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

327 Pages·2016·6.96 MB·english

by  ann-elise lewallen

anthropology • asian studies
The Fabric of Indigeneity
AINU IDENTITY, GENDER, AND
SETTLER COLONIALISM IN JAPAN
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In present-day Japan, Ainu women create spaces of cultural vitalization
in which they can move between “being Ainu” through their natal
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and affinal relationships and actively “becoming Ainu” through their
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craftwork. They craft these spaces despite the specter of loss that e

haunts the efforts of former colonial subjects, like Ainu, to reconnect F
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with their pasts. The author synthesizes ethnographic field research,
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museum and archival research, and participation in cultural-revival r
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and rights-based organizing to show how women craft Ainu and c

indigenous identities through clothwork and how they also fashion o
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lived connections to ancestral values and lifestyles. She examines the
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connections between the transnational dialogue on global indigeneity n
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and multiculturalism, material culture, and the social construction
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of gender and ethnicity in Japanese society, and she proposes new g
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directions for the study of settler colonialism and indigenous
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mobilization in other Asian and Pacific nations. e
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ann-elise lewallen is an associate professor
of modern Japanese cultural studies at the
isbn 978-0-8263-5736-6
University of California, Santa Barbara.
She is a coeditor of Beyond Ainu Studies:
Changing Academic and Public Perspectives.
university of new mexico press
school for advanced research global indigenous politics series
unmpress.com • 800-249-7737
The Fabric of Indigeneity
School for Advanced Research
Global Indigenous Politics Series
Michael F. Brown
General Editor
Since 2007 SAR Press’s Global Indigenous
Politics Series has offered a forum for incisive
research on the politics of indigenous peoples
around the world, past and present. These
volumes compel us to rethink the implications
of tribal autonomy and sovereignty in relation
to nation-states and transnational organizing,
notions of cultural and biological property,
and the very nature of politics and indigeneity.
The series reflects SAR’s commitment to the
development of new ideas and to scholarship
of the highest caliber. The complete Global
Indigenous Politics Series can be found at
www.sarweb.org.
The Fabric of
Indigeneity
Ainu Identity, Gender, and Settler Colonialism in Japan
ann-elise lewallen
School for Advanced Research Press
Santa Fe
University of New Mexico Press
Albuquerque
© 2016 by the School for Advanced Research
All rights reserved.
Published 2016
Printed in the United States of America
21 20 19 18 17 16 1 2 3 4 5 6
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: lewallen, ann-elise, author.
Title: The fabric of indigeneity : Ainu identity, gender, and settler
colonialism in Japan / ann-elise lewallen.
Description: Santa Fe : School for Advanced Research Press ;
Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, [2016] | Series:
School for Advanced Research global indigenous politics series |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015045704 (print) | LCCN 2016029454 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780826357366 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780826357373
(electronic)
Subjects: LCSH: Ainu—Ethnic identity. | Ainu—Material culture. |
Women, Ainu—Social conditions. | Sex role—Japan.
Classification: LCC DS832 .L49 2016 (print) | LCC DS832 (ebook) |
DDC 305.894/6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2015045704
Cover illustration: Taiyō Mandara (Sun Mandala) by Taeco Sora
Title page illustration: Shizuku (Droplet) by Taeco Sora
Composed in Akzidenz Grotesk and Minion Pro
The publication of this book was generously supported by the
Association for Asian Studies.
This book is dedicated to Toyama Saki-Baachan
and to all Ainu Fuci, iyayraykere,
for their courage and dignity in keeping Ainupuri,
and to Ayumi.

CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
A Note on Style xix
introduction Contemporary Self-Craft and Gendered Practices 1
Chapter One Indigenous Modernity 37
Chapter Two Contemporary Practice and Contested Heritage 67
Chapter Three The Clamor of Our Blood: The Politics of Belonging and
Modern Ainu Identity 99
Chapter Four The “Gendering of Ethnicity” in Ainu Society 125
Chapter Five Embodied Knowledge 155
Chapter Six In Lieu of Repatriation 179
Epilogue 213
Notes 229
Glossary 243
References 249
Index 271
Color plates follow page 148
vii

PREFACE
Sitting in the Jeep during a sudden deluge, I struggled to find a wireless
signal and dodge the raindrops leaking through the flimsy tarp roof of the
weathered, bedraggled 1983 Mitsubishi. I and the other walkers had traversed
roughly twelve miles to that day’s destination, Teshio, in northern Hokkaido.
Thankful for the respite from the downpour, the other walkers tended their
blisters and aching muscles while waiting for lunch. It was June 6, 2008, and
the first week of the endeavor we had named Pirka Kewtum Apkas (Ainu for
Walk with Beautiful Heart, or Walk across Hokkaido)—a 399-kilometer walk
along the Sea of Japan in western Hokkaido. Apkas had been conceived to
commemorate the forced removal of the Sakhalin Ainu to Hokkaido under
the 1875 treaty that transferred Southern Sakhalin from Japanese to Russian
control. Critically, June 6 was the day a final vote had been scheduled on the
Japanese Diet’s proposed Resolution to Recognize Ainu as an Indigenous
People, and I was anxious to obtain news from Tokyo.
The year 2008 proved to be a landmark for Ainu Indigenous campaigning.
Ainu activists anticipated a genuine transformation of their status from a
marginalized minority to a self-determining Indigenous people. The United
Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which
outlined a commitment to self-determination and collective rights and
established standards for ensuring Indigenous peoples’ human rights, had
been adopted, including by Japan, in September 2007. Ainu across the political
and physical landscape rallied to secure Indigenous rights. Change seemed not
only possible but somehow inevitable, with the norms of global civil society
and the moral economy of human rights being foregrounded in these efforts.
Emboldened by UNDRIP’s passage, the Ainu Association of Hokkaido (AAH)
vigorously lobbied legislators while Tokyo Ainu staged bold street campaigns
to arouse solidarity with Wajin (J: ethnic Japanese) in the capital region. In
response to the AAH lobby, a coalition of multipartisan legislators1 had crafted
the resolution and envisioned it as a stepping-stone to establishing Indigenous
rights for Ainu. Ainu and their supporters organized an Indigenous Peoples
Summit for July 2008 and invited global Indigenous representatives to attend
and coauthor a declaration aimed at the G8 leaders. One of the final G8
Summits was to be hosted in Lake Toya, Hokkaido, and thus Japanese and
Ainu activists anticipated the world’s gaze on Hokkaido, an Ainu ancestral
ix