A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

-conclusion – generally speaking, at the dawn of the 21st century, the adherent of anthropological postmodernity and globalization theory arise form a camp of ‘human scientist’ whose proverbial tents are pith alongside those who defend narrowly materialist vision of their discipline. (174)

-we believed that there has continued to exit general agreement about the unity of anthropological theory and this unity remains largely intact. (176) for one thing, Boas, Geertz and Levi-Strauss remained firmly enshrined with an anthropological pantheon. This may reflect a significant defect in the postmodern critique: namely that it only succeed at throwing the historical baby out, questioning the work of ancestral generations but offer little substance to replace them. (176)

- we can speculate to a limited extent about trends of the future. We believe that one implication of the diversity encountered in this book is that anthropologist will continue to consider consensuses regarding the best theories and method the ‘holy grail’ of our discipline; this longing might well prove utopian. (178)

- we are living in and passing through a ‘Janus-faced’ moment, in which we are looking both to the past and to the future for inspiration.(178)

- equally important is that the history of anthropological theory is really a history of anthropological theory. We must allow for other anthropologies’, or other tales of discovery and cross-cultural encounters – other methods and context in which knowledge is formed. (179)

- it seems that the history of theory is defined not so much by ‘facts’, as by the tendency of different anthropological historians and the changing consensus that develop around one or another perspective. Only the most novice readers will conclude that theory is ‘out there’, ready to be plucked from the air by a fortuitous ‘discoverer’.(180)

A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

- part III – the later 20^th century and beyond -  early 20^th century was under the sway of Emile Durkheim and his intellectual progeny (Mauss, Levi-strauss and Radeliffe-Brown). (113) In North America anthropological knowledge was shaped by Franz Boas. (113)

- in the later decades of the 20^th century, a tension between the particular and general emerged as a central problem on both side of the Atlantic. Boas’ descriptive approach suffered from a need for explanatory theory. In filling the blank, one school that came out was from sociologist Max Weber. In part III we studied his work and thought and others. (114)

- in the latter half of the 20^th century, Durkheimean-based structuralism and structural-functionalism had showed signs of strain. Meanwhile in American, Boasian-inspired framework was found inadequate. These concerns surfaced in the 1970’s with the discovery of the theories of Max Weber and Michel Foucault, known as interpretive anthropology. (131)

- in the 19^th century Durkheim employ an organic analogy to understand how social group cohere, and Marx understood the control of material conditions of life to be the engine driving human history. Both theorists believed that forces exited outside the individual acted to condition cultural meaning and structured social relations. (132) Such a formulation left little room for the creative agency of individuals. (132)

- in contrast Max Weber was credited with viewing the holistic individual – acting, thinking and feeling, all were as central to the social and cultural forms. His work was thought as idealistic, contrasted with materialism of Marx. Weber had been influential with the rise of political economy and postmodernism in the 1970s and 1980s. (132) In his work “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” his ideas were evolutionist, different from the unilineal theories (from primitive to civilized) of his contemporaries. (131)

- Weber sought a theory that placed existing beliefs and structures in particulars historical context (i.e. a particular period). Therefore he was often thought as multilinear evolutionist whose theory accounted for the great diversity of human life. (133)

- his schema was that: Complex society gave rise to stratified hierarchy of social. The urban artisan experienced alienation and economic marginalization (including the merchant class). Their expectations was embodied and expressed through an explicitly religious framework. (133) (c/f the rise of Buddhism - human worldly suffering) Weber view religion as the engine that drove social transformation through time. (133) (i.e. idea led to changes)

- for Weber, the most significant example was Calvinist Protestantism, an urban merchant religion that rationalized a new relationship between human being and god. (134) Under a new covenant ‘revealed’ to Calvin, individuals were direct to recreate heaven on earth through hard work. Through this, merchant and artisans now were elevated to a position of ethical superiority, no longer dominated by ruling elicits. Material prosperity was a sign of god’s grace. This new system ultimately resulted in the global triumph of industrial capitalism. (134)

- Weber’s idea about social evolution (new idea, new system) was useful to anthropologists who were reluctant to view society and culture as static organisms as suggested in the Durkheimian theory. (134)

- the essential premise of structuralist theory (in its various guises) was that culture constrained, or controlled people more than it served, or enabled them. It was as if people were simply the vehicle for social and psychical structures. (135)

- in Britain, the most influential and respected symbolic anthropologist was Victor Turner. Whereas Turner derived his insight from Durkheim, Geertz’s intellectual linage originated with Weber, who emphasized on meaning, as opposed to structure. Weber had given Geertz’s work a very different orientation. Geertz’s theory incorporated the idea that culture was a set of moral values. For Geertz, epistemology was grounded in the assumption that ‘man is an animal suspended in webs of significant that he themselves has spun’. The study of culture was ‘an interpretive one in search of meaning’. (140)

