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Copyright of Journal of Theory & Practice in Education (JTPE) / Eğitimde Kuram ve Uygulama is the property of Journal of Theory & Practice in Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Japan has been criticised internationally for its reluctance to accept refugees. In the late 1970s, however, the Japanese government decided to implement special measures to accept refugees from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Between 1978 and 2005, 11,319 Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled in Japan. In this article, I analyse newspaper discourses on the acceptance of Indo-Chinese refugees and the subsequent arrivals of Chinese asylum seekers in Japan. While opening Japan's borders and accepting Indo-Chinese refugees was perceived favourably as a process Japan should experience from the 1970s to the late 1980s, asylum seekers arriving by sea in Japan were perceived as a threat in 1989, when many Chinese were found to be included among them. I explore these changing newspaper discourses with reference to the concepts of national identity, kokusaika and governmental belonging. Any discussion of the acceptance of others into a nation becomes inextricably bound up with the notion of national identity. In the case of Japan in the 1970 and 1980s, the concept of kokusaika (internationalisation) was pertinent because it intersected with such discussions. A theoretical perspective is offered by Ghassan Hage's notion of 'governmental belonging', whereby those in a dominant position claim the power to position others in the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US media's coverage of the comfort women issue has primarily focused on three main aspects: human rights, nationalist conflict, and security. First, American newspapers and magazines asked the Japanese government to apologize to the former comfort women by revealing the misery of their lives through a discussion of human rights. However, that discussion not only reflected the East-West power imbalance, but even served to promote voyeurism and sexual fantasies. Second, following the end of the Cold War, as tensions between South Korea and Japan over the issue have escalated, US media have increasingly taken a position as middleman, indifferent to the history of these women. The US media have scolded both South Korea and Japan for their nationalistic conflict. Third, the US media began to employ a security discourse on the comfort women issue as the controversy between South Korea and Japan deteriorated to a level that threatened the interests of the United States in East Asia and disrupted the Obama administration's "Pivot to Asia" strategy. US media have played the role of midwife for the birth of the 2015 South Korea-Japan Comfort Women Agreement by shaping and disseminating a security discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Issues regarding nationalism have been increasing since the 1990s on an international scale. This article reviews and summarizes the current state of sociological studies concerning Japanese nationalism and the changes therein, as many sociologists in Japan have focused on nationalism and its related problems. The first half of the article examines historical sociological studies about the emergence and development of nationalism in Japan, which demystify the fictions concerning Japan's ethnic and cultural homogeneity and describe the specific historical roots of this myth. The latter half of the article reviews various aspects of modern sociological works on Japanese nationalism. While some studies empirically show various forms of nationalism, others demonstrate political components of Japanese nationalism or inquire about this recent phenomenon and related issues that have arisen since the 2010s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the impact of nationalism and interstate frictions on international economic relations by analyzing market reaction to adverse shocks to Sino-Japanese relations in 2005 and 2010. Japanese companies with high China exposure suffer relative declines during each event window; a symmetric effect is observed for Chinese companies with high Japanese exposure. The effect on Japanese companies is more pronounced for those operating in industries dominated by Chinese state-owned enterprises, whereas firms with high Chinese employment experience lower declines. These results emphasize the role of countries' economic and political institutions in mediating the impact of interstate frictions on firm-level outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

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]

