Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Ethnicity Japan'

Aquesta recerca se centra en la representació de la cultura tradicional ainu en museus a l’aire lliure, parcs culturals i pobles reconstruïts al Japó actual. El seu principal objectiu és explorar com aquests llocs estan contribuint a la redefinició de la cultura ainu a través de pràctiques de turistificació i mercantilització. La tesi sosté que, més enllà de les connotacions negatives associades a aquestes pràctiques, els museus a l’aire lliure, els parcs culturals i els pobles reconstruïts poden operar com a vehicles complexos on la identitat ainu es negocia contínuament a través de la recreació i representació de la seva cultura tradicional. En aquest sentit, la tesi revisa els relats històrics sobre els ainu, la consciència política moderna i la revitalització cultural de les seves comunitats, i la recepció de la seva cultura a Europa, específicament, a Itàlia, a través de la consideració històrica de la seva influència en el col·leccionisme d’art, i la seva representació contemporània a les obres de l’intel·lectual italià Fosco Maraini i el seu important paper en la difusió de la cultura ainu més enllà del Japó. La museïtzació i la turistificació poden formar part d’un procés de mercantilització de la tradició cultural ainu, les conseqüències del qual poden semblar problemàtiques i essencialment negatives. No obstant això, aquesta tesi sosté que també hi ha un aspecte constructiu en aquest procés, no exempt de problemàtiques, mitjançant el qual la cultura tradicional pot combinar-se amb elements contemporanis més fàcilment accessibles i transformar-se en béns comercialitzables amb finalitats turístiques que preservin la seva existència. A nivell metodològic, la tesi aplica les eines investigadores de l’anàlisi històrica i els estudis culturals, integrant l’anàlisi documental amb algunes tècniques de recerca pròpies de l’anàlisi social, especialment l’entrevista.
Esta investigación se centra en la representación de la cultura tradicional ainu en museos al aire libre, parques culturales y pueblos reconstruidos en el Japón actual. Su principal objetivo es explorar cómo estos lugares están contribuyendo a la redefinición de la cultura ainu a través de prácticas de turistificación y mercantilización. La tesis sostiene que, más allá de las connotaciones negativas asociadas a estas prácticas, los museos al aire libre, los parques culturales y los pueblos reconstruidos pueden operar como vehículos complejos en los que la identidad ainu se negocia continuamente a través de la recreación y representación de su cultura tradicional. En este sentido, la tesis revisa los relatos históricos sobre los ainu, la conciencia política moderna y la revitalización cultural de sus comunidades, y la recepción de su cultura en Europa, específicamente, en Italia, a través de la consideración histórica de su influencia en el coleccionismo de arte, y su representación contemporánea en las obras del intelectual italiano Fosco Maraini y su importante papel en la difusión de la cultura ainu más allá de Japón. La musealización y la turistificación pueden formar parte de un proceso de mercantilización de la tradición cultural ainu cuyas consecuencias pueden parecer problemáticas y esencialmente negativas. Sin embargo, esta tesis sostiene que también hay un lado constructivo en este proceso, no exento de problemáticas, mediante el cual la cultura tradicional puede combinarse con elementos contemporáneos más fácilmente accesibles y transformarse en bienes comercializables con fines turísticos que preserven su existencia. A nivel metodológico, la tesis aplica las herramientas investigadoras del análisis histórico y los estudios culturales, integrando el análisis documental con algunas técnicas de investigación propias del análisis social, especialmente la entrevista.
This research focuses on the representation of Ainu traditional culture in open museums, cultural parks, and reconstructed villages in contemporary Japan. Its main objective is to explore how these places are contributing to the redefinition of Ainu culture through touristification and commodification practices. The thesis contends that, beyond the negative connotations associated to these practices, open museums, cultural parks, and reconstructed villages can operate as complex vehicles in which Ainu identity is continuously negotiated through the recreation and representation of its traditional culture. In this sense, the thesis reviews the historical accounts on the Ainu, the modern political awareness and cultural revitalization of their communities, and the reception of their culture in Europe, specifically, in Italy, through the historical consideration of its influence on art collecting, and its contemporary representation in the works of the Italian intellectual Fosco Maraini and his important role in the dissemination of Ainu culture beyond Japan. Musealization and touristification may indeed be part of a process of commodification of Ainu cultural traditions, one which can come across as problematic and quintessentially negative. However, this thesis argues that there is also a constructive side to this process by means of which, while unquestionably implying a form of compromise, traditional culture can be combined with more easily accessible contemporary elements and transformed into marketable goods for touristic purposes that preserve its existence. At the methodological level, the thesis applies the research tools of historical analysis and cultural studies, integrating the documentary analysis with some research techniques of social analysis, especially the interview.
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Programa de Doctorat en Traducció i Estudis Interculturals

