Multiethnic Japan

Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence--historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture--John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society.

Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity.

Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post-World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification.

Author: John Lie
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 03/01/2004
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.88lbs
Size: 9.02h x 6.36w x 0.81d
ISBN: 9780674013582

About the Author
Lie, John: - John Lie is C. K. Cho Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.