The rise of the Chinese ‘Other’ in Japan's construction of identity: Is China a focal point of Japanese nationalism?

Abstract

Since 1945, the United States (US) has served as a focal point of both Left-wing and Right-wing Japanese nationalism. Both sides argued that the US was an arrogant hegemon that unjustly robbed Japan of its autonomy, and prevented Japan from achieving its own ideal national identity. Both sides frequently demanded that Japan should be more ‘resolute’ and resist unfair demands emanating from the US. In recent years, however, both camps are increasingly using the same rhetoric to criticise the Japanese government's China policy. China is also being depicted as an overbearing state that unfairly browbeats Japan into making diplomatic concessions. Given the similarities between the portrayal of China and the US, has China now become a nationalist focal point for both the Japanese Left and Right? Utilising constructivist insights, this article seeks to shed light on this question, by examining how the Japanese Right and Left portray China, and explores the implications for Japan's China policy.     

Of “other” histories and identities: partition novels from the Indian subcontinent

Ever since the Partition, novelists on either side of the India–Pakistan border have used fictional space imaginatively to formulate discourses on a humanistically-centred, multiplistically-defined Other identity, which writes itself into existence through the prism of the novelists’ contextual present. In this article, I will focus on three partition narratives: Salman Rushdie's Midnight's children (1980), Bapsi Sidhwa's Ice candy man (1988) and Amitav Ghosh's The shadow lines (1988). By employing different modes of knowledge, the novelists draw out the micro-history embedded within the historical event, and resonate the voice of the Other, a creation of partisan politics. Bapsi Sidhwa appears as a social historian who perceives the event through the eyes of an eight-year-old Parsi girl Lenny; Amitav Ghosh, akin to a modern historian, focuses on rigid and illusory territorial divisions from Thamma's (grandmother's) perspective; while Salman Rushdie emerges as a postmodern historian who draws attention to the ambiguity and opacity of both historical and fictional knowledge through Saleem Sinai, born on the day India won her independence. History, as it is perceived by the Other – each belonging to a different generation – is a palimpsest: it is always in a state of becoming, of being lived, evaluated and rewritten. Fiction, as it interprets the historical knowledge, fills in the fissures and absences between the history of the past and that of the present. The article will eventually study how fiction and history inform each other, and how the rhetoric of fiction and history together constitute a dialectical discourse on identity – mapped by borders – which sees a convergence of private and collective memories.     

A Nationless State? Malta,National Identity and the EU

This article discusses the relationship of Malta with the European Union in the light of Malta's status as an example of a 'nationless state'. The article first develops the relevance of this under-researched concept by locating it within the discussion of post-colonial, small island nationalism. It then provides a historical critique of the emergence of the Maltese nationless state and of its various integrationist attempts with France, Italy, Britain and, most recently, the EU. Finally, the article explores the possible dialectics of an emerging nationalism with an entrenched two-party political system and its totalising discourse.     

Romania and EUrope: Roma,Rroma and Ţigani as sites for the contestation of ethno-national identities

ABSTRACT

In November 2002 a Romanian journalist published an editorial attacking the Romanian authorities for 'playing the democratic card' and failing to prevent 'thieves, hooligans and criminals' from going to the West and disgracing all Romanians. The journalist, Lia Epure, entitled her article 'Rromania', a play on the Romanian government's spelling of Roma (i.e. 'Rroma'), and concluded that, if Romanians 'continue to accept identification with abnormals, then we will be become Rromania'. In response to vocal Romani and human rights group protests, Epure published a second article defending her right to say what 'even the president of the European Commission knows', that Romanians are not accepted as EUropean 'because of ?igani'. Woodcock explores how both elite and popular levels of Romanian discourse blame Romania's continued marginalization in EUrope on the actions of the ?igan, a fantastic Other, historically constructed out of ethno-nationalist Romanian discourses at moments of crisis for national identity. The discursive struggles for meaning with regard to the constructed ethnic Other highlight the paradox of post-socialist Romanian ethno-nationalism in an era of European Union accession: in order to be recognized as EUropean, Romanian discourse must relinquish the ?igan Other, even when it is this precise construction that has historically enabled Romania to claim a European identity.     

Liberal Nationalism,Imagined Immigration and the Progressive Dilemma

The article critically evaluates liberal nationalist perspectives on immigration by drawing on findings from a qualitative research project undertaken in 2014 among White British interviewees in England. From one perspective the study's participants' attitudes seem to support arguments made by David Goodhart and other liberal nationalists regarding immigration, social trust and integration. However, further analysis suggests that these attitudes are to a very significant extent drawn first from partially imagined ideas surrounding immigration and second from potentially unreliable sources. These findings thus provoke the question of whether social trust and notions of a national community are actually being disrupted by immigration, or whether they are being disrupted by prejudiced nationalist and xenophobic perceptions about immigration and immigrants. The article will conclude by arguing for more nuanced research into attitudes towards immigration and in favour of a sceptical approach to nationalist frameworks for interpreting society and politics in Britain today.     