This thesis examines the diversity and complexity of young Zainichi Koreans' perceptions and experiences, and the processes and dynamics of their ethnicity and identities. It challenges the prevalent assumptions of the dichotomised Zainichi Korean population; they are perceived either as being strongly politicised with either ethnic affiliation for North Korea or South Korea or as being totally assimilated into mainstream Japanese society. They are also considered to be divided in accordance with nationality and through participation in different representative organisations. This thesis explores variables in Zainichi Koreans' identity formation and maintenance of ethnic distinctiveness. It investigates the following questions: (1) what diversity exists among the lives of Zainichi Koreans and in ·their identities? (2) are young Koreans maintaining their ethnicity and in what ways are they maintaining it? (3) Are they redefining Zainichi Korean ethnicity and establishing new forms of ethnic identity as a collective group? This thesis adopts empirical qualitative multi-methods research based on semi-structured and in-depth interviews and field observations. The thematic topics in this study are: organisations and collective identities, ethnic school education, experiences of education and ethnic boundaries, choice of nationality, use of names, and ethnic appellations. These topics are deeply related to the following themes: family history, educational backgrounds, occupations, career plans, awareness of ethnicity, experiences of discrimination, relationships with Japanese and other Zainichi Koreans, political views and relations with Korea, self-definition, sense of belonging, cultural elements for maintaining ethnicity, and life values .

Demand for equal rights tends to be accompanied by assimilation of ethnic subordinates while the recognition of their separate identity is liable to justify unfair segregation. When an ethnic minority is aware of this dilemma, what identity are they to claim and what ideology do they present? By looking at contemporary local activism in Okinawa, Japan, this dissertation tries to give an empirical answer to this question. In Okinawans' historical experience, both their sameness as and difference from the Japanese turned out to be disadvantageous for the people. Local activists can support neither their Japanese identity nor Okinawan identity. As a result, although they struggled against the central power of the state, their activism can not be fully embraced within the category of multiculturalist movements. The body of this dissertation consists of a historical reconstruction of citizens' movements and a sociological analysis of activists' discourse on Okinawa-Japan relations. The ethnography focuses on a particular generation of educated local people, who form the mainstream of local activists in post-reversion Okinawa, and tries to illuminate what impact the reversion movement had on them and how it shaped their thought and actions thereafter. Chapter 1 describes the way in which Okinawan intellectuals re-contextualise obsolete religious tradition into their environmentalist or pacifist movements. Chapter 2 addresses the moral ambiguity of modern collective identities and demonstrates, with the Japanese as an example, that moral values change depending on transient international power relations. Chapter 3 focuses on the empirical historical context, the reversion movement, in which a category of Okinawan intellectuals realised this moral ambiguity. Chapter 4 examines an expression of regional identity, the Ryukyuan Arc, by which Okinawan activists tried to overcome the principle of modern social collectivity. Chapter 5 discusses how Okinawans' perception has historically changed in regard to their position in Japanese society.

Texte remanié de: Th. Ph. D.--University of Lund, 1991. Titre de soutenance : Mr. Ainu : cultural mobilization and the practice of ethnicity in a hierarchical culture.
Bibliogr. p. 205-215. Glossaire. Index.

