Redressing injustice of the past: the repatriation of Ainu human remains

Abstract

This article addresses the controversies surrounding the repatriation of Ainu human remains ‘unethically’ collected by Japanese researchers and stored in university institutions throughout the twentieth century. Some 1653 Ainu remains are held at Japanese universities, and Ainu rights advocates have demanded the return of these remains to their lineal descendants. In 2009, the Japanese government proposed to transfer all unidentified Ainu remains from universities to a memorial hall to be built in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, by 2020. This plan was met by disdain by Ainu advocates for two reasons. First: there was concern that Japanese academics would continue to do research on the remains. Second: the Ainu wished for the remains to be laid to rest in the burial grounds they were originally excavated from. This article discusses the repatriation policies initiated by the Japanese national government, how Ainu representatives have responded, and the ethical debate that surrounds the use of the Ainu remains for research. The article closes by looking at how the conciliation agreement in the legal case by Ainu plaintiffs against Hokkaido University in 2012 for the return of Ainu remains opened up possibilities for community members to petition for the return of ancestral remains for reinternment.     

Borders of memory: affirmation and contestation over Japan’s heritage

Abstract

This essay, introducing the special issue on ‘Borders of Memory’, aims to shed light on the links between memory and heritage in contemporary Japan. It does so by examining how heritage sites serve as spaces within which collective memory is both affirmed and contested. Heritage sites enable us to survey the contours of the borders of memory that exist between different memory collectives. An analysis of South Korean and Chinese objections to the Meiji Industrial Sites shows how these heritage sites work as borders of memory, spaces where the competing collective memories of neighbouring East Asian governments and societies clash and rub up against one another. This analysis is then extended to the four articles that make up this special issue. In each case, it is the competing meanings invested in the site, and the struggle over the narrative within which it is incorporated, that results in such sites coming to be demarcated as borders of memory. Understanding these heritage sites as bordered spaces allows us to see such them as being not only where antagonistic collective memories come into contact, but also spaces through which they connect. The existence of such spaces enables the political process of articulating the stories associated with different memory collectives.     

“Clamoring Blood”: The Materiality of Belonging in Modern Ainu Identity

The tension between silence and vocalization, embrace and rejection, of Ainu ancestry has been a key factor in negotiating Ainu subjectivity since Ainu territories were colonized in 1869. As early as 1799, expressions of Ainu ethnicity were alternately cloaked and exaggerated as Japan vacillated between assimilation and segregation policies in eastern Hokkaido Ainu communities. Officially recognized as Japan's indigenous peoples in 2008, Ainu subjectivity has become increasingly politicized as the state and other stakeholders seek to define Ainu ethnicity for future legislation. Today Ainu belonging is frequently gauged by bodily metaphors of a vocalized blood. Cultural sensibility and blood are often conflated in Ainu discourses of identity: Ainu revivalists report that a sensation of “clamoring blood” (J: chi ga sawagu) inspires them to revisit ancestral memories and begin fashioning Ainu identities. Historically, intra-Ainu relations were not bound to blood but instead embodied in material expressions, such as invisible cords for women and crest-like emblems for men, symbols that enabled flexibility where needed. Since the twentieth century, the hyper focus on blood raises the specter of colonially imposed rhetorics of eugenics, assimilation policies, and specifically, the problem of race. Relatedness in the Ainu community is not exclusively defined by “consanguineal relations”; rather, a long history of adopting ethnic Japanese children and non-Ainu into Ainu families renders complex the question of identity. This article assesses how immutable notions of racial difference intersect with self-determination and current articulations of Ainu identity.