- for many anthropologist working in the 1960s and 1970s the most influential social theory were development and underdevelopment theory, and the world-system theory (I. Wallerstein). They became the foundation for the generally called (anthropological) political economy. (148)

- in the 20^th century, the political and economic disparity between the ‘developed’ and ‘underdeveloped’ world growing apace since the break of colonialism following WWII.(149) Andre Gundar Frank began to criticize modernization. He believed that global capital agenda was the systematically extracting surplus good and labor. Under-development in many nations was the result of progressive capitalist exploitation. (149) The most detailed exposition of this kind emerged in the work of Immanuel Wallerstein. He identified the bourgeois capitalist in the core nation of Europe and America who appropriated the profits in the periphery.  Euro –American economically exploited the external population and their produce, in a world-system of unequal exchange. (149)

- the precise meaning of the terms ‘postmodern’ and ‘postmodernity’ were still further obscured by another adjective ‘post-structural’. Strictly speaking, the term post-structural and poststructuralism referred to the growing malaise and increasing uneasiness with structuralism that erupted in the 1970s. (157)

- the initial flood of interest in deconstructing mental, cultural, and social structures, as manifested in literary and philosophical discourse, was notably the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu.(156)

- writing in the 1970s, Foucault viewed social institution and relationship as being grounded in discourse of power that shape relation between people at all levels in a society. (158)

- the different roles played by the individual bore the stamp of certain kinds of people’s relation (dominate/dominated). Whoever dominated these relations would control the economic and ideological conditions under which ‘knowledge’ or ‘truth’ was defined. (158) In this way, beginning with the enlightenment and the rise of the nation-state, discourse of science, sexuality, and humanism preserved their power through mechanism of control such as prison, hospital, asylum. Foucault’s contribution to postmodern social theory had been in showing how power determined different social forms through history.  (159)

- “Foucauldian theory redefines the concept of ‘knowledge’ itself. No longer is a reference to real or objective understanding, knowledge is primarily a way of naming and ordering the world that favors the powerful and seek to maintain the status quo.”(161)

- addressing similar issue relating to power and domination form another angle was Pierre Bourdieu. (161) For Bourdieu, social structures and cultures were not to be compared to machines or organism, because culture and society were ultimately not things but system of relationship – or fields.

- within fields, the total imposition of one group’s set of taxonomies (hierarchy, good and bad taste) upon another’s results in the production of a ‘natural’ order, or doxa.(162)

- throughout 1980s and 1990s, Foucault’s and Bourdieu’s ideas had a dramatic impact on anthropological theory. Suddenly there seemed no center, no firm ground from which student of human life could gaze objectively at their subject matter. Henceforth, no ‘truth’ would be taken for granted. Deconstruction became a new watchword for anthropologist. Positivism to explain the world was no longer seen as a possible. (163)

- a latter-day heir to world –system theory and anthropological political economy was the study of globalization, or the ‘globalization theory’. (168) Among the better know text were Arjun Appadurai’s “Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity”, and Roland Robertson’s “Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture”. (168)

- it was the emphasis on the production of the wholly new social and cultural form and “systems” that distinguished globalization-oriented anthropology from their predecessor in the world-system theory. The globalization perspective insisted that, local culture were not passively overwritten by the unstoppable, global steam roller known as western industrial capitalism (i.e. individual nation’s people had the agency). (171) The formerly peripherals themselves becoming the base for global cultural practices. (c/f Japanese pop music, sushi cuisine etc.)(171)

(to be continued)

A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

Part II – the early 20^th century - 20^th anthropological theories represented a sharp break from that of the 19^th century. Anthropologist sought to distance themselves from the uni-lineal evolutionary and hereditation doctrines of their predecessors. (73) Under the influence of Franz Boas, anthropology in the US involved the cultivation of a distinctively holistic, ‘four-field’ approach to the study of human life. They helped to set the burgeoning field apart from its British and French counterparts as a distinctive expression of anthropological knowledge. (73)

- Ruth Benedict was interested in the relationship between culture and personality. According to her, each culture had its own personality configuration or gestalt. By studying three different cultures, she explained how the three cases illustrated the power of culture to shape divergent normative personalities. In typical Boasian fashion, she concluded that because what was deviant in one culture could be normative in another. Deviance was not determined by nature. (82)

- Sigmund Freud was a clinical psychologist who tried to help his patients overcome psychological disorders. He began to speculate on the origin of these disorders. (83) His central insight was that people in the present experience conflicts because humanity in the past experienced conflict. (84)

