Multiethnic Japan
Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence—historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture—John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society.

Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity.

Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post–World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification.

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Multiethnic Japan
Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence—historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture—John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society.

Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity.

Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post–World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification.

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Multiethnic Japan

Multiethnic Japan

by John Lie
Multiethnic Japan

Multiethnic Japan

by John Lie

Paperback(Revised ed.)

$38.00 
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Overview

Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence—historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture—John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society.

Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity.

Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post–World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780674013582
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication date: 03/01/2004
Edition description: Revised ed.
Pages: 272
Product dimensions: 5.69(w) x 8.94(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

John Lie is C. K. Cho Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Table of Contents

Preface

A Note on Terminology

Introduction

1. The Second Opening of Japan

2. The Contemporary Discourse of Japaneseness

3. Pop Multiethnicity

4. Modern Japan, Multiethnic Japan

5. Genealogies of Japanese Identity and Monoethnic Ideology

6. Classify and Signify

Conclusion

Appendix: Multilingual Japan

References

Index

What People are Saying About This

In recent years, the terms 'multicultural' and 'multiethnic' have acquired a dominant space in Japanese studies. Providing a brilliant critique of the sometimes unthoughtful use of these concepts, Multiethnic Japan makes a valuable contribution to Japanese studies in particular and sociology in general.

Sonia Ryang

In recent years, the terms 'multicultural' and 'multiethnic' have acquired a dominant space in Japanese studies. Providing a brilliant critique of the sometimes unthoughtful use of these concepts, Multiethnic Japan makes a valuable contribution to Japanese studies in particular and sociology in general.
Sonia Ryang, Johns Hopkins University

Hiroshi Ishida

Multiethnic Japan represents a major scholarly work, one that is far more penetrating as well as more comprehensive than any other addressing the issue of 'Japaneseness' and the monoethnic ideology of Japan.
Hiroshi Ishida, University of Tokyo

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