当前中国一种非理性的民族主义述评

民族主义在当代中国的发展主流是健康的,但其中也出现了一种非理性的表现形式。民族排外主义就是当前中国非理性民族主义的主要表现形式。文章重点分析民族排外主义在政治、经济、文化等方面的具体表现及其消极后果,并提出民族主义理性化建构的思路与对策。     

试析民族主义在非基督教运动中的作用问题

在非基督教运动中,不同党派、不同信仰的人们向基督教发起猛烈攻击,民族主义在其中起了非常重要的作用。不同信仰的人们都无一例外地受到民族主义的影响。原因在于,20世纪初,反对帝国主义,争取民族独立成为压倒一切的任务。在中国人的心态中,除了向西方学习的心理外,还有不可磨灭的“救亡图存”的民族情结。如果说非基督教运动中存在着某种支配力量的话,那就是民族主义。本文将就民族主义在非基督教运动中的作用做一探讨。     

论韩国民族主义及其影响下的中韩关系

民族主义是一种古老而成熟的社会意识,它对一个国家的各个方面均能产生影响。笔者试图通过对韩国民族主义的分析,把握其特性及韩国对外政策中的民族主义性格,将民族主义作为一种特定的思维模式并建立一个理论框架来说明它是怎样影响中韩政治关系发展的,并对中韩关系的发展作出预测。     

论孙中山的民族主义思想

孙中山的民族主义思想反映了他对于中国民族问题的总体认识及其解决民族问题的纲领和原则。就孙中山民族主义思想的产生根源,发展历程作了论述,并力求对孙中山的民族主义思想作出客观的评价,最后对当代民族主义提出了一些思考。     

‘Women of substance’: Commodification and fetishization in contemporary advertising within the Indian ‘Urbanscape'

Advertising today has become an intrinsic part of modern culture. Apart from the obvious and tangible extolment of the virtues of a product and/or brand, more insiduously and less tangibly, advertising plays a key role in the functioning of social attitudes and values. This paper examines how advertising discourses in India, in particular the hugely successful and representative Woman of Substance’ ad campaign in the magazine Femina, transforms the manifold attitudes and qualities of the woman into commodities to be marketed; and how the ad campaign positions the woman within the nexus of her social interactions. The paper traces the economic and socio‐cultural changes that have characterised India's transition towards an open market economy to situate the role that advertising discourse plays in urban India today in the representation of the ‘Woman of Substance’. These changes have occurred in a relatively short space of time and have interacted profoundly with advertising discourse. This can best be seen in the fact that an urbanising trend in India has diversified the range of approved cultural models available to women in the search for what has come to be fashionably referred to in recent times as ‘lifestyles‘— exemplified both in the ‘Woman of Substance’ ad campaign, and the magazine itself, Femina.     

Scotland Out the Union? The Rise and Rise of the Nationalist Agenda

The election of the Scottish National party as a majority government in 2011 is as challenging to the British state as it was unexpected. While explanations for SNP success focused on Labour's faulty campaign and poor leadership, the last half‐century has seen the rise and rise of the nationalist agenda in Scotland. Scotland's politics are now more different from England's than at any time since the 1950s. The Scottish parliament is the effect of that change rather than its cause, while party competition between Labour and the SNP north of the border has shifted political gravity centre‐left in contrast with England. It is not inevitable, however, that Scots would vote for Independence in a referendum. Nevertheless, Scotland is a more semi‐detached country than at any point in the history of the Union, and the future of the British state, at least in its present form, cannot be taken for granted.     

日本人的国家同一性和对人种、民族的刻板印象探索性的讨论

通过对日本大学生的数据分析,探讨了日本人的国家同一性和对人种、民族的刻板印象的关系。结果表明,对民族的刻板印象和内群体偏爱效应显著。此外,国家同一性和对国民印象的交互作用明显。表明国家同一性强的人,对自己国民的肯定性评价显著高于国家同一性弱的人。需进一步探讨国家同一性概念的定义和测量刻板印象的妥当性。     

A Many-Cornered Thing: The Role of Heritage in Indian Nation-Building

Abstract

India is a large and extremely diverse multination state that is constantly faced with the challenge of maintaining its unity. In the past two decades the Hindu nationalist movement has become a significant factor in Indian politics, and has systematically leveraged heritage to create communal tensions. This has resulted in short-term political gain, but is also tied to longer-term goals of establishing a homogenously Hindu state in South Asia. This article argues that instead of being in decline, this movement is actually progressively expanding, and that the case of Ayodhya is only one part of a much larger programme in which heritage academics play a significant role, and that their collective actions will be pivotal to the future stability of the country.