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Japan
Organized Panel Session
In Lost Histories I aim to reveal new ways of writing the histories of colonial subjects, bringing us closer to understanding the complexities of colonial lives. In this presentation I will discuss the methodologies used in this book to recover the individual histories of the four least examined groups of Japanese colonial subjects – the Ainu, Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples, Micronesians, and Okinawans– including the use of material objects, oral interviews, and visual imagery and film. The writing of colonial histories does not necessitate an either/or approach, and the colonial archive can be used in conjunction with the aforementioned methodologies as a way to reveal how certain individuals navigated the variances of imperial life.
In this presentation, I will argue that reconstructing individual colonial lives in such a manner allows us to reveal two main arguments about the empire: Japanese colonial administrators depended on its colonial subjects to enact its rule, and the ethno-racial differences of colonial subjects were used to the advantage of both colonial administrators and colonial subjects themselves. I therefore challenge the presumption that assimilation was always the end goal for colonial people and Japanese officials.By following individuals as they crossed colonial borders to the metropolis and beyond, I convey the dynamic nature of an empire in motion. In this presentation I will move beyond discussing colonial subjects as ethnotypes or foils to Japan’s modern imperialists, but rather show how individuals’ experiences inside and out of the colonies shaped their standing in the fluctuating social hierarchies of empire.
Kirsten Ziomek
Adelphi University