Kyoto University (京都大学)
0048
新制・課程博士
博士(人間・環境学)
甲第16475号
人博第573号
新制||人||137(附属図書館)
23||人博||573(吉田南総合図書館)
29117
京都大学大学院人間・環境学研究科共生文明学専攻
(主査)教授 ブライアン ハヤシ マサル, 教授 前川 玲子, 教授 服部 文昭, 准教授 小倉 紀蔵
学位規則第４条第１項該当

How do Toyota and Yokkaichi, two cities in Japan, respond to the difficulties faced by their Nikkeijin foreign residents and why do these cities respond differently despite sharing numerous characteristics? Are there key factors that influence different migrant incorporation strategies? How do these factors influence the ways that Brazilian-Nikkeijin might be viewed in each city? This thesis explores the ways that local organizations in Toyota and Yokkaichi assist their Brazilian Nikkeijin migrant populations and the factors that influence these strategies. I hypothesize that the domination of the Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota and Yokkaichi's history of citizen mobilization significantly affect the ways in which these two cities approach migrant incorporation. I also hypothesize that trends in the types of consultation sought by Brazilian Nikkeijin in the two cities will share seasonal patterns. I test these hypotheses through interviews conducted in 2015 with representatives from local organizations in Toyota and Yokkaichi and through the information in the websites of these organizations. My findings support the hypotheses that the dominance of the Toyota Motor Corporation in Toyota and the unique characteristics of Yokkaichi's citizens, grounded in citizen mobilization experiences, influences the different approaches each city takes in responding to Brazilian needs. However, they do not indicate visible seasonal patterns on the types of consultation services sought by Nikkeijin. Previous literature frames the challenges Nikkeijin face in Japanese society and how local governments respond to those challenges in the larger picture of ethnicity and ethnically-based state policies. The thesis contributes to discussions of return migration policies aimed at the integration of foreign residents and the patterns of ethnic negotiation and re-negotiation by co-ethnics when faced with problems as a result of unfulfilled cultural expectations.
Master of Arts

This study seeks to understand the social interaction of small talk in two different countries. Defining small talk as 'phatic communion' and 'social talk' as contrasted to 'core business talk' and 'work-related talk,' Holmes (2000) claims that small talk in the workplace is intertwined with main work-talk. Small talk can help build solidarity and rapport, as well as maintain good relationships between workers. Much of the research on small talk has been focused on institutional settings such as business and service interactions; thus, there is a need for research on non-institutional small talk between participants without established relationships. This study compared how native English and Japanese male speakers interact in small talk that occurs during the initial phase of relationship formation, when interlocutors who have just met are waiting for a shared purpose. I analyzed their unmonitored small talk interaction in order to examine what types of topics they discuss and how conversations actually occur. I also conducted interviews to obtain information on perceptions of small talk and examined how these perceptions reflect different social norms and values pertaining to small talk in real-life settings. The data on the characteristics of small talk come from the pre-interview conversation between two participants, and the data on perceptions about small talk come from the interviews. The topics discussed differed between the U.S. and Japanese pairs. The U.S. pairs had "Informational Talk" elaborating on class details such as professors, systems, materials, or class content. The Japanese pairs, on the other hand, had "Personal Informational Talk," talking about personal matters such as study problems, worries, gossip, and stories. Furthermore, the Japanese pairs tended to have many pauses/silences compared to their English-speaking counterparts (the average frequency of pauses per conversation were 6 for the U.S. participants and 16 for the Japanese), presenting the impression that the Japanese pairs might have been uncomfortable and awkward. However, one similarity was that both groups discussed topics on which they shared knowledge or discussed the research study in which they were participating in order to fill silence during small talk with strangers. The most prominent result from the interviews is that interactions with strangers are completely normal for the U.S. participants, while for the Japanese participants such small talk with strangers makes them feel surprised and uncomfortable. The U.S. participants have numerous experiences with and are aware of the small talk occurring in everyday life, and they commonly discuss impersonal subjects; that is, their talks tend to be about factual information. The Japanese males, on the other hand, reported that they do not commonly talk with strangers; they need a defined place or reason to talk in order to converse openly and exchange personal information. However, in the actual pre-interview small talk, they incrementally came to know each other and started to discuss personal concerns and gossip about friends. This study has shown that small talk can be viewed as a locus where cultural differences in social norms are reflected.