- for Freud, civilization was opposed to human biological nature because it tried to tame the animal instincts of people.(85) The story began with the primeval family, which, for Freud, was patriarchal and characterized by unrestricted sex. In the primeval family, sons desired their mother sexually, but their authoritarian father had priority of sexual access. (85)

- the theoretical foundation of 20^th century French anthropology could be found in Emile Durkheim. He influenced A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and his theory of structuralism. Durkheim was considered as the forerunner of French structural anthropology. (90) His theory developed in progression with the publication of four books. In his book ‘Division of Labor in Society’, Durkheim explored the diversification and integration of culture. (90)

- Durkheim’s central insight was that social solidarity could be achieved in two different, organizationally opposite ways. (90) His vision of society was very different from that of Karl Marx. For Marx, the state would wither away. For Durkheim, the government was necessary to regulate socially interdependent parts. (91)

- for Durkheim social facts were collective representation of the collective consciousness. Using suicide as a case study, he explained a particular social fact: suicide was an act that seemed to individualist yet, explained sociologically, could be shown to have a strong social dimension. (91)

- Durkheim in his fourth book, “The Elementary forms of the religious Life”,  exposed the societal origins of religion. For him the origin of something had its source in the group mind. (91)

- the intellectual transition from Durkheim to Claude Levi-Strauss was accomplished by Marcel Mauss. The most well-known elaboration of idea of the total social fact was expressed in his essay “The Gift”. One of the most important contribution was to shift focus from Durkheim’s’ ‘mind’ of group to the minds of individuals. (93)

(to be continued)

A history of Anthropological Theory

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Paul Erickson and Liam Murphy.2003. A history of Anthropological Theory. Peterborough, Ont.; Orchard Park, NY: Broadview Press, c1998.

Main points:

Introduction: anthropology was divided into 4 subfields. First was physical or biological anthropology which included paleoanthropologist. Second was the study of artifact. The third was linguistic anthropology. The 4^th was cultural or sociocultural, the study of human lifeways. (17) Arguably there was a 5^th subfield: applied anthropology. (18)

- in this book anthropological theory could be considered to be a branch of science, humanism, or religion. (19) In science, people and god were treated as secondary to nature. In humanism, god and nature are treated as secondary to people: “Man is the measure of all things.” In Religion, nature and people were treated as secondary to god. (19) God created ‘heaven and earth’. (20)

- anthropology could be seen as searching for answers to fundamental questions asked: “were did we come from?”, “why do we differ?” Therefore, all people had their own version of anthropology. This book derived from the western cultivation. (20)

- part one – the early history of anthropological theory - anthropology in Antiquity - in common with all western academic disciplines, the roots of anthropology lied in the intellectual traditions of the Greco-Roman “ancient” world.(21) Greco-Roman civilization produced several Classical intellectual traditions. Some traditions seem scientific, while others appeared more humanistic or religious. (21) The root of anthropology could be found in classical science. (22)

- the first group of classical thinkers was philosophers whose thought predated that of Socrates. The pre-Socratics were really cosmologist. Some of their speculations were materialistic, meaning that they invoked natural rather than supernatural cause. (22) Pre-Socratics philosophers saw people created by nature, not god. (22)

- in the 5^th BC, there was a major changed in Greek and shift in thought leading to new philosophical schools. One new school was Sophistry.  They taught practical skills (i.e. not for objective knowledge or absolute truth). Sophist Protagoras believed that human behavior was influenced by life circumstance. Behavior is a cultural convention, similar to the 20th century cultural relativism. (23)

- for some sophist relativism led to nihilism, the doctrine that nothing existed or was knowable. Feeling that knowledge was merely what was said to be true by people in power: an idea similar to the key part of Marxism. (23) (or Foucault) Some Athenian philosophers were opposing to sophistry. Socrates thought that there were universal values. Plato, his student, agreed that there was universal values existed because they were innate in the human mind. (23) (c/f. John Locke: clean paper human nature).

