Cultural Authenticity as Entropic Metanarrative: A Case from Ryukyuan Studies

Abstract

In examining an history of ethnographic investigations of the Ryukyus, a long chain of islands south of Japan, this paper proposes to identify a process by which the Ryukyuan culture is constructed as the authentic, exotic Other, a process to which not only Japanese ethnographers and folklorists but also Western anthropologists have actively contributed. The search for authentic culture in the Ryukyus, prima facie a theoretical as well as empirical issue, cannot be separated from social and political contexts in which such a search has taken place. This paper analyzes a system of signification that not only defines but also formulates the authentic Ryukyus as an object of study and that excludes as a consequence the “emergent Ryukyus,” which reflects the creative, reinventive efforts of the current Ryukyuan people.