How can one detect and understand change in the face of apparent continuity? This is the question which has been asked by some scholars of institutionalism. One way of answering this is to make analytical room for incremental change as an endogenous source of institutional transformation. Put bluntly, one does not always need spectacular exogenous events, such as wars and revolutions, to explain institutional change. The present thesis is a qualitative case study of Japan’s immigration policy towards economic migrants since the 1980s. Its aim is to uncover a causal mechanism behind the policy development by drawing on a model of institutional change put forward by James Mahoney, Wolfgang Streeck and Kathleen Thelen. At first, the inquiry may seem ill-founded for Japan is neither an immigration country nor an immigrant-receiving country. Indeed, the country still lacks an immigration policy to speak of, and immigrants continue to be called gaikokujin (foreigners) as opposed to imin (immigrants). A closer examination of the recent policy development, however, shows that the content and practice of Japanese immigration policy simply belie its self-description. Since 2012 the Japanese government has admitted highly-skilled migrants as potential permanent residents using a points-based system and has incorporated foreigners into the resident register system for Japanese citizens in order to facilitate their integration into Japanese society. The central claim of the present research is that Japanese immigration policy has become increasingly settlement-oriented as an unexpected consequence of earlier policy decisions and that the change has been endogenously effected without dismantling the pre-existing institution of immigration management. In making this claim, I particularly draw attention to the way in which a cumulative effect of minor changes eventually transformed the basic nature of the policy institution.

Peut-on acquérir une culture autre, et si oui, dans quelle mesure? Comment intégrer une culture autre sans perdre sa propre identité culturelle? En d'autres termes : qu'est-ce que l'identité culturelle, et comment résiste-t-elle à la rencontre de l'autre? Et enfin, pour reprendre avec Baudrillard la question de fond : qu'est-ce que l'altérité? En quoi en a-t-on besoin? Face à ces questions de fonds que peuvent nous dire des informateurs eux-mêmes en situation interculturelle?

This study explores the history of the Toba Batak community in the city of Medan from1912 to 1965. The Toba Batak have traditionally lived in the rural interior highlands ofSumatra. In this region, their specific ethno-religious identity was developed. Thecrucial factor in the process was the activities and the theological convictions of theGerman Rhenish mission on which the Toba Batak themselves had a significant impact. During the first few decades of the 20th century the Toba Batak began to migrate to the plantation region on the east coast of Sumatra and its commercial entrepôt Medan.In this region, where the Malay Muslim culture was the local dominant culture, theystrove to fulfil their cultural ideals, among which the ideal of harajaon (kingdom) iscentral. The main analytical question pursued is: How did the Toba Batak ethno-religious identity develop in Medan, within the framework of the ethnic, religious, social andpolitical currents in the city? This question is analysed in terms of their changing relations to their area of origin,the interaction with other groups in Medan and the efforts of the Toba Batak to buildup their own organisations. The main focus is on the development of Christiancongregations, but the analysis also takes voluntary, political and women's organisationsinto account. The changing conditions for local ecumenical co-operation are alsoexplored. A wide selection of sources is used, such as missionary reports and correspondence, Dutch colonial records and Toba Batak written and oral sources. Most of these sources have not or only partly been employed in previous research.