- Plato’s student was curious about the relationship among natural and social objects, his legacy included science. (24) Later Greek life and thought declined. (Shifted to Roman) Competing schools of thought emerged. Stoics believed that nature and society were highly orderly. This order was not created by people or god, but was a natural cosmic order. Sometimes called Logos. (25) A belief in a universals social order made it possible to compare and contrast particular social orders, a fundamental task of what today we called social science. (24) Contrary to Plato, Stoics believed in ‘blank state’, meaning that knowledge was not innate. (24)

- toward the end of the Roman Empire social conditions deteriorated. Several religions competed for appeal to the socially oppressed; all built on the Stoic idea of an overarching supernatural order in the universe.  They preached obedience to divine rather than civil laws. Outpacing competition, Christianity gained converts and became the state religion of Rome. (25) For anthropology, the most consequential Church father was Saint Augustine. According to Augustine, god was perfect and human nature was sinful. Human behavior was to be judged not by people or nature, but by god. (25) (saw the rise of god)

- the legacy of Antiquity to anthropology was the establishment of the humanistic, religious, and scientific intellectual outlook. These outlooks, especially the scientific outlook, had been preserved in anthropology ever since. (26)

- the Middle Ages: - in the period following Augustine’s death, Roman Empire was occupied by non-Christian ‘barbarian’. The Christian tradition flourished in the eastern Roman at Constantinople. (26) The interaction between Islam and Christianity occurred on the 8^th century when Islamic moors invaded Christian Spain. Christian theology became increasingly ‘rational’ meaning that human reason was brought to bear on theological issues. This trend culminated in the theology of Thomas Aquinas. Aquinas reasoned that people could, and should know god through knowing nature. (27)

- inevitably, cracks in the whole system surfaced, scholars began to choose. Once this happened the door was open for anthropology to develop. (27) Three complex events produced knowledge that, outside Thomas Aquinas circles, made the syntheses unravel. These events were the renaissance, voyages of geographic discovery, and the scientific revolution. (27)

- renaissance thinkers came to realize that the Ancients possessed a fuller and more satisfying grasp of human nature than the Christians. Renaissance interest in the ancient world produced a new sense of time which no longer was static, but capable of changes. This realization led to systematic contrast of ancient and medieval ways of life and, in turn, to question the authority of the medieval catholic church. This contributed to the protestant reform movement. (28) A paramount reason for the change of medieval into modern times was the scientific revolution, as a method of intellectual investigation. (34)

- epistemology was the branch of philosophy that explored the nature of knowledge. Two major epistemologies emerged. One is deduction. The most famous architect to deduction was Cartesian: ‘I exit, therefore god exit, therefore the real world exists’. (34) The second epistemology was induction, the process of discovering the general explanation. (34) ( facts led to the truth)

- the Enlightenment was the name given for the time period from Newton’s principle of mathematics to the time of the French revolution in 1789. Intellectual produced key concepts of social science, in anthropology the most important of these concept was culture. (37) “Newton believed that god has created the universe while, unlike a theistic philosopher, he did not invoke god to account for its day-to-day machinations. Metaphorically, the Newtonian universe was a clock, god the clockmaker.” (38)

- the most important part of Locke’s epistemology for anthropology was his idea, resurrected from the ancient Stoics, that the mind of each newborn person was a ‘blank stage’. (38)

- aping the accomplishment of Newton, some enlightenment intellectuals sought to discover ‘laws’ of human history (universal historians). According to Locke, human experience was understood to have accumulated as culture. (39)

- Vico described how humanity had passed through the three stages of god, heroes, and man. Turgot described the passage of humanity though the 3 stages of hunting, pastoralism, and farming. (39)

- the French revolution overthrew the upper-class privilege, unleashing a new middle class, the bourgeoisie. (40)

- the revolution was fought on the basis of enlightenment ideals that insisted on the human capacity for moral and intellectual progress and, ultimately perfection. When the revolution turned out badly, European intellectual turned their backs on these ideals. The result was a rise in conservative attitudes. (40) (c/f similar to pondering over science after the Titanic sinking) (or science and the brutality of the WWII)

- conservatism appeared in a number of guises. One was fundamentalist Christianity. Many new Christian denominations develop, espousing ‘Evangelical’. Newton’s clockmaker god was replaced by god of divine intervention. (41) Another guise of conservation was romanticism that glorified non-rational, emotional side of human nature, and denied the primacy of Cartesian thought. Finally there was the racism (c/f nationalism). (41)

- conservatism also affected social science. Social scientists also felt that it was time to put more emphasize on stability. The result was the all-encompassing philosophy of Positivism. Positivism was the creation of Augustine Comet.  He described how almost all branches of knowledge had passed through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. Theological was to explain thing in terms of deities, metaphysics on abstract concepts, and in the positive stage, in terms of science. (41)

- in 1859, British geologist Charles Lyell marked the first scientific consensus about the great time depth of prehistory and was the symbolic birth of the science of prehistoric archaeology. (58) Like cultural evolutionist, archaeologist used the comparative method to reconstruct the prehistory past. (58)

(to be continued)

Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Han, Eric. Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014

Main points:

Conclusion – this concluding chapter examines how the Yokohama Chinese had understood their relationship with China, Japan, and Yokohama in more recent years, as well as the implications of the Yokohama Chinese identity position. (194)