In this study we examined what are the markers of immigrant naturalisation as seen from the perspectives of recipient nationals. Social markers are perceptual signposts that receiving nationals use in deciding whether a non-native born is a member of the destination country. In short, what should immigrants do in order to be accepted by receiving nationals as "one of us". Cross national data on 20 indicators of "everyday nationhood" were collected from five countries – Singapore, Japan, Australia, Finland, and Canada. The markers highlight common dispositions, activities, or social norms that are associated with citizenship. Exploratory factor analysis in each sample consistently demonstrated a two-factor structure model that supports the contemporary ethnic-civic distinction, but the markers that make up each of the two dimensions vary between countries. No metric equivalence was found, and that the markers have culture-specific meanings. The framework offers a novel insight to intercultural relations. The results suggest that adaptation and social inclusion need to consider the norms and values practised in the recipient society, and how immigration may redefine intergroup boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observing the apparently anomalous retention of pre-capitalist forms amid rapid economic transformation, Marxists in early 20th-century Japan grappled with the theoretical challenges posed by a set of practices that did not adhere to the presumed teleology of capitalist development. In response, they proposed a sophisticated treatment of nationalism as an essential (but inherently temporary) stabilizing feature of capitalism, requiring constant reinvention as part of capitalism's fundamentally unstable and contradictory growth process. The validity of this treatment can be witnessed today with respect to populist backlashes in Europe and North America, and strident nationalist and even genocidal state policies in South Asia, amid a general stalling of the neoliberal globalization project that has increasingly been seen to fail in the unfolding aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009. [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]

As in much of the world, the Coronovirus pandemic has dominated South Korean politics in 2020. Compared to other countries, Seoul's approach has been highly nationalist and politicized, as the ruling party lauded its pandemic response as the global standard and linked it to a larger, leftist-nationalist agenda. This "pandemic-leftist" discourse peaked around the April 15 midterm elections, but subsided the following month, as domestic and foreign setbacks arose. To explain, firstly, a competitive-nationalist race to flatten the infection curve encouraged the government to infringe on the civil liberties of infected patients, and society to stigmatize them. Other countries contained Covid-19 without such rights violations and stigma. Secondly, critics distinguished between the government's relative success in pandemic response and its general failures in economic and foreign policies. Instead of asking other countries to learn from one's country, each country would do well to learn from the experiences of others and to continually improve its own policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses a case involving the dismissal of a tenured faculty member at Hiroshima City University of Japan. The university dismissed a Korean woman associate professor after filing a criminal complaint against her, leading to a house raid, her arrest and media coverage. After 11 days of detention, the Hiroshima Prosecutor's Office decided not to indict her because they could not find criminal intent on her part. With the suspicion of the university's fabrication of her criminality looming large, she was dismissed within a few hours of her release. The university's attempt to purge a critical foreign faculty member from the university campus, faculty housing and the country of Japan was an almost complete success until the case became an international controversy with counter-media exposure and the formation of a transnational support network. This case reveals a volatile mixture of race- and gender-based discrimination, administrative incompetence and politicised financial subsidy as a backdrop to violations of human rights and academic freedom. The present article shows that the rights' violations in this case are closely connected to rising nationalism, the politicisation of educational subsidy and ideological human agencies with a set of professional agendas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses how the approach towards sexual minorities has shifted from exclusion to inclusion between the mid‐1980s and the present, and explores how the view that Japan is more tolerant of sexual minorities than the USA and Europe actually limits discussions on citizenship. An examination of the AIDS crisis and the Fuchu Youth Center court case in the 1980s and 1990s shows that gay men were regarded as a threat to national identity, seen to endanger Japan and whose sexuality was deemed to be unintelligible. In a word, their citizenship was denied. In the 2010s the ruling Liberal Democratic party issued a report on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) issues, which examined measures aimed at achieving equality for those who suffer from SOGI discrimination. While sexual minorities became an object of inclusion, only partial and circumscribed citizenship was granted. Although the report ostensibly aims to promote SOGI diversity, it relegates the existence of minorities to the private sphere, and limits diversity by demanding the acceptance of a "tolerant culture" predicated on heterosexism and gender norms. By positioning their diversity effort in Japan's "tolerant traditional culture," the party inadvertently incorporates nationalism and renders it central to their approach towards SOGI diversity. This article concludes that the discourse that the Japanese state is tolerant of sexual minorities undermines the recognition of sexual minorities' citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s the "comfort women" system has received much attention in Japanese academic research, media, and society. This article first introduces the foundation built by historians such as Yoshimi Yoshiaki (吉見義明) who have combed through historical data, and their debates with right-wing nationalists on critical issues such as coercion in the "comfort women" system and "comfort women" becoming "sex slaves." Then it summarizes how gender studies scholars like Ueno Chizuko (上野千鹤子) use oral histories and memory studies methods to explore the position of survivors and analyze the foundation of empirical histories, rethinking and critiquing the patriarchal legacies, gender oppression, and nationalistic mindset manifested in the issue of "comfort women." Finally the article will zoom in on the discussion in Japan sparked by the Park Yu-ha (朴裕河) book Comfort Women of the Empire (Korean: Cheguk ŭi wianbu, Japanese: Teikoku no ianfu, Chinese: Diguo de weianfu) to reveal how Japanese scholars used the opportunity to further the focus on "comfort women's" subjectivity and the rich and varied nature of the original history and thus more deeply rethink issues of imperialism, colonialism, and nationalism. [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]

