The Fabric of Indigeneity: Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan

by ann-elise lewallen

Overview

In present-day Japan, Ainu women create spaces of cultural vitalization in which they can move between "being Ainu" through their natal and affinal relationships and actively "becoming Ainu" through their craftwork. They craft these spaces despite the specter of loss that haunts the efforts of former colonial subjects, like Ainu, to reconnect with their pasts. The author synthesizes ethnographic field research, museum and archival research, and participation in cultural-revival and rights-based organizing to show how women craft Ainu and indigenous identities through clothwork and how they also fashion lived connections to ancestral values and lifestyles. She examines the connections between the transnational dialogue on global indigeneity and multiculturalism, material culture, and the social construction of gender and ethnicity in Japanese society, and she proposes new directions for the study of settler colonialism and indigenous mobilization in other Asian and Pacific nations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826357366
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	10/01/2016
Series:	School for Advanced Research Global Indigenous Politics Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	328
Sales rank:	689,932
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ann-elise lewallen is an associate professor of modern Japanese cultural studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is a coeditor of Beyond Ainu Studies: Changing Academic and Public Perspectives.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

A Note on Style xix

Introduction Contemporary Self-Craft and Gendered Practices 1

Chapter 1 Indigenous Modernity 37

Chapter 2 Contemporary Practice and Contested Heritage 67

Chapter 3 The Clamor of Our Blood: The Politics of Belonging and Modern Ainu Identity 99

Chapter 4 The "Gendering of Ethnicity" in Ainu Society 125

Chapter 5 Embodied Knowledge 155

Chapter 6 In Lieu of Repatriation 179

Epilogue 213

Notes 229

Glossary 243

References 249

Index 271

Editorial Reviews

"A welcome addition to the scholarship on Ainu identity and settler colonialism. . . . This brilliant, complex, and engaging study deserves attention."

—Native American and Indigenous Studies

"Excellent, informative, and insightful. . . . It is a must read for anyone who wants to study about Japan."—Journal of Japanese Studies

From the Publisher