En 1974 et 1981, deux musées nationaux d’un genre nouveau ont été fondés au Japon : successivement, le Musée national d’ethnologie dans le Kansai, et le Musée national d’histoire et de folklore dans le Kantô. Le premier expose l’ensemble des cultures étrangères ainsi que celle de l’archipel, à travers une approche ethnologique, quand le second se concentre sur l’histoire, le folklore et l’archéologie du Japon. Ce travail vise à analyser le processus de construction et la manière dont le Japon est (re)présenté à travers ces deux musées, en les inscrivant dans une histoire aussi bien muséale que disciplinaire. Leur création dans un Japon en plein essor économique et, par surcroît, qui venait de rejoindre les grandes puissances sur la scène internationale, les associe d’emblée à une volonté de positionner la culture et l’histoire nationale, afin de rendre compte de son particularisme, ou encore de son homogénéité ; théories alors largement répandues à cette période. Si ce contexte idéologique rejaillit en partie dans les choix muséographiques et programmatiques, ce n’est pas tant pour y adhérer que sous forme de tensions propres au caractère national de ces deux musées. La muséographie étant à la charge des chercheurs et non des conservateurs, ce sont d’abord des enjeux disciplinaires qui conditionnent l’exposition. La tension se situe aussi bien dans la peur de l’instrumentalisation que dans l’exigence de la rigueur scientifique pour se légitimer ; ce qui se traduira sous forme de négociations et d’ajustements entre l’autorité du discours scientifique et celui, plus politique, de l’État-nation
In 1974 and 1981, two national museums of a new kind were established in Japan : successively, the National Museum of Ethnology in the Kansai region, and the National Museum of History and Folklore in the Kantô region. The first exhibits foreign cultures, as well as cultures of the Japanese archipelago, using an ethnological approach, whereas the second focuses on the history, folklore and archeology of Japan. This work aims at analysing the process of construction and the way Japan is (re)presented in these two museums, while replacing them in both museum and disciplinary history. Their establishment, in the context of Japanese economic growth, in a country who had just joined the ranks of global powers is thus linked with a strong will to present national history and culture in order to show its particularism, or its homogeneity ; both such theories were widely prevalent in this period. If this ideological context is partly reflected in the museographic and programmatic choices, it’s not so much to adhere to them, but can be perceived in the form of tensions, pertaining to the national character of these two museums. Since the museography was left to researchers and not curators, it is first and foremost the disciplinary stakes which condition the exhibition. The tension arises from the clash of intrumentalisation, and the demand for scientific rigor to legitimate certain claims, materilazed by negociations and adjustments between the authority of the scientific discourse and that, more political, of the nation-state

This thesis discusses the processes of ethnogenesis in the Japanese Islands from approximately 400 BC to AD 1400. Previous research on this problem, particularly in Japan, has been based on the assumption that ethnic groups are bounded, a priori entities that, while they may change in outward appearance, retain the ‘essence’ of their identity from their initial formation. It is argued here that this Romantic, primordialist view of ethnicity has deep roots in Japanese nationalist philosophy (Part I). In criticizing this approach, I propose that ethnicity needs to be seen as a hierarchy of three levels: (1) basic genetic and linguistic elements which may form what I term a ‘core population’; (2) the etic ethnos - a culture or society perceived by outsiders as a distinct ethnic group; and (3) the emic ethnos - an imagined selfidentity. The phenomenon of ethnicity involves all these levels simultaneously, but it is extremely rare for them to overlap. Part II of the thesis argues that a Japanese core population was established in the Islands in the Yayoi period with the immigration of a Peninsular population that was biologically closely related to the modem Japanese people and spoke Proto- Japanese. The evidence of biological anthropology, historical linguistics and archaeology are all compared in order to test this theory of immigration and colonization during the Jömon-Yayoi transition. From the basis of this core population, Part in moves on to analyze the following formation of etic ethnoi in the Islands in the late Yayoi to early medieval eras. A world-systems approach is adopted whereby ethnic change results not from the isolation of core and periphery but from their economic, political and ideological interaction within the wider East Asian world-system. The thesis ends with some speculative comments regarding the relationship between the three levels of Japanese ethnicity. I conclude that what I have termed the Japanese core population probably did not see itself as an emic ethnos until the twentieth century.