It is generally accepted that the "invention of tradition" is the product of two combined phenomena : on the one hand, government intervention in the economy resulting from the establishment of contemporary nation-states, and on the other hand, the process of "commodification". In Japan, the "commodification of traditions" is being carried out at a tremendous pace in the run-up to the Tokyo Olympics. The short-term objective is to attract foreign tourists to Japan in order to stimulate the country's economy, and at present, the search for a "Profitable Cultural Heritage" has become the driving force of the Japanese nation's cultural and economic policies. The Edo period, during which a traditional culture created by the people was born, is at the heart of this process of commodification. The "commodification of Edo", which appears through clothing trends, historical fictions and movies, and also video games, tends to present a one-sided vision of this period, a vision of a society devoid of any contradiction, which is at the origin of what we will call "representations of the Good Old Edo." Moreover, the construction of these "representations" also constitutes a means for the nation-state to encourage the integration of a national consciousness among Japanese people, leading them to turn away from current problems to contemplate with nostalgia the traditions of a happy society. After first analyzing the constitution and evolution of "representations of the Good Old Edo", we will examine in detail the creation of the "Tokyo cultural resources district," which is at the heart of a series of political measures aimed at transforming cultural heritage assets into tourist resources, and at the center of the cultural program of the Tokyo Olympics. Finally, we will highlight in a concrete way the various problems related to this project. Beyond the matter of the Tokyo Olympics, it seems important to us that historians get to work in order to counter the wave of cultural nationalism caused by the spread of these "representations of the Good Old Edo". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is about family, community, and war memory. It is based on oral histories from Kin Town in Okinawa, Japan, an agricultural community and the site of Camp Hansen, a military base for U.S. Marines. Before World War II, emigrants from Kin migrated to Hawai'i, the Americas, and the Philippines. This article describes their experiences during World War II in the Philippines and it also discusses why memories of Davao and the Philippines continue to be a source of conflicting emotions for members of this community, several of whom were repatriates, and their extended families. [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]

The article discusses the efforts by evangelical Christians in Japan to oppose the planned amendments to the country's constitution. Also cited are the plan by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to establish Japan's self-defence force, the ecclesiology of Abraham Kuyper as a guide for Christians to oppose issues related to nationalism in Japan, and the support of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo of the proposed constitutional revision.

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]

