagu) inspires them to revisit ancestral memories and begin fashioning Ainu identities. Historically, intra-Ainu relations were not bound to blood but instead embodied in material expressions, such as invisible cords for women and crest-like emblems for men, symbols that enabled flexibility where needed. Since the twentieth century, the hyper focus on blood raises the specter of colonially imposed rhetorics of eugenics, assimilation policies, and specifically, the problem of race. Relatedness in the Ainu community is not exclusively defined by “consanguineal relations”; rather, a long history of adopting ethnic Japanese children and non-Ainu into Ainu families renders complex the question of identity. This article assesses how immutable notions of racial difference intersect with self-determination and current articulations of Ainu identity.
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| 2 |
ID:
169029
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| Summary/Abstract |
This roundtable presents the proceedings of the “Hokkaidō 150: Settler Colonialism and Indigeneity in Modern Japan and Beyond” workshop held at the University of British Columbia in March 2019. The sesquicentennial of Japanese settler colonization of the northern island of Hokkaidō or Ainu Mosir received only scant attention either in Japan or around the world. The goal of this roundtable is to reinsert settler colonialism into modern Japanese history while introducing the case of the Ainu into global conversations of Indigeneity. Katsuya Hirano draws attention to how the Meiji state manipulated ideas of ownership to enable exploitation of Ainu lands. ann-elise lewallen recenters Ainu women’s resistance to the sexual colonization of Hokkaidō. Mai Ishihara interrogates her own positionality and asks why many people with Ainu heritage remain silent. Sheryl Lightfoot reviews how the case of the Ainu in Hokkaidō complicates prevailing paradigms of settler colonial studies. Musicians Mayunkiki, Tomoe Yahata, and Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson discuss issues of Indigenous identity and their practice. Finally, Danika Medak-Saltzman concludes the roundtable by re-situating Ainu at the intersection of settler colonial and Native studies, challenging Japan scholars to more meaningfully engage and prioritize Indigenous studies.
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