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This paper examines emerging far-right movements and xenophobia, and the challenges they pose for justice in education in Japan. It illustrates discourses on nationalism and cultural diversity in both education and wider society from the perspective of critical race theory. It explores the voice of educators, particularly about their concerns and uncertainties regarding xenophobia, and examines their perceptions and reactions. By focusing on the narratives of interviewees from different ethnic backgrounds, this paper investigates far-right extremism and its challenges to education from different viewpoints. Data from interviews reveals different perceptions among both majority and minority teachers regarding the culturalization and personalization of problems in the classroom. This data also suggests that due to the absence of collective strategies and visions to challenge racism, approaches to combating racism depend largely on individual teachers. Drawing from these findings, this paper argues that culturally focused discourses among teachers and politicians may conceal problems beyond culture, such as structural inequality and the legacy of colonialism.

This paper investigates the differentiated educational ideologies projected during the Japanese colonial era by comparing the Japanese language textbooks used by Korean and Japanese primary students at that time. By comparing the texts and images in "Kokugotokuhon" (Japanese language textbooks for Korean students) and "Shougakutokuhon" (Japanese language textbooks for Japanese students) with critical discourse analysis (CDA) in analysis of texts and visual image analysis (VIA) for images, this paper verifies the differentiated educational ideologies that Japanese colonial authorities presented to Korean students. There were three findings that were featured in the Japanese language textbooks for Korean students that were absent from the textbooks for Japanese students. Firstly, depictions of physical labour and helping parents after school and late at night were present only in the textbooks for Koreans. Secondly, Japanese nationalism with an Emperor-centred ideology was emphasised in the Japanese language textbooks used by Koreans. Thirdly, the textbooks encouraged Korean students to practise war-like games and drills. The results from this study suggest that differentiated education was provided to Korean students during the Japanese colonial era via the contents of the Japanese language textbooks, which projected the colonial ideologies of the Japanese government. Korean students were being educated to become Japanese colonial subjects.

"Heimat" -oriented education (local-oriented education) flourished in Imperial Japan of the 1930s, inspired by "Heimatkunde" (local studies) in Germany's elementary schools. This paper explores the rhetoric which naturalised the shift from love of "Heimat" to love of nation in "Heimat"-oriented education in Imperial Japan of the 1930s, focusing on "Heimat"-oriented education in peripheral regions to which Japanese identity and non-Japanese identity were attributed. "Heimat"-oriented education in peripheral regions was conducted mostly in accordance with the official rhetoric "similar but not equal", yet also partially putting a spin on it. The spin had the effect of strengthening the naturalisation of the shift from love of "Heimat" to love of nation.

This paper explores the ways in which policies for national identity formation and internationalization interact to complement and contradict each other in the context of global higher education. These themes are explored by comparing recent policies in two countries in East Asia, a part of the world currently on the rise in the global hierarchy of higher education (Altbach in "Tert Educ Manag" 10:3-25, 2004; Marginson in "High Educ" 4(1), 2011b). China and Japan are presented as case studies, with a focus on the ways the two countries have pursued both higher education internationalization and nationalist agendas through education more broadly. The paper then turns to a discussion of the factors that might explain these approaches as well as the dilemmas that arise from the interaction of these policy agendas in the context of global higher education. The paper argues that while increasing global competitiveness through HE internationalization may prove beneficial to individual nation-states in the short term, countries in East Asia should consider the potential pitfalls of becoming too singly focused on competitiveness at the expense of mutual understanding and peaceful international relations in the region. Furthermore, the continued push to create uncritical nationalistic citizens threatens to undermine the goals of internationalization and may be detrimental to efforts at HE regional cooperation and integration. The paper concludes with recommendations that the two countries consider the potential benefits of global citizenship education and the expansion of regionally focused study abroad programs to help develop graduates with the global competencies conducive to both national competitiveness and regional cooperation.

This historical study reflects on history curriculum debates over the last 20 years in Taiwan. To open up possibilities for contemporary Taiwanese to rethink themselves in terms of national culture and subjectivity, this paper explores the construction of Taiwanese subjectivity in the past. It focuses on the history of Taiwan under Japanese occupation as a key issue in history curriculum debates. Particularly, it examines language issues in the 1920s, an important theme in the histories of the formation of Taiwanese consciousness, ideology, and cultural nationalism during the Japanese colonial period. Rather than addressing issues of identity (national or cultural), identifying who Taiwanese really were, or looking for Chinese or Taiwanese consciousness, this study explores how meanings of "Taiwanese" in the 1920s under Japanese occupation were constructed in the discourse of language reform for civilisation. The analysis of the New Culture Movement discourse suggests that the classical Chinese language of "Hànwén" as a valuable cultural resource and flexible linguistic instrument played an essential role in constituting Taiwanese subjectivities that shaped Taiwanese practices of the self for distinctive civilisation.