During the Second World War, the Japanese state enacted sweeping education reforms designed to prime the population for Total War. The policies of the National Education Ordinance of 1941 aimed to strengthen collective loyalty and self-sacrifice for the state. Military drill and ceremonial rituals were the outward manifestation of wartime education. But this article examines how teachers borrowed an aspect of progressive 'whole-person' education from the more liberal pre-war era—'daily life writing' (seikatsu tsuzurikata)—to shape children's dispositions and consciousness. Through such reflective diary writing, children would learn to internalize the ideal behaviours and attributes of the Total War civilian. By comparing education discourse with samples of children's writings, teachers' written feedback, and interviews of former students of an elementary school affiliated with the Ministry of Education, I show how reflective diary writing, despite its progressive origins as a means of self-expression for self-actualization and social critique, could be co-opted by right-wing Japanese ultra-nationalism for its potential as a means of self-censorship, self-monitoring, and self-control. At the same time, its practice did help children endure the hardships of war and defeat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to establish that there is a correlation between the sociolinguistic identities of high school students and their productive English-speaking abilities. The paper initially explains the basic concept of sociolinguistic identity and refers to various aspects of research into Japanese national identity to analyse how these may influence the learning of English in Japan. Secondly, the participants’ specific context is detailed and reasoning for the relevance of the two tasks that are put to them is provided. Following on from this, the methods of data collection and analysis are described. Results posit that learners with a greater interest in English-speaking cultures are more likely to interact competently, and in turn, having stronger productive skills correlates positively with the rejection of an anti-English sentiment. The paper ends with a brief discussion on how cultural constraints in Japan affect English expression and the importance of emerging trends such as “international posture” (Yashima, 2002). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In popular narratives, intellectual and media analysts believe the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute between China and Japan is a contestation for potential hydrocarbon reserves and other maritime rights which are per se divisible, but nationalism – particularly on China side – and relative power change between the two competing claimants make these territories increasingly indivisible and the dispute war-prone. Based on a review over People's Daily's coverage of the disputes and other secondary information, this article reveals a different scenario by highlighting the political meanings of disputed territories for national cohesion and regime self-preservation. It finds, Beijing's strategic moves in the disputes are influenced by its efforts at different occasions to de-legitimate Republic of China at Taiwan and defend its core interests – namely Taiwan and the "One-China" principle, to appease the patriotism in Hong Kong and facilitate the latter's stable reversion to China in 1990s, and what is more, to rally popular support at home. In addition, Beijing's Diaoyu/Senkaku strategy did not follow a carefully calculated path, but was mostly reactive to the contingencies and ultimately took shape through the incremental accumulation of previous policies and behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Free and easy access to an unusually rich variety of sources (primarily books, newspapers, and periodicals) is the hallmark of the Database of Sources Concerning the War of Resistance against Japan and Modern Sino-Japanese Relations (Kang Ri zhanzheng yu jindai Zhong Ri guanxi wenxian shuju pingtai), launched in 2017. Continuously expanding with new uploads, this database contains both familiar and rare sources for the study of not just the two topics that make up the database name but also many other aspects of Republican China. [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 study explores how a zainichi (residing in Japan) Korean athlete reveals often-concealed postcolonial and post-Cold War tensions revolving around ethnic essentialism and nationalism in East Asia. The focus of the study is Jong Tae-se, a third generation zainichi Korean football player who has become a star in Japan, North Korea and South Korea. By examining media representations and online responses to Jong in South Korea as well as his autobiographies written in both Korean and Japanese, it is explained how Jong, as a zainichi Korean sport celebrity, both represents the arbitrariness of nation-ness and reproduces unresolved geopolitical and historical issues of postcolonial East Asia. Whereas his mobility, multilingual capability and fluid belongingness may signal changing dynamics of national-ness in East Asia, this analysis also reveals that his media discourses keep him tethered to anti-Japan and anti-communist sentiments. Such vicissitudes of the discourses around him attest that colonial and Cold War memories and historical wounds continue to be conjured in contemporary East Asia. Ultimately, this study discusses both the possibilities and the limits of a zainichi Korean subjectivity as a de-colonial tool for destabilizing national, colonial, and Cold War ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the strength of national identification and intergroup attitudes of Chinese youth (n = 591, aged 12-15) toward the Chinese, the Americans, the Japanese, and the South Koreans. The participants were asked to fill in a questionnaire and write down reasons why they 'like' or 'dislike' the four groups. The results showed a consistency in in-group favoritism. Gender and age were both related to Chinese youths' national identifications and their national intergroup attitudes. Confucian ethics, media influence and historical complex were identified as main factors that may contribute to their attitudes toward the four groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the Japanese colonial period, Korea's reading public paid close attention to Chinese revolutions against Japanese and Western empires. Korean nationalists viewed China's revolutionary struggles as important for liberating Korea from Japan, a stance that reveals a transnational basis of Korean nationalism in the colonial era. One such nationalist was Sin Ŏnjun (1904–38), Tong'a Ilbo 's Shanghai-based correspondent, who played a critical role in conveying the momentous events in contemporary China to colonized Koreans. Drawing on Sin's example, this article shows how Sino-Korean transnationalism constituted Korea's left-wing, progressive nationalism in the 1930s. Although Sin Ŏnjun was a nationalist rather than a communist, he highlighted the communist struggles in China in his dispatches. He saw communism as the only viable way of solving China's internal and external problems, although he, at the same time, disapproved of Chinese communists' "terrorist methods." This article argues that this position also reflected his stance in favor of a broad communist-nationalist alliance in the Korean independence movement. He saw Korea's liberation agenda as closely related to the revolutionary events in China, thus accomplishing a synthesis between Korean nationalistic and social aspirations and an East Asia–wide transnational paradigm of a universal emancipatory struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss migration, nationalism and immigration regime in Japan.