- until the 19^th century, immigrants from China were affiliated primarily with their native place. The rise of modern nation-state worldwide changed this situation. (195) The ideology of a new state extended its influence to Yokohama Chinatown in the late 1890s and promoted a diasporic hauqiao identity after the founding of the ROC in 1912. (195)

- in the period of peace after 1945 the need for Chinese and Japanese to demonstrate loyalty to their respective countries was diminished, and local solidarities became more relevant in daily life.  (195)

 “With increasing work opportunities in mainstream Japanese society, the cohesiveness of the ethnic enclave has lost some of its pull. This shift has been more a product of economic forces than the social and legal development.”(195)

- the district now served less an ethnic enclave and more a pillar of Yokohama’s cultural distinctness. Yokohama Chinatown was no longer solely for the Chinese. (198) Yokohama’s Chinese schools also served as an index of the cross-generational integration of Chinese into local life. (198)

- Japanese national were now the majority in the two schools: respectively the pro-ROC and pro-PRC. It bore mention that most of the Japanese nationals at the school’s today were ethnic Chinese or of Chinese-Japans parentage. It reflected the shift toward intermarriage and Japanese naturalization among Chinese. (199)

- “taken together, these developments in commerce and education suggest the ways that mutual acculturation between Chinese and Japanese have helped constitute multiethnic society in this local space”. “By expressing their identity as Yokohama-ites, Yokohama Chinese were acknowledging their belonging in the local community even as they maintained a hauqiao identity”. (200)

- the burgeoning influence of local identity discourses among Yokohama Chinese correlated as well with waning psychological identification with the homeland. (201) Sociologist Guo Fan’s findings indicated that young Chinese shard a pattern of “transnational identity” at variance with the “ethnic identity” of their grandparents and the “national identity” of their parents. (201)

 Members of the younger generation considered their Chinese to be only one of their identities, which included links with Japan and the world. (202) Their transnational identity derived not from a homogenizing globalization, but its local registers produced what might be termed cultural bricolage (fusion): a mixing, particularization, and fragmentation of existing identities. (202)

- from the 1980s the arrival of large number of immigrants form the PRC also weakened identification with the Chinese homeland by introducing a new local-national axis of differentiation.(203) The intelligibility (or the degree of understanding) of the acculturated Yokohama Chinese identity had derived in part from differentiation from the newcomers. Many local Yokohama-ite felt themselves less Chinese when meeting Chinese fresh form the mainland. (203) The newcomers enjoyed a much less harmonious relationship with Japanese society then the older community. (204)

- less visible in media reports but demographically significant were the returned Japanese war orphans form China, wives of Japanese nationals, student sand transnational entrepreneurs. These newcomers (scattered in the whole country) in aggregate now outnumber the old Chinatown communities by tenfold. (204)

- a historical perspective also contributed a good deal to our understanding of newcomer’s transnational lives. A study showed that their life choices “maintain a closely-knit transnational society field and preserve their social and cultural roots in the home country”. The report noted the salience of border-crossing child rearing and instrumental acquisition of Japanese nationality and permanent residency. (205)

- Yokohama Chinese identity also raised issues germane (relevant) to recent discussion on citizenship in Japan and the social position of foreigners. Yokohama Chinatown could serve as a prominent example of the foreigner as local citizen concept, which since the 1970s had become a vehicle for foreign resident to acquire political rights in Japan. (208)

- Zainichi Koreans had experienced many of the same identity transformation as the Yokohama Chinese. Japanese government stripped Korean of their Japanese imperial citizenship following the end of the Asia-pacific war. (209) Korean representative organization Mindan and Chongryun (set up by the first generation Korean) promoted competing version of Koran nationalism. “These ethnic organization did not seek to expand right, but rather espoused an ideology that reject full participation in Japanese society. In contrast to the first generation, the second accept the permanent of their settlement in Japan, even while maintain a stable identification with a largely unknown homeland. This diasporic form of identity derived from a combination of ‘Korean descent and Japanese livelihood’ amid ‘the persistent of Japanese discrimination.’”(210)

- like the Yokohama Chinese, zainichi Korean began openly expressing hybrid identities as both local residents and foreign nationals. (210) The zainichi Korean third-way and fourth-choice debates also pointed to a dramatic difference between Korean and Chinese in Japanese in their level of explicit political activism. (212) Several explanations might be made for this difference, ranging from demographic circumstance of migration and circumstances of migration. (213)

- today, the idea of local citizenship was shaping the way local municipalities were dealing with a rapidly expanding population of foreigners. (215) The political controversy suggested some hard limits to local citizenship initiative. (219)