British actress, Sarah Mayer's light and racy attitude to the bathing arrangements after judo training sessions in Japan in the 1930s belies a dangerous and volatile time in Anglo-Japanese relations. This paper seeks to demonstrate that her pioneering achievement as the first western woman to be awarded a black belt in Japan, was part of the political machinations of the day. As Japan campaigned for the 1940 Tokyo Olympic Games, the use of Mayer's image and persona to promote not only nationalism, but internationalism and modernity, was related to a rift forming in the League of Nations. Mayer's story shows the use of sport as a political tool. Originally developed as part of a wider doctoral thesis on the contribution of Mayer to the history of judo, and using mainly primary source research, this article charts Mayer's life leading up to and following her time in Japan, detailing how her position in society and her work as an actress and theatre entrepreneur impacted on the development of women in judo. Understanding the history of women in judo is integral to an understanding of the sport itself and this paper hopes to contribute to the scant literature in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I demonstrate how long-term multigenerational minorities and Japanese residents engage in the current socio-political discourse of "multicultural coexistence" society (tabunkakyōsei shakai), which had not previously been integral to the vocabulary of national rhetoric in Japan until the 2000s. I argue that the lack of clear definition and goals of multicultural coexistence by the current Japanese government generates obstacles in the attempt to build a multicultural society. While local municipalities' programs, such as multilingual services and lifestyle support, are certainly needed, long-term foreign residents with linguistic and cultural competence are suspicious of the concept of multicultural coexistence due to their own embodied marginalized positions. Taking a local municipality's intercultural event as a point of reference, this paper explores how long-term minority residents perceive their positions at the crossroads of seemingly paradoxical forces of multicultural trends and an ongoing national identity founded upon ethnic homogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the normative function of historic narratives using the example of South Korean perceptions of twentieth-century history. The exploration of how relations between South Korea and Japan are perceived is based on 32 semi-structured interviews with academics, representatives of non-government organizations, and government officials in South Korea. The paper posits that the normative function of historical narratives is based on four mechanisms: (1) recognition: identifying problems in society that are associated with the aggressive and vicious actions of an outgroup in the past; (2) assessment: framing these problems as injustices; (3) connotation: establishing a specific meaning of national identity that promotes motivations for actions and agency (with specific duties and obligations); and (4) prescription: defining explicit strategies and tactics for action. An analysis of these mechanisms, which comprise the structure of historical narratives, reveals that in the case of South Korea, perceptions of the relations between South Korea and Japan have been shaped by Japan's brutal colonization of South Korea, the absence of Japanese accountability for this period, and a need for a South Korean identity premised on uniqueness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exists a conventional stereotype about native Taiwanese elders that were born in and lived through the Japanese rule before 1945. On the one hand, some politicians and political commentators derogatorily call them the 'Kominka generation,' reinforcing the image of this group of having strong affection for and even intense loyalty to the previous Japanese regime. On the other hand, although many researchers have pointed out this cohorts' strong cultural ties to Han ethnicity - some even possessed nostalgic feelings toward China - in the colonial period, the researchers also emphasized the emergence of their strong sense of being Taiwanese when they suffered various political and cultural discrimination from the new Chinese dominant class after 1945. Therefore, both perspectives falsely imagine this cohort to be definitely identifying themselves as Taiwanese, rejecting Chinese identity, opposing the Kuomintang (KMT), and supporting the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). This paper aims to challenge these stereotypes. By adopting the techniques of grounded theory, the paper shows rich diversity not only in this cohort's perceptions toward the political parties but also in their identity patterns. Furthermore three themes are identified in these participants' explanation for their political orientations: economic development, social stability and security, and the cultural hierarchy that gives the KMT elites higher symbolic values than native political elites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s and 1960s, the modern Japanese state employed overseas cultural promotion as a way to maximise its interests and image not only in international contexts but also at home. By juxtaposing the Takarazuka Revue’s performances in the United States and Japan during the postwar period, this paper argues that the overseas promotion of this Japanese theatre troupe both depended upon and reinforced the Japanese populace’s nationalistic pride in its culture. The paper also addresses the ways in which the Japanese government used Takarazuka’s theatrical presentations as a means of pursuing its domestic and diplomatic agendas: improving Japan’s international position by proposing shared aspects of popular culture with the US and increasing its sense of nationalism by propagating cultural pride. In doing so, the paper explicates the ways in which Japanese popular cultural considerations interfaced with political concerns in the shaping of postwar Japan’s national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper joins the debate on Japan's territorial dispute with South Korea over the Dokdo/Takeshima islets. Informed by the ontological security framework of analysis, this paper seeks to explain the decision to adopt the ‘Takeshima Day’ ordinance by the Shimane Prefectural Assembly and the subsequent ascendance of ‘Takeshima’ to the fore of Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. In this paper, I distinguish between two processes: one that led to the adoption of the ordinance and another that resulted in the entrenchment of ‘Takeshima’ in Japan's identity construction vis-à-vis the Korean ‘other’. The paper argues that the former process should be understood within the context of Shimane Prefecture's distinct identity construction vis-à-vis Tokyo, while the latter can be attributed to recent changes in Japan–Korea relations unrelated to the territorial dispute per se. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the thought of Fukuzawa Yukichi, probably the most influential Japanese intellectual of the late nineteenth century, with particular reference to his attempt to develop a theory of civilization. For him, the civilizational approach was a framework for reflection on Japan's situation in the world after the great changes of the 1850s and 1860s. He saw the preservation of national independence and the reform of Japanese society as primary goals, but they necessitated extensive learning from the experience and achievements of more advanced societies, especially those of Western Europe and the United States. However, he did not advocate a purely imitative Westernization. Japan's distinctive identity and autonomous international stance were to be maintained. To clarify the reasons for transforming Japan in light of Western models without capitulating to them, he outlined an evolutionary conception of social change, understood in terms of an advance towards civilization. That kind of progress was not only a matter of technical and organizational development; it also involved the mobilization of whole peoples. On this basis, Fukuzawa articulated a more democratic vision of Japan's future than the road subsequently taken by the Meiji government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars tend to overlook the overseas Chinese press as a communicative tool for Chinese nationalism. This paper takes media history as its focal point to demonstrate the contextual influences that shaped the operations of Chinese print media and gave rise to the manifestation of the overseas Chinese (huaqiao) identity in Japan. In particular, it emphasises that the mobilisation of the modern Chinese nationalism movement of the time was not the sole determinant of Chinese identity. It was also influenced by the way in which Chinese ethnic boundaries came to be shaped and reshaped in different historical periods through the dynamics between overseas Chinese communities and Japanese society. I use two overseas Chinese publications from different periods to illustrate the impacts of modern Chinese nationalism and the changing social and political context of Japan on the Chinese press. Finally, I present a synthetic narrative to account for the history of the overseas Chinese press in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary focus of this paper is to analyze the trend of Japanese media reports on the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea)-Japan comfort women agreement (hereafter the “12.28 Agreement”) from Dec. 28, 2015 to highlight the clear gap between Korean and Japanese perspectives. Regarding the 12.28 Agreement, the Japanese media seems to have two traits. First, the Japanese media is not homogeneous, and the differences between the liberals and conservatives are straightforward. Whereas the liberal media emphasizes cooperation and the essence of the agreement between two countries, conservative newspapers limit the responsibility of problem- solving to the Korean government and emphasize the framing of a final, irreversible settlement. Second, despite the variety of opinions within Japan on the matter, an overwhelming view exists in Korea where the conservative viewpoint of the Japanese newspapers is magnified and mass reproduced. This influence is on behalf of the conservative Japanese newspapers, namely Sankei Shimbun, more frequently reporting on the comfort women issue with the intention of impacting nationalism upon the public and arousing diplomatic concerns. We can assume the Korean media frequently take quotes from these reports, therefore creating a mechanism of an increase in opinions from the Japanese conservatives within the Korean media. Moreover, the changes in Japan's media environment and the strategies of Japanese conservative politicians are combined to create the phenomenon of “Japanese Liberalism,” which still resides, yet simply fails to reach the Korean society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the intensification of nationalist discourses in Japanese society since the 1990s. One influential interpretation of this process sees it as a reaction to the economic crisis in Japanese society beginning in the 1990s. The aim of this article is to reevaluate this interpretation, stressing that the current nationalist discourse can actually be better understood if we consider not only the recent crisis, but also how this crisis is part of the wider context of profound transformations that Japan has faced after World War II. By analyzing the works of major Japanese social thinkers, this paper elaborates an interpretation in which nationalism emerges not simply as a reaction to a single event, but rather as a longer and more complex process, in which different and even contradictory discourses are formed, appropriated and reinterpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dai Nipponjin (Big Man Japan) is a 2007 mockumentary that veers wildly across multiple forms of realism to incorporate full-blown farce. This paper examines the final scenes of the film to show how comedian Hitoshi Matsumoto's debut film shifts through mockumentary and CGI kaigu (giant monster) genres to employ a tokusatsu (live-action special effects) coda that highlights Japan's subservience to foreign powers and the very real threat of a regional militaristic attack. We contend that over a decade later, Matsumoto's blending of intertextual frames remains a strangely vivid reminder of Japan's vulnerability to external forces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Cool Japan' is an instance of Japanese government's nation branding exercise as part of its soft power projection in which the unique selling point is identified as Japanese national identity. In this paper, I examine the relationship between Cool Japan and Japanese national identity and highlight a tension in the construction. Cool Japan is about emphasizing Japan's attractiveness for public diplomacy, while the top-down nature of the branding undermines the imagery that the branding is designed to convey. I show that policy elites resolve this tension by invoking the traditional Japanese identity narratives that construct Japan into both a non-Western and an un-Asian entity, reproducing the myth of Japanese uniqueness. I argue that the elite narratives surrounding Cool Japan readily replicate the language reminiscent of prewar identity construction. Despite the contemporary popularity of manga and anime, the purported 'coolness' of these products are framed within