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]

Policymakers in Japan have adopted a discourse to link the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to the recovery of Japan's northern Tohoku region following the March 2011 triple disaster (3.11). This discourse has created a dissonance between 3.11-affected communities, policy-makers and wider Japan. To understand this dissonance, this article explores the implicit agendas behind Japan's Olympics efforts (such as positioning sports as a facilitator and symbol of recovery), its Cool Japan initiative (as a nation-branding and nation-building strategy) and other actions (such as labelling the 2020 event 'the Reconstruction Olympics'). It then analyses the opinions of people from affected areas, gathered through interview research and from popular media, to demonstrate that the use of recovery rhetoric to promote the Olympics is being poorly received among some in 3.11-affected communities. Community concerns circle around availability of construction resources as well as the fact that recovery is not yet complete. This article contends that the events of 3.11, combined with the pursuit of the Olympics, has effected changes in the social imaginary and in regional ideas of belonging among 3.11-affected communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Mirai. Estudios Japoneses is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

What are the consequences of nationalist unrest? This paper utilizes two original datasets, which cover 377 city-level anti-Japanese protests during the 2012 Senkaku/Diaoyu Island crisis and the careers of municipal leaders, to analyse the downstream effects of nationalist unrest at the subnational level. We find both political and economic consequences of China's 2012 protest demonstrations against Japan. Specifically, top Party leaders in cities that saw relatively spontaneous, early protests were less likely to be promoted to higher office, a finding that is consistent with the widely held but rarely tested expectation that social instability is punished in the Chinese Communist Party's cadre evaluation system. We also see a negative effect of nationalist protest on foreign direct investment (FDI) growth at the city level. However, the lower promotion rates associated with relatively spontaneous protests appear to arise through political rather than economic channels. By taking into account data on social unrest in addition to economic performance, these results add to existing evidence that systematic evaluation of leaders' performance plays a major role in the Chinese political system. These findings also illuminate the dilemma that local leaders face in managing popular nationalism amid shifting national priorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1968, the conservative Japanese government of Prime Minister Satō Eisaku mounted a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of the 1868 'Meiji Restoration' that had launched Japan's modern era. Although the government took pains to make the commemoration seem non-political, the centennial aroused fierce opposition among those on the left, who feared it represented an effort to revive aspects of pre-World War II militarism. The resistance was led by Japanese historians, who felt the view of the previous 100 years promoted by the government clashed with an alternative understanding of Japan's history indicated by their professional research and training. This article examines the nature and scope of the 1968 Meiji centennial, elucidates why historians in particular were so opposed to it, and investigates the real aims for the celebration on the part of the conservative Satō government, as revealed in the private minutes of the government's planning committee. Ultimately, the historians' fears were partially justified: the government did intend the centennial to revive Japanese nationalism and patriotism along pre-war lines, as shown by their close modeling of the main ceremony on an earlier fascist ceremony - the 1940 celebration of the 2600th anniversary of Imperial rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a critical appraisal of the Abe Cabinet's plans to orchestrate a national celebration of the 150th anniversary of Meiji in 2018, following the example of the Meiji Centennial celebrations of 1968. The article begins by introducing some of the criticisms voiced at the time of the 1968 Centennial by prominent Japanese historians such as Tōyama Shigeki and Yamaguchi Keiji, who saw clear links between the post-war celebration of Meiji and broader efforts to revive Japanese nationalism and promote the long-term goal of re-militarization. It goes on to consider some of the public statements that have been made by Prime Minister Abe regarding 'Meiji 150ʹ and explores the significant gap between the government's vision of the significance of Meiji and the perspectives that emerge from scholarship on the Restoration period produced in recent decades by historians in both Japan and the English-speaking world. It concludes with a brief consideration of the divide that separated Japan's post-war historians from some of their American colleagues in the 1960s, and the role that scholars today have to play in combating the manipulation of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction provides a brief overview of some of the ways the Meiji Restoration is being commemorated at home and around the world in this sesquicentennial year. Doing so demonstrates the complexity of this history and current remembrances of the event and the new era it launched. It also serves to introduce the six essays in this volume, and the ways they problematize the Meiji national paradigm to reveal inherent tensions between the development of Japanese nation-building and nationalism and the country's engagement with globalizing forces. Focusing on the idea of "Global Meiji" highlights the era as both national and global. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's new treaties with the Western powers came into force in the summer of 1899. These signified Japan's recognition as a modern state, but also opened the whole of Japan to residence and commerce for the nationals of the Western powers. This article examines Japan's legislative response to this new era of both political equality and expanded foreign intercourse and exchange. This comprised two new laws, Japan's first nationality law and new entry restrictions, both of which defined the boundaries of Japanese identity. The West played a paramount role in the crafting of these laws, but often forgotten is the role played by China. By examining the international contexts and the debates that attended the passage of these laws, this article shows that each law enacted a form of exclusion: the former sought to mitigate Western influence, while the latter sought to minimize Chinese immigration. Together, they reflected Japan's international position between two others: China and the West. [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]

