A Genealogy of Japanese Self-Images

According to Oguma, the self-image of Japan as a homogenous society is not the result of the prewar discourse of Japanese character. Deftly using Foucault to understand the phenomenon of Japanese identity as a discourse, Oguma argues that the contrary is true. He asserts that the prewar discourse used the language of nationalism, racism, and imperialism to validate Japan's imperial project and the resulting domination over others. This same discourse pegged Japan as a polyglot society. The implications of the polyglot model are many. At the center was the notion that the empire was one of ethnic and racial variety - this point is crucial. In effect, Oguma argues that the notion of Japanese homogeneity is really a postwar invention. A new sense of homogeneity rises from the idea that Japan is no longer an empire. Dropping, in effect, what was seen as the periphery - Taiwan (Formosa), Korea, and Manchuria, etc. - the shrinking of the empire to the core island forced the Japanese to re-evaluate their position and as a result its identity. As a former polyglot society and its empire as one of ethnic variety, it is conversely, the postwar discourse on the new state, Oguma asserts, that invented a peace loving, singular nation as the basis of the contemporary Japanese identity. Most of the tome is focused on the explanation of the complexity of Japan's prewar identity discourse. Oguma's A Genealogy of `Japanese' Self-images is now required reading for Japanese scholars of Nihonjinron history as well as high school readers.