older constructions of Japanese Self that can trace their pedigree back to the nineteenth century. Using the minutes of committee meetings, policy documents, as well as media interviews given by policy- and business elites, I show that Cool Japan is effectively a twenty first century rendition of the familiar Japanese identity construction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines economic statecraft in the case of rare-earth elements, of which China controls over 90% of the world's current supply, and famously cut off exports to Japan during a territorial dispute in 2010. The rare-earth sanctions provide an opportunity to investigate claims of economic statecraft, power and interdependence, and the political implications of near-monopoly control of a resource critical for high-tech military, consumer, medical, and environmental industries. A vector error correction model statistically disentangles the effects of China's economic statecraft from their rare-earth quota and pricing policies. Prior to the sanctions, there was little international supply diversification. China's purported use of rare-earth elements was an economically costly diplomatic signal that demonstrated their potential leverage, but also had unintended consequences, as Japan moved to diversify rare-earth supplies and in doing so deepened diplomatic ties with China's neighbors. Economic statecraft served to heighten regional tensions and undermine the China's own end goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Woodrow Wilson's name remains forever entwined with the Paris Peace Conference and efforts to transform geopolitics after 1918. Despite recent emphases on the power of this so-called 'Wilsonian Moment,' initiatives by the American president remain controversial, and his principal global legacy has come to be defined as the rise of nationalism in the developing world. In the historiography of modern Japan, Wilson and the Paris Conference have long been identified less as opportunities than as challenges, embodied unmistakably in Prince Konoe Fumimaro's 1918 condemnation of the conference and the proposed League of Nations as beneficial only to the USA and Britain. Reading back from 1931, historians of modern Japan have located in the Versailles settlement seeds of an epic new expansionary effort from the Manchurian Incident to the destruction of Imperial Japan. This paper, by contrast, analyzes the interwar years on their own terms and, in so doing, locates the structural foundations of a dramatic Japanese national departure. Wilson is more than a 'moment' in interwar Japan. Embraced at the very moment that a largely agricultural and regional nineteenth-century Japan becomes a twentieth-century industrial state and world power, it is potent enough to withstand the illiberal tide of the 1930s and 40s to blossom again after the Second World War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How should we understand the relationship between nationalism and discourses of national decline, and more specifically the discourses of a shrinking nation? Driven by this question, this article highlights how bleak imaginings of the future also work to construct the relationship of the individual to the putative national community, creating forms of sentimental national belonging. This article analyses an emerging genre of best-selling books in Japan, Mirai no nenpyō [The chronology of the future] series, that present a dismal vision of Japan's national demographic future. Their goal is to provoke a sense of national urgency by encouraging Japanese nationals to feel personally the shrinking nation through imagining its coming consequences for everyday life. Such narrations of an imagined shrinking community act to create a timeless sense of national belonging, with daily lived experience in the imagined future interpreted through the lens of the contracting nation. Importantly, the future that these discourses present is nationalized within boundaries separating it from global developments and intercourse. Ultimately, this form of nationalism is constituted not by dying for the nation, but instead by people seeing the continued stability of everyday life as intricately tied to the fate of the national community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how Covid-19 has impacted borders and xenophobia. In particular, it looks at how four countries with generally right-wing politics, but not necessarily right-wing viewpoints, have used xenophobia to deal with Covid-19: The United States, Japan, Brazil, and Australia. This paper chronicles the expected rise in blaming other countries for the spread of Covid-19 with unexpected consequences. Rather than solidifying national borders and constituencies in the face of an international threat through xenophobia, right-wing countries have instead created a successful border creation process with little room to expand. The options seem to be a fragmentation of these countries into internal borders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article delineates how actors invoke nationalizing accounts—accounts that turn local conditions, actions, and actors into national ones—in everyday talk. Taking the case of Japanese university scientists depicting their commercialization trajectories after the adoption of a set of policies that originated from the U.S., the article delineates how scientists stipulate what they do is Japanese. I outline the discursive practices through which they posit that the cause of others' actions, or of they themselves, derives from some kind of ethno-national distinctiveness. Interviews show how such nationalizing accounts were made through the inevitable gaps between local practices and formal global structures. Scientific and commercialization practices in Japan that deviated from the original form were explained not only through the institutional differences between the U.S. and Japan, but also through lay categories of "culture," ethno-psychology, and readily available tropes about Japanese history. In such nationalizing accounts, what the Japanese scientists did under these new, and explicitly global policies, was argued to be fundamentally Japanese because they were rooted in and caused by the ethno-national character. As new institutional theory suggests, a decoupling between formal rules and local contingencies is a hallmark of any institution. The article further shows that such decoupling could then be used as a resource for everyday nationalism. At least in some cases, the global adoption and the localization of a global form may create an opportunity to enact the nation, contributing to a discourse that posits that an imagined community is distinct and special, precisely as the world becomes more globalized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of