Geographies Of Identity In Nineteenth-century Japan

by Howell, David L.

• ISBN13: 9780520240858
• ISBN10: 0520240855
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

In this pioneering study, David L. Howell looks beneath the surface structures of the Japanese state to reveal the mechanism by which markers of polity, status, and civilization came together over the divide of the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Howell illustrates how a short roster of malleable, explicitly superficial customs--hairstyle, clothing, and personal names-- served to distinguish the "civilized" realm of the Japanese from the "barbarian" realm of the Ainu in the Tokugawa era. Within the core polity, moreover, these same customs distinguished members of different social status groups from one another, such as samurai warriors from commoners, and commoners from outcasts.

Author Biography

David L. Howell is Professor of East Asian Studies and History at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

List of Maps	vi
Acknowledgments	vii
1. Introduction	1	(19)
2. The Geography of Status	20	(25)
3. Status and the Politics of the Quotidian	45	(34)
4. Violence and the Abolition of Outcaste Status	79	(31)
5. Ainu Identity and the Early Modern State	110	(21)
6. The Geography of Civilization	131	(23)
7. Civilization and Enlightenment	154	(18)
8. Ainu Identity and the Meiji State	172	(25)
Epilogue: Modernity and Ethnicity	197	(8)
Notes	205	(32)
Works Cited	237	(18)
Index	255