National Belonging and the Production of Neglect in the Japanese Repatriate Figure, 1945–1950

Abstract

This article analyses the discourse of national belonging produced by the Japanese government. After Japanese empire collapsed in August 1945, hikiagesha (‘repatriate’) was the term officials used to categorise approximately 3.2 million Japanese civilians in the colonies when Japan surrendered. Previous research suggests a repatriate figure emerged in postwar Japan so that non-repatriate Japanese could offload anxieties about imperial failure. Consequently, the repatriate figure was important for Japan to transition from an empire to a nation-state. This article reassesses this transition which in previous research seems to be almost a natural outcome of decolonisation. Starting from the premise that such transitions require the active involvement of specific actors, this article examines how Japanese government officials constructed a discourse of national belonging around the repatriate figure to assuage concerns about state affiliation. It then considers the effects of this discourse on the Japanese ‘extruded history’ of former colonial residents.