the portrayal of North Korea in the contemporary discourse of the two largest Japanese newspapers: the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun and the more left-wing oriented Asahi Shimbun. Analysed patterns and discursive practices in the two major national media outlets attempt to construct a certain notion of national identity, albeit through the use of different means and key ideas. Drawing on a post-structuralist understanding of language and discourse and theory of national identity based on the relational dichotomy between Self and Other, this study attempts to explain the construction of national identity in Japanese print media discourse, demonstrating the link between linguistic and societal practices. While Japan is portrayed as organised, democratic, rational and cooperative, North Korea is associated with discursive practices evoking irrationality, unpredictability and danger, often conveniently represented directly by Kim Jong-un. The newspapers tend to either stress the hard security aspect of the current status quo or emphasise harsh criticism of North Korea while simultaneously posing Japan as a victim. Furthermore, the findings suggest that the Self as well as the Other are rather fluid and context dependent. Given the link between Japanese politics and media, outlets with a high level of trustworthiness and credibility may significantly influence the readers' perception of their own identity and security. Ultimately, this raises questions about the possibility of the country's normalisation of its foreign and security policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between China and Korea is completed, and one among China, Japan and Korea (CJK) is being discussed, a renewed attention is given to the three countries' efforts to establish a Northeast Asian regional standards cooperation mechanism. In this paper, two ICT-oriented standards cooperative programs among the three countries, CJK-SITE and CJK-ITSM, are selected as a research setting and examined. The analysis indicates that the slow progress of CJK ICT standards cooperation can be explained by two conflicting perspectives: techno-regionalism and techno-nationalism. From the techno-regionalism perspective, standards cooperation will position CJK at a more strategic standing to effectively respond to the ever-intensifying global standards wars over the international ICT market. However, there exist significant gaps among the three countries as to why and how to purse the standards cooperation. The authors attribute the gaps to techno-nationalism which dominates the agenda of each country's national standardization policy. Despite the apparent rationales for regional cooperation, as a Chinese proverb says, it seems that the three countries go to 'the same bed with different dreams'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a complex and emerging phenomenon, nationalism presents a serious challenge to international marketers, with no exception to the field of tourism. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence in understanding the role of nationalism in tourist travel intention. A qualitative research approach with in-depth interview and on-site observation was adopted to bridge this gap during the Diaoyu/Senkaku Island Incident between China and Japan since late 2012. In particular, this study seeks to shed light on the influence of nationalism on Chinese tourists. A nationalism dynamics model has been established to explore and explain different segments of tourists based on their self-perceived level of nationalism. The findings of this paper offer important implications for both scholars and practitioners in their strategic responses to this challenging nationalism phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1968 two generations of Japanese photographers came together to research and curate the most comprehensive exhibition of the history of Japanese photography to date. Examining five hundred thousand photographs from public and private collections across the archipelago, they ultimately presented 1,640 images in a widely attended Tokyo exhibition. Moving beyond photographic nationalism, A Century of Japanese Photography was one of the only instances of public critique of the role of photographers who collaborated with the Japanese state during the Fifteen Year War (1931–45) and the exhibition's popularity launched the movement to build the largest photography museum in Japan. Through analysis of the exhibition and establishment of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, I illuminate how the process of writing the first major history of Japanese photography and building an institution to house its archive was a practice informed by the changing meanings of the role of photographers and museums within Japanese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, the study of "religion" and "martial arts" is a lacuna of the field in Religious Studies in which the depth of association has long gone unrecognised. What little study there is, however, suffers from a practitioner's bias in that those writing on martial arts are also attempting to promote the agenda of their own discipline. This paper attempts a more critical approach to show the study of martial arts can contribute to the ongoing problematisation of "religion" as an analytic category, particularly in its relation to "the secular" and "nationalism". To do this I will draw on the philosophical phenomenology of Husserl, Sartre and Schutz to argue that "religions", "nationalisms" and "martial arts" are all names given to modes of naturalisation. By this I mean they are means by which a person "fits" within their life-world and deals with the problems of surviving and thriving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the relationship between Christian education and the construction of female gentility in East Asia around the turn of the twentieth century. Because American missionary schools played an important role in the region, notions of female gentility were greatly influenced by the cultural values of the American middle class and, more specifically, American liberal arts colleges. The notion of the "new gentlewoman" helps to illuminate modern Protestant womanhood's ambiguous relationship with feminism and nationalism. Recognizing that the Protestant notion of "female gentility" was internally racialized, in this study, I also pay attention to the question of race. While the scope of my research spans East Asia, in this paper, I examine Christian education in China, focusing specifically on Yenching Women's College. I compare the college's educational goals and curricula to the pedagogy at the male college of Yenching, the governmental women's college, and other female colleges in Japan and Korea. In