- expression of local cultural citizenship carried the potential to reconfigure national citizenship by altering underlying understandings of Japanese identity. Yokohama Chinatown, as a globalized local community was a key example in this regard; it confounded the assumed priority of national over local spaces by demonstrating the viability of multi-ethnic communities within a presumptively mono-ethnic state. (220)

Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Han, Eric. Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014

Main points:

-ch. 5 – (title: A town divided: the Cold War in Yokohama Chinatown, 1945-72) – Yokohama Chinatown experienced enormous social, cultural, and economic transformations in the three decades from the end of the Asia-pacific war to the normalization of relation with PRC in 1972.(157)

- during these decades, the popularity of multi-cultural gastronomy allowed Yokohama Chinese to join with administrator in Yokohama city and Kanagawa prefecture to promote Chinatown’s restaurants as a premier tourist attraction.(160)

- the localism emerged from an era that also saw the universalization of the ethnic nation as an individual’s final identification. The years after 1945 witnessed national identity surging after decolonization. Japan lost is multiethnic empire and turned instead toward a mono-ethnic national identity. (160)

Jus sanguinis nationality laws continued to define formal citizenship and enacted social closures according to shared descent – an ethnic people (minzoku) in both popular understanding and government policy. (160) For Chinese resident of Japan, this historical transition meant their position within Japan would be ethnically marked but socially accept resident aliens. But they were not alone in this regard. (161)

- this chapter examines the way the Yokohama Chinatown community mediated their national and local identities in the three decades after the end of the Asia-pacific war. It deals first with the ideology of Japanese mono-ethnicity, and its congruence with efforts by the two China regimes to maintain Chinese patriotism in Yokohama. (162)

- in March 1946, the China mission in Tokyo representing the ROC ordained the Yokohama Chinese Association as an official node of its worldwide network of huaqiao associations. As allied nationals, huaqiao carried economic benefits. Advantages made the pre-1952 the economic ‘golden years’ for the huaqiao in japan. (163)

- after Chiang Kai-shek lost the Chinese civil war, Japan continued to regard his regime as the legitimate government of China until 1972. (164) During this period the ROC sought to quash leftist inclination among Chinese in Japan through its dominance of huaqiao institutions. (168)

- in 1952, the Chinese Mission peremptorily installed a new principal from Tokyo at a local Chinese school. Thus began the so-called school incident that would bifurcate Yokohama Chinese institution into two fractions. Teachers, students and parents object to the new principal as interference by the state. In short, the desire for local autonomy was prominent. (170) The movement opposing the China Mission went door-to-door to advocate self-determination. (170)

-one could no longer passively remain in huaqiao society without taking a position within the political map of the community, a situation that threatened to run any collective activity into a political contest. (173)

- across Japan, huaqiao status became an economic liability after May 1952, when the San Francisco peace treaty came into effect and ended the Allied occupation of Japan. Chinese in Japan lost their special advantages as allied nationals. (175)

- the Yokohama Chinese turned to their restaurant for economic survival which proved to be the most resilient sector of the Chinatown economy. (177) Chukagai became the accepted name for Chinatown, replacing Nankinmachi. This change of name dislodged the public’s long-held perception of Chinatown as filthy and dangerous. (179) Chinatown- both its Chinese and Japanese residents – had in the 1950s adopted a model of economic development focused on Chinese cuisine and tourism, and by the 1960s yielding results. (180)

-in sum, the events following the normalization of ties with the PRC suggested a continuation of self-destructive rivalry between the two political foes; neither could claim credibly to be the representative authority. (184) At the same time, cooperative commercial development was legitimating a different conception of community. The YDA was eminently positioned to represent this local community. (184) Since the 1970s the YDA took a leadership role in the community. (185)

- amid the economic and institutional developments, the meaning of Chinese identity in Yokohama began to shift once again. A Japanese wide survey of huaqiao in 1966 confirmed that an overwhelming majority showed deep concern for the homeland. (187) Another survey of the 1960s suggested that the diasporic orientation Chinese identity was gradually being superseded by what might be best described as a minority orientation. (187)

- the widespread acculturation of the Chinese in Yokohama meant that their commonly assumed Chinese was not the aggregation of cultural traits shared, but was defined by markers of difference from the Japanese. A 1967 survey of graduates of the pro-ROC school indicated that 61.7 percent of their household, Japanese was the primary language. Most had also adopted Japanese-style funerals, primarily ate Chinese food at home. (188)

- the integrity of the Yokohama community, therefore, derived less from intrinsic Chinese-ness then their position of otherness within Japanese society. In that sense, the Chinese ethnicity approached the ethnicity of American usage, defined by marginality and otherness as well as people-hood. (189)