This dissertation investigates how Japanese-language literature by Korean writers both emerged out of and stood in opposition to discourses of national language, literature, and identity. The project is twofold in nature. First, I examine the rise of Japanese-language literature by Korean colonial subjects in the late 1930s and early 1940s, reassessing the sociopolitical factors involved in the production and consumption of these texts. Second, I trace how postwar reconstructions of ethnic nationality gave rise to the specific genre of zainichi (lit. "residing in Japan") literature. By situating these two valences together, I attempt to highlight the continuities among the established fields of colonial-period literature, modern Japanese literature, and modern Korean literature. Included in my analyses is a consideration of literature written by Japanese writers in Korea, transnational media and publishing culture in East Asia, the gender politics of national language, and the ways in which kominka (imperialization) policies were neither limited to the colonized alone nor completely erased after 1945. Rather than view the boundaries between "Japanese" and "Korean" literature as fixed or self-evident, this study examines the historical construction of these categories as generative discourses embedded in specific social, material, and political conditions. I do this through close analytical readings of a wide variety of primary texts written in Japanese by both Korean and Japanese writers, while contextualizing these readings in relation to the materiality of the literary journal. I also include a consideration of the canonization process over time, and the role literary criticism has played in actively shaping national canons. Chapter 1 centers around the 1940s "Korean boom," a term that refers to the marked rise in Japanese-language works published in the metropole on Korea and its culture, written by Japanese and Korean authors alike. Through broad intertextual analyses of major Japanese literary journals and influential texts by Korean writers produced during the "Korean boom," I examine the role played by the Japanese publishing industry in promoting the inclusion of Koreans in the empire while simultaneously excluding them from the privileged space of the nation. I also deconstruct the myth of a single "Korean" people, and consider how an individual's position within the uneven playing field of colonialism may shift according to gender and class.Chapter 2 deals with the ideologies of kokugo (national language; here, Japanese) and kokumin bungaku (national literature) during the latter years of Japan's imperial rule. The major texts I introduce in this chapter include Obi Juzo's "Tohan" (Ascent, 1944), first printed in the Japanese-language journal Kokumin bungaku based in Keijo (present-day Seoul); a comparison of the kominka essays written by Yi Kwangsu in Korean and Japanese; and the short story "Aikoku kodomo tai" (Patriotic Children's Squad, 1941), written by a Korean schoolgirl named Yi Chongnae. Through these texts, I show how kokumin bungaku depended upon the inclusion of colonial writers but simultaneously denied them an autonomy outside the strictures of the Japanese language, or kokugo. In Chapter 3, I move to Occupation-period Japan and the writings of Kim Talsu, Miyamoto Yuriko, and Nakano Shigeharu. While Koreans celebrated Japan's defeat as a day of independence from colonial rule, the political status of Koreans in Korea and in Japan remained far from independent under Allied policy. I outline the complicated factors that led to the creation of a stateless Korean diaspora in Japan and highlight the responses of Korean and Japanese writers who saw these political conditions as a sign of an imperialist system still insidiously intact. In looking at Kim Talsu's fiction in particular, I am able to examine both the continuities and discontinuities in definitions of national language, literature, and ethnicity that occurred across 1945 and map out the evolving position of Koreans in Japan. Chapter 4 compares the collaboration debates that occurred in post-1945 Korea with the arguments over war responsibility that occurred in Japan in the same period, focusing on the writings of Chang Hyokchu and Tanaka Hidemitsu. Although the works of both individuals have been neglected in contemporary literary scholarship, I argue that their postwar writings reveal how Korean collaboration (ch'inilp'a) and Japanese war responsibility (senso sekinin) emerged as mutually constitutive discourses that embodied - rather than healed - the traumas of colonialism and empire. Finally, in the epilogue of this dissertation, I introduce the writings of the self-identified zainichi author Yi Yangji in order to consider how all of the historical developments outlined in the previous chapters still exist as lived realities for many zainichi Koreans even today.