Reviews the papers `Army as Bureaucracy: Japanese Militarism Revisited,' and Arthur Waldron, `War and the Rise of Nationalism in Twentieth-Century China.' Essential and distinctive elements of the Western way of war; Militarization as vital part of modernity.

Kosaku Yoshino is one of the few Japanese sociologists who bravely pioneered to tackle the thorny issue of nationalism in postwar Japan I from a sociological perspective i . Kosaku's contributions to the study of nationalism in general, and Japanese nationalism in particular, have been noteworthy and well recognized, particularly in those positive reviews of his celebrated book I Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan i ([4]). Kosaku perceptively points to the call for a "wholesome" ( I kenzen na i ) nationalism in postwar Japan, and he distinguished between two types: the resurgent cultural nationalism and the prudent revivalist nationalism. [Extracted from the article]

Why do conservative nationalists in Japan continuously seek to revise the constitution despite the past failures, and what is the likelihood of successful revision and its impact on Japan's norm of pacifism and its use of force? The article offers an analytical framework for the issue based on national pride and national security, and argues that the ‘revisionists’ seek to create a new national identity, one that infuses a greater sense of national pride among the public and enables the exercise of collective self-defense, thereby removing Japan's postwar psychological and institutional limitations on nationalism and military activities. The LDP's 2012 draft is most explicit and ambitious in this regard, with the current revision attempt under Abe having the highest chance of success since the 1950s. Successful revision would significantly expand Japan's security activities, particularly within the framework of the US-Japan Security Alliance, and entail the end of Japan's unique postwar institutionalized pacifism, although the norm of pacifism will linger on as a constitutional principle. For a smoother return to the international military scene, the Japanese government must distance itself from historical revisionism and utilize its enhanced military role to promote regional public goods rather than merely protecting its narrow national interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, many critical Japanese Studies scholars have problematized nihonjinron discourses, which overemphasize Japanese uniqueness and its exclusive nature, as a manifestation of cultural nationalism for establishing ethnonational identity. Similarly, Japanese journalists and online writers have also begun to criticize the recent rampant praise of Japan in mass media as cultural nationalism. The present study explores this issue through a close analysis of a television variety show entitled Bukkomi Japanīzu 3 [Sneaking in a Japanese Expert 3] aired in 2014. Recent years have witnessed increasing nationalistic tendencies in Japan, expressed in both overt hate speech and political activities and in covert cultural nationalism. This article focuses on the latter, offering a textual and discursive analysis of a television show that features non-Japanese people engaging in Japanese cultural practices outside of Japan. It examines the structure, narrations, and interactions of one episode of the show as an ‘encoding’ process, which is followed by a ‘decoding’ of the show through the analysis of online viewer comments. Thus, the present study discusses how the show constructs the essentialist view that Japanese culture belongs exclusively to Japanese people and how audience members respond in diverse ways in online commentary. [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 the late 2000s, a new wave of xenophobic activism known as the ‘Action Conservative Movement’ (ACM) began to engage in prominent actions against ethnic minorities. Its aggressive use of hate speech confirmed fears of a rightward shift in Japan, echoing the rise of nationalist movements elsewhere around the globe. However, as the ACM moved from online organizing to high-profile public protest, pre-existing factions of rightist activists challenged ACM