Yokohama Chinatown now became more in common with the Chinatowns of San Francisco and NY where scholars had noted that Chinese minority identity had been determined more by ethnic discrimination form outside than cultural unity or economic solidarity.  The markers that mattered were not language and ritual observances etc. as the preference toward Chinese food was one of the clearest markers that distinguished the Chinese form the Japanese. (189)

- but more importantly, the status was entirely local in scope. The pull of local society made these Chinese more ready to identify as Yokohama-ites; this identification did not imply belonging to the Japanese nation, as many still maintained Chinese nationality. (189)

- by the 1970s some zainichi Koreans were advocating identity that moved beyond diaspora by rejecting homeland politics, emphasizing permanent settlement. (190) At the end of the decade, the concept of a minority status for zainichi Koreans was given forceful, controversial expression by the concept of a “third way” between diaspora and assimilation, that is, “living as ethnic Koreans and, at the same time, as citizens of japan”.(190)

- the zainichi Korean third way differed somewhat form Yokohama Chinese identity in both content and effects. Zainichi Korean activism possessed national clout (influence) as former colonial subject whereas Chines in Yokohama found refuge in profitable economic niche. (190)

- chapter conclusion – Chinese-ness was thus reconstituted not through substantive political, culture, or ethnic ties with the homeland, but as a minority status defined in relation to the Japanese majority. Chinese were no longer unified by political loyalty to a homeland. Tie of blood were weakened, many children were Chinese-Japanese parentage. (191) Naturalization did not necessarily reduce the subjective sense of Chinese identity among Yokohama Chinese; many of the leaders of the pro-ROC Chinese association had naturalized but keep separate business cards for their Chinese and Japanese names. (192) Thus over time the objective determinant of Chinese-ness became fewer in comparison to the many contextual and subjective links with Japanese society. (191)-Yokohama Chinatown thus provided an example of how Chinese culture could be construed as cultural foreignness from a national perspective but simultaneously incorporated into Yokohama’s cosmopolitan local identity (192) The local identity was more than a mere economic instrument since it continued to encompass social, cultural and political dimensions. Yokohama Chinese had become minority in Yokohama society. (192)

(to be continued)

Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Han, Eric. Rise of a Japanese Chinatown: Yokohama, 1894-1972. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Asia Center, 2014

Main points:

- ch.3 – (title: Cooperation, conflict, and modern life in an international port, 1912-32) – this chapter examines the complex process by which Yokohama Chinese became huaqiao even as they integrated into Yokohama society. (91) The ROC linked the overseas Chinese communities to the new state, developed both the justifications and institutional means to control their overseas citizen. (91) National identity gradually became more deeply embedded in social life. Chinese now integrated into Yokohama society more explicitly as representatives of the Chinese nation. (91)

- this overall process was not unique to Chinese nationalism. By the end of the 19^th century, Japanese were also arriving at a consensus that ethnic groups should be sovereign political units. Japan’s social culture was recast as foundation of a national culture. Discourse of ethnic nationalism became extremely influential worldwide. (91) “Across the same time frame, ethnic-national identity acquire a much stronger legal and institutional basis. The imperative to regulate overseas Chinese played a role in the creation of jus sanguinis nationality laws in both countries” (i.e. China and Japan).

- the Chinese citizenship law of 1909 (in Japan) was jus sanguinis and informed by an understanding of the China as an ethnic community. The law was a belated attempt to establish internationally recognized guidance for Chinese citizenship. It decreed that the granting of naturalization to Chinese would need a discharge from the Qing government. (92) This suggested the intention to prevent the large-scale of naturalization of overseas Chinese, and the reduction of their political attachment to the homeland. (92)

- “During the 1920s, a steady solidification of a Chinese identity took place, which was over-determined by political mobilization and ethnic stereotypes. The various new originations of the 1920s were the functional unit of a mixed local community, but one overlaid by the format of international relations. However, even as Chinese identity came to be accepted as an organizing principle in the community, Yokohama Chinese maintained a strong attachment to local place.”(118)

- chapter conclusion – even as the consolidation of Chinese identity as huaqiao subordinated provincial affiliations to the idea of a Chinese nation, many still identified with the local Yokohama community. (122) Yokohama Chinese contributed to Yokohama society and culture, as shown by local baseball games and Chinese cuisine. These examples provided illustration of the linked process of integration and differentiation. Liang’s baseball team was a regular participant in local tourneys, but as the Chinese team. For Chinese, baseball and Chinese food helped unify those of different provincial origins into common culture. (122)