Post-development theorist, Arturo Escobar's influential work, Encountering Development as well as other post-development academic works discussed the concept and delivery of "development" based on known antecedents--Western countries as practitioners and non-Western countries as beneficiaries. Even though cultural sensibility has become a significant issue in development today, there is little research that analyzes the construction of non-Western donors' discourse such as those of the Japanese governmental aid agency, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. Moreover, non-Western aid donors and practitioners' engagement with indigenous development in Latin America has not been discussed. This dissertation aims to answer the following questions: How do Western and non-Western governmental donor agencies construct and deliver 'development' to 'non-developed' countries in Latin America, particularly to countries with large indigenous populations? How do these donor agencies' volunteer practitioners implement development projects in the field? What are the differences in the aims and delivery of development projects between Western and non-Western donors and their volunteer practitioners, especially in those projects aimed at indigenous populations? A corollary to those questions was to attempt to discover how the agencies and their volunteers negotiated notions of development with indigenous peoples as well as how agencies and volunteers perceived and addressed ethnic differences in the aid recipients' countries. To answer these questions I compared and contrasted two governmental agencies that are the most prominent and with the longest record of volunteer aid in Latin America: the United States Peace Corps and the Japanese agency, Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV). Although the U.S. Peace Corps and its notion of development were models of "development" for the JOCV program, JOCV's discourse of development and its development practices are not the same as the Peace Corps. Both agencies' cross-cultural policies for their volunteers as well as the development practices the agencies adopted likely reflect how the Japanese and United States understand their own societies in general cultural terms, as well as in terms of moral and religious preferences, ethnicity and sexual orientation. The Peace Corps and JOCV volunteers' experiences with indigenous populations showed several limitations to their programs and provided suggestions for the future particularly in the area of indigenous development.
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This thesis emerged from my emotional, tactile, and intellectual access to the actress, Yamaguchi Yoshiko (a.k.a. Ri Kōran or Li Xianglan), who embodied the cultural hybridity of Manchuria and represented a ‘modern girl’ on screen. I analyze four wartime melodrama-adventure films, in which she co-starred with Japanese actors: Song of the White Orchid (Byakuran no uta, 1939), China Nights (Shina no Yoru, 1940), Vow in the Desert (Nessa no chikai, 1940), and Suzhou Nights (Soshū no yoru, 1941). The formation of domesticity played an integral part in the making of modern nation-states. Intertexualizing with the discursive formation of the ie (house/family) between the mid 19th and mid 20th centuries, I first demonstrate that Japanese film subjects are made to embody the imagined Imperial nation through gendered performances in Song of the White Orchid. The interior and exterior are constructed to mirror the notion of imperial nation and the Asian ‘other’. Next, I extend the analytical framework to the three films, China Nights, Vow in the Desert, and Suzhou Nights, which employ films’ specific locations for different operations of gendered and ethnicized positioning. I also pay attention to some of the climaxes, which unconventionally present psychological dramas outdoors and action scenes indoors. Especially, my interest in this part of analysis is in interrelating metaphors of bodily boundary and national border. As delineating the signification of body and nation, I situate the relay of the gaze in the simultaneous blurring of bodily boundary and national communities that coincides with melodramatic highlights located outdoors. In order to shape a Japanese imperial subject, the films symbolically negotiate with three levels of power dynamics: the establishment of a national identity, the mimicry of the West, and the significance of China in Japanese imperial modernity. The delineation of cinematic space and subject positioning in Ri Kōran’s films reveals that Chinese, Japanese and the West are constituted as shifting positions that respectively represent past/obstructions, present/a mobile agency, and future/the envisioned goal. Ri Kōran attracts spectators’ gaze and mediates multiple locations to identify with, while Japanese male protagonists embody the gaze by making his corporeality absent.