methods and viewpoints on multiculturalism. These ‘fights on the right’ highlight the diversity of rightist groups that are often treated monolithically in academia and the media. The critique some rightists made of the ACM’s xenophobic activism was based on a view of ethnicity that embraced Japan as a multi-ethnic empire—an iconoclastic view itself, and a reflection of Cold War geopolitics, the dynamics of domestic political polarities, and Japan’s colonial legacy manifested by ethnic minorities. It built as well from the cultivation of a particular form of anti-establishment ethos. Based upon my ethnographic fieldwork since 2005, this article offers a detailed typography of several generations of right-wing activism in Japan and an examination of how their diverse views of social citizenship, activist method, and ideological commitment have come into conflict as they grapple with ethnicity in contemporary Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan’s early modern Tokugawa government (1603−1868) sponsored a series of projects of national mapping. The Matsumae family, ruling what is now Hokkaido, were loosely incorporated into these projects. It was only during the last of these, in the Tenpō era (1830−1848), that their lands were represented in the same manner as the rest of Japan because the central government made the final Matsumae-no-shima map. This article examines the production of this final official map of Japan’s north to argue that the Tokugawa’s institutional mapping made this region part of the nation through its own mapping framework, distinct from the cartographic forms with which national or imperial states are usually associated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwanese film KANO recounts the passage of a mixed-race baseball team to Japan’s Koshien Tournament during the colonial era of the 1930s. Its release evoked in both Taiwan and Japan critical responses in view of its rosy depiction of colonial modernity. Through analysing the film’s text and reviews in both Taiwan and Japan, we identify KANO as a “post-national” cinematic event. Its inviting nostalgic invocation of Japanese colonialism at the civilian level has launched divergent discourses on colonial legacies in the contemporary re/making of national identities, reflecting on the post-colonial socio-cultural conditions facing both Taiwan and Japan. We found that KANO in Taiwan instigated a re-examination of the state’s role in crafting the foundational myth of baseball as a “national” sport. Furthermore, the film brought on schemes of othering in which two national others were distinguished to manifest Taiwan subjectivity: Japanese colonialism versus Chinese nationalism. On the other hand, KANO in Japan was stripped of its colonial connotation. Its honouring of juvenile devotion to baseball was employed as a psychic introjection of Japanese-ness, which many considered losing in the globalizing social milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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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]

This article addresses sexuality and prostitution as key elements in the emergence of postwar Japanese nationalism. It analyzes discursive practices, which Japan's authorities used to conceptualize the recreational facilities aimed at "comforting" the Allied occupiers during the still imaginary encounter of occupier and occupied in the immediate post-surrender period. The conceptualization of prostitution at the end of WWII is a pivotal example for the clash of competing empires, the disintegration of Japan's empire, and postwar imagination of the Japanese nation-state. Since the early twentieth century Japan's aggressive war and colonial rule in Asia exported sex workers as well as specific notions of sexuality-often mediated through further global entanglements with the West and its colonies-that had shaped the understanding of Japan's empire and Japanese imperial subjectivity. With defeat in 1945, Japan's imperial dreams shattered, but imperial experiences of sexuality and prostitution continued to shape ideas of Japanese belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]