- from the 1910s to the 1930s, the vocabulary available to describe identity was increasingly constrained by nationalist ideologies in both China and Japan. For Yokohama Chinese their integration into Yokohama society was as foreigners, specifically, as huaqiao. (123)

- after the full-scale fighting in the summer of 1937, many Chinese in Yokohama chose to remain. They judged incorrectly that the fighting would end quickly. Japan’s Ministry of foreign affairs and Home ministry faced the thorny issue of how to deal with an entrenched community of potential enemies in Yokohama. Their solution, as we would see, was to co-op the discourse of Chinese identity and the very institutions that the ROC employed to produce patriotic national subjects in the first place. (123)

- ch. 4- (title: Sino-Japanese war, Sino-Japanese friendship and the Yokohama-ite identity, 1933-45) – this chapter examines how Japan’s strategic imperatives (to respect, understand, and honor the Chinese traditions and social customs) had shaped Japan’s wartime treatment of the Chinese in Japan. The Japanese state under an umbrella of Asian unity, became an active participant in the construction of Chinese-ness. The Yokohama Chinese maintained their identities as such through both resistance to and complicity with these imperatives. (125)

- by relying heavily on records published or compiled by Japanese authority during wartime time, the histories  written there in would exaggerate the hegemony Japan’s wartime ideology. Official documents in wartime did not provide compelling evidence of actual ideological commitments. In other words, the appearance of Chinese compliance should not be treated as a definitive prove of Japan’s ideological hegemony. (128)

- by the late 1930s, Chinese in Yokohama had overwhelmingly accepted a diasporic national identity as hauqiao. (128) To understand what cooperation with the wartime Japanese state meant to the Yokohama Chinese, it was crucial to examine who chose to stay and who opted to leave. (136)

- the Chinese who elected to remain in Yokohama during the war were those acculturated and socially integrated into the local community. Some Chinese leaders in japan lamented that many of their compatriots had married Japanese, forgotten how to speak mandarin, and were willing to naturalize if the situation demanded it. (141)

- in Japan’s mass media, the most visible Yokohama Chinese supporter of Japan’s war mission was the Yokohama-born Chen Dongting. (142) He helped define a localized Chinese identity what was reconciled to collaborationism. In 1940 he argues: “we huaqiao who resided in Yokohama are real huaqiao, but our relationship to Japan is like that between close relatives… and many here have Japanese wives”. The journalist described Chen as “a pure Yokohama-ite”; this was the first recorded usage of the term hamakko to refer to the Yokohama Chinese and implied an ironic acceptance of ethnic heterogeneity within a “pure” local identity. (144)

- another venue for the performance of Chinese collaborationism was the establishment of the Nation Gymnastic Movement. (145) Genuinely believed or not, slogans of Sino- Japanese amity were essentially performative. Repeated enunciation allowed Chinese to remain in Yokohama, unmolested by the police. (146)

- “neither Chen nor Bao [Bogong] intended to deny a role for the Yokohama Chinese in promoting friendship between Chinese and Japanese. But by evoking their identification with Yokohama, they undermined their standing as representative Chinese. The friendship discourse depends on the coherence of separate Chinese and Japanese nation. For the Yokohama Chinese, their local and national identity both enabled and undercut their exploitation as propaganda tools by the Japanese government. Living as ‘pure Yokohama-ies’, aligned their interest with Yokohama society, and like it or not, Japan as a whole. Yet, this local integration separate them form Chinese in China and other huaqiao around the world.”(153)

- chapter conclusion – from the 1920s, Chinese and Japanese government cooperated in constructing the national subjectivity of the Yokohama Chinese. The ROC built a network of national representative through its OCAC, and Japanese researcher conducted volume of research on huaqiao that promoted the vision of a global community of diasporic Chinese. Wartime imperative then elevated nationality as the overriding modality of identity. Japanese propagandist wanted Chinese spokesperson for Japan’s war mission and crafted pluralistic, non-assimilationist policy.

Participation in the discourse of Sino- Japanese amity in it various guise – gymnastics, parades, propaganda – helped construct Chinese-ness even as it buttress Japan’s legitimacy in the conflict. (155) These Chinese tolerated Japanese government intervention into their community, however, because they were also socially invested in Yokohama.  (155) These leaders in Yokohama Chinatown were the same men who guided community association prior to the war –second generation Chinese in Japan like Chen Dongtin and Bao Bogong. (155)

-collaborationism was therefore a method to resolve competing attachment to Yokohama and China – in other words, to continue living as Yokohama Chinese. It was however an imperfect solution. Living as Yokohama-ite contradicted the deployment as mode, representative Chinese. The contradictory terms used by Chinese leaders revealed a yawning gap between their national and local identifications. (155)

(to be continued)