this study, I approach East Asia as a whole for several reasons: first, because a broader view of the region helps put the Chinese case into perspective; second, because the region was often dealt with together in missionary work; and lastly, because national differences cannot be assumed to be more substantial than other differences, such as those based on gender, class, generation, period, and province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observers of East Asia frequently claim that Japanese nationalism is on the rise, and that Tokyo is abandoning its longtime military restraint. To determine whether these trends are indeed occurring, we define and measure Japan's nationalism and military assertiveness; we measure whether they are rising relative to Japan in the past, and relative to seven other countries. Drawing from social identity theory, we distinguish between "nationalism" and a more benign "patriotism." We find in Japan (1) strong patriotism that is stable over time, and no evidence of rising nationalism. Furthermore we find that (2) military assertiveness remains generally low, but it has risen in terms of decreased institutional constraints and peacekeeping activities. Our findings have important implications for academic debates about nationalism and Japanese security policy, and for policy debates about a nascent balancing effort against China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is well known that regime types affect international conflicts. This article explores political parties as a mechanism through which they do so. Political parties operate in fundamentally different ways in democracies vs. non-democracies, which has consequences for foreign policy. Core supporters of a party in a democracy, if they are hawkish, may be more successful at demanding hawkish behavior from their party representatives than would be their counterparts in an autocracy. The study draws on evidence from paired experiments in democratic Japan and non-democratic China to show that supporters of the ruling party in Japan punish their leaders for discouraging nationalist protests, while ruling party insiders in China are less likely to do so. Under some circumstances, then, non-democratic regimes may be better able to rein in peace-threatening displays of nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discussions on Japanese whaling, a common question is why Japan appears indifferent to international pressure (gaiatsu) on the issue, that is, why it continues to flout the international anti- whaling "norm" despite widespread criticism and condemnation. The key to answering this question is to examine why the anti-whaling "norm" resonates so poorly in the domestic sphere. This paper argues that the impotence of international pressure to curb Japanese whaling can only be understood by examining how whaling has come to be reactively defined in the domestic debate not as an issue of conservation and environmental protection but as a symbol of national identity and pride. The paper concludes that because whaling is framed as a key marker of "Japanese- ness", international pressure is counter-productive as it merely serves to stoke the fires of nationalism, creating an atmosphere in which anti-whaling opinion is seen as "anti-Japanese". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study examines the goals of 13 Japanese graduate students who studied abroad, and situates those goals in the larger context of Japanese society. The study abroad objectives of the Japanese government and some Japanese universities are compared and problematised. The authors conducted three interviews of each study abroad participant separately in English and Japanese, once before and twice after they studied abroad for one to four months. The purpose of the interviews was to determine, in detail, the students' goals and expectations before going abroad and what they could accomplish after their short-term studies abroad. It was found that 7 out 13 students indicated that they could accomplish their research goals, and many students felt a greater sense of confidence and worldliness and said they improved their English language skills. All but one student felt that the study abroad experience had changed them in positive ways. Except for learning English and being globally minded, the goals of the government, universities and students did not seem to match and there were no formal evaluation systems set up for comprehensively measuring and determining if students are actually achieving any goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have generally taken a "diffusionist" view of the rise of national standard languages—the state pushes for the wider adoption of such languages, and other forces (principally economic modernization) facilitate its diffusion. But such a view is too mechanistic and Eurocentric, and an examination of other, less-familiar cases lends itself to a revised interpretation. Amid Western imperialism and the rise of nationalism in East Asia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a massive shift in language practices took place between about 1870 and 1950, as regional hegemony shifted from China to Japan. Bound for two millennia by their common use of Classical Chinese, elite literati in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam all moved away from that abstruse lingua franca and turned to the creation of new national vernaculars. I argue for a more "integrationist" perspective: language nationalization was a state-led and top-down process directed at remaking society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Out of a concern with the often implicit western‐centricity of theories of nationalism which are currently dominant, the article proposes to shift the focus of analysis onto the working of human agency in our understanding of nations and nationalism. Drawing from insights from the history of ideas, it argues that, contrary to the modernist account, the rise of nationalism of Japan can be traced back to the rise of Kokugaku in the eighteenth century when westernisation/modernisation had not yet reached Japan. Kokugaku scholars were engaged with intense collective self‐reflection and proposed answers to the question who the Japanese were and what Japan should be without adopting the formula of national imagination generated in the West. The article suggests that a focus on human agency has the potential to free inquires into non‐western parts of the world from the deeply embedded western‐centricity of conventional social theories, thus enriching our understanding of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyze the influence of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō's nationalist stance on Japan's policy towards China from a neoclassical