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18 - On the Peripheries of the Japanese Archipelago

Ryukyu and Hokkaido

from Part III - Social Practices and Cultures of Early Modern Japan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2024

By
David L. Howell
Edited by
David L. Howell
David L. Howell
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

Any national history project faces the dilemma of what to include when current national boundaries do not coincide with historical ones. In Japan, the identity of the nation with its dominant ethnic group in the modern period has turned every discussion of “Japanese” history into an implicit comment on what and who is meant by “Japanese.” This chapter surveys the histories of Ryukyu and Hokkaido through the premodern and early modern periods. It discusses both regions’ close ties to the Japanese polity, while also highlighting their autonomous histories. At the same time, it reveals how situating places like Ryukyu and Hokkaido inside or outside the early modern polity shapes our understanding of their status during the modern era as colonial possessions or integral parts of the Japanese nation. This situating in turn affects understandings of the Indigeneity of the Ainu people and the status of Okinawan language and culture.

Keywords

AinuOkinawaethnicitysovereigntysettler colonialismtribute systemChūzanSatsumaMatsumaeShakushainEzochiWajinchiAmamiSai OnChristianity
Type
Chapter
Information
The New Cambridge History of Japan , pp. 603 - 628
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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