realist perspective. It is argued that the extent to which Abe's ideological leaning exerted impact on foreign policy making depended on external stimuli, as well as Abe's domestic political interests. Prime Minister Abe generally perceived China as a threat to Japan, and remained assertive towards it, but he also pragmatically displayed flexibility in such areas as history issues, security policy, and territorial dispute. This article analyzes these complex developments in light of the changes in international environment and domestic politics, examining three periods: Abe's first administration (2006–2007); the escalation of diplomatic disputes with China (2012–2014); and gradual rapprochement with China (since 2014). It is concluded that the nationalist beliefs of decision makers affect foreign policy to the greatest extent whenever they are in line with other kinds of variables, such as external pressures and domestic interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the nature of Japan's foreign policy formulation and legitimization through a study of its interaction with Central Asian countries. The article examines foreign policy discourse that constructs Japan's "self" vis-à-vis Central Asian "other." It reveals the textual mechanism through which reality, objects, and subjects are constructed, and it interprets the official statements contained in several foreign policy initiatives, in particular, the "Eurasian (Silk Road) Diplomacy," the "Central Asia plus Japan," and the "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity," as an attempt to understand the intersubjective knowledge and analytical lens through which Japanese foreign policy makers conceive and interpret the constructed "reality," produce foreign policy choices, and choose among identified alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Culinary nationalism is not unique to Japan, although its performance by the Japanese government has received significant attention and criticism as exemplified in its so-called "sushi police" program. This and other counterpart programs were explicit attempts to "authenticate" Japanese food abroad, which the government eventually rescinded in response to backlash from within and outside Japan. However, new, diversified, and intensified forms of "authentication" and "certification" systems for Japanese food have been created by the government in recent years, apparently reinvigorated by the inscription of Japanese food, that is, washoku, as Intangible Heritage under the UNESCO in 2013. This article investigates culinary nationalism among the proponents of Japanese food in the context of the heritagization of washoku, with particular reference to the accreditation and certification systems for Japanese food. A number of quasi-official recognition schemes for Japanese restaurants abroad were already in place before heritage inscription, but current systems have taken on a renewed vigor in light of UNESCO recognition. Government-sponsored culinary competitions have also emerged in the period around the inscription; the performance of nationalism in such contexts are also examined, especially through the case of sushi, perhaps the most representative of Japanese food. Subsequently, the social and cultural contexts as well as the consequences of culinary nationalism in Japan are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While some countries take relatively generous attitudes towards immigrants, other countries retain illiberal stances towards them. Why can the latter retain their first strict immigration policies? What mechanism would guide the countries towards more liberal attitudes? This article addresses these questions, with focusing on refugee policy in Japan. Japan has kept its strict and illiberal policy on accepting refugees. In 2016, she recognised only 26 cases as refugees among 10,901 asylum applications. Why can Japan retain its strict and illiberal refugee policy? Firstly, due to the sudden dissolution of the empire after World War II, the mono-ethnic understanding of nationhood and citizenship has remained in Japan. Then, in the institutional aspect, the Ministry of Justice retains its power in charge of immigration and refugee policies. Although there is a sign that international pressure makes the illiberal refugee policy a bit lax, like recently having an increasing number of asylum applicants from various countries and accepting Syrians as students not as refugees, no decisive factor is found to guide Japan towards more generous stance to accept refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses how Spanish and Japanese Social Science textbooks represent Europe and Asia discursively, and in what way the national viewpoint from each country is manifested in that representation. We analysed 15 textbooks used in secondary schools, and we focused on Geography and Civic Education subjects. Our analysis was developed mainly at semantic levels, and we examined the terms ‘Europe’ and ‘Asia’ answering four interrelated questions. We found that in both countries’ textbooks, Europe is in general described in a positive or even idealized way as a developed and rich region, whereas Asia has a reverse negative image. Underlying this opposition, we can observe a Western ethnocentric view which takes Western development as the implicit standard to rank all societies hierarchically and builds discursively the dichotomy between developed and underdeveloped countries. ‘Our’ country’s position in the world is also conditioned by this Western-centred perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion can be an effective instrument in politics. This has been a phenomenon all over the ages and different political contexts. Politicians utilise religion in order to gain political goals. This paper wants to investigate the reasons why religion is such an effective instrument within politics. The investigation is as much a historical investigation as it is descriptive. After careful analysis of contexts, a deduction is made to reach an understanding of the reasons for the political use of religion. The author identified through investigating two examples (i.e. politics in South Africa and Japan) several elements to consider when discussing religion within politics: (a.) no separation between spheres of existence, (b.) culture of religious participation in politics, (c.) politics and religion touch emotional and sentimental chords, (d.) religion contributes to national identity, (e.) religion can provide a claim to divine approval of political decisions, (f.) religious communities are effective partners in implementing government policies. The author consciously decided not to investigate the relationship between Islam and politics as different elements play a role in such considerations.

This study investigates the shifting discourse and visual rhetoric of consumer rituals in the cultural media during wartime. Specifically, we examine Japanese newspaper advertisements for seasonal gifts and sympathy gifts in urban cities published between 1937 and 1940. This research addresses two questions: (1) how were advertising arguments constructed justifying spending for gifts while instructing readers on being thrifty during the wartime material shortages, and (2) how was the consumer ritual practice of gift giving used to propagate nationalism? The results of our iconographic-semiotic analysis show four advertising themes: compatibility with national policy, timeliness under the wartime circumstances, empathy with families whose members were serving at the front, and sympathy with those serving at the front. The advertisements enhanced nationalism in two ways: (1) through the promotion of nationalistic gift giving, and (2) by appealing to patriotism, which involves emotionally laden nationalistic sentiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between Japan and the Republic of Korea remains puzzling according to international relations theory. The two countries have failed to develop stable peace relationships even though they are both democracies, bound to each other by security arrangements with the United States, and have considerable interdependence between them. So, why have these two countries failed to produce equitable trust? Scholars tend to focus either on structural causes, or nationalistic actions and remarks by political leaders as possible reasons. While these reasons may explain their unstable relationship, it does not explain the worsening public perception in both countries. This article advances domestic economic inequality, which has been largely neglected in the literature, and argues that the growing economic inequality has aggravated the public's opinion. Findings from statistical analyses and case-study methods largely show that public opinion with nationalistic movements have fluctuated following the growing socio-economic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In September 2012, the Japanese celebrity and porn star Sora Aoi posted two messages on her Sina Weibo account expressing friendship between Japanese and Chinese citizens. The messages elicited more than 200,000 comments, ranging from virulently anti-Japanese to supportive. These comments are a unique corpus that captures how netizens engage in what Chinese scholars term online verbal violence. Using mixed methods to examine this corpus, this article identifies misogynistic and nationalist slurs and examines how these slurs are used, particularly when they interact with each other. These words not only express strong emotion or engage fellow commenters, but they also reference historical events and emphatically convey one's national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anticipating the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, this article uses the triple axel jump, one of the most challenging moves in women’s figure skating, as a heuristic device to track representations of Japanese skaters Ito Midori and Asada Mao in the New York Times and Asahi Shimbun. Ito and Asada are two of only six women to have landed triple axels at international figure skating competitions. Employing affect and feminist theories, I argue that constructions of the skaters’ bodies are not just gendered and heteronormative, but also sexed, raced, and affective. Using discourse analysis, I trace how media representations of Ito and Asada redraw global color lines and national boundaries in sport and negotiate different femininities, underscoring excessive feelings and physical appearance. Contributing to feminist sport studies and transnational feminist cultural studies, this comparative analysis offers new perspectives on women’s sports in Japan and athleticism’s relation to race, femininities, and national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For several decades South Koreans have rallied around the Dokdo/Takeshima islets, small rocky outcroppings in the East Sea/Sea of Japan. There have been significant mobilization efforts by the Korean government, opposition parties, media, and civic groups that stir up a strong level of nationalism in South Korea. Why is public opinion about Dokdo, as the islets are named by Koreans, so fierce in South Korea despite the fact that South Korea has maintained effective control of the islets for over 50 years? How can public opinion and territorial nationalism affect dispute resolution? In this research project, we argue that domestic mobilization, stalwart public opinion, and strong territorial nationalism exist primarily because the islets symbolize other salient issues disputed with Japan and such issue linkage makes the territorial dispute difficult to resolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]