Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6889
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard
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Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6883
Aike P. Rots
This article discusses the problem of lingering methodological nationalism within Japanese studies. It argues that methodological nationalism remains widespread not only in research but also in university teaching and public dissemination, which legitimises popular conceptions of Japan as a singular, unified entity that is essentially different from both the West and continental Asia. This methodological nationalism is a consequence of the ways in which disciplinary structures contribute to the reification, demarcation and naturalisation of ‘Japan’ and ‘things Japanese’ as distinct objects of study in need of their own guild of specialised interpreters. The article argues that to overcome methodological nationalism, scholars of Japan need to reconsider their choice of subject matter and reflect more upon their use of the adjective ‘Japanese’. It proposes three research agendas for the academic study of Japan. First, we should study discursive and institutional processes of Japan-making instead of being complicit in them. Second, we need to rethink ‘Japan’ as our main spatio-cultural unit by focusing on diversity within the Japanese isles and beyond (including migrant and Indigenous perspectives). Third, we should conduct and contribute to comparative research that focuses on both local particulars and transnational connections, rather than using the nation-state as our main unit of analysis.
{"title":"Beyond Methodological Nationalism","authors":"Aike P. Rots","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6883","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6883","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the problem of lingering methodological nationalism within Japanese studies. It argues that methodological nationalism remains widespread not only in research but also in university teaching and public dissemination, which legitimises popular conceptions of Japan as a singular, unified entity that is essentially different from both the West and continental Asia. This methodological nationalism is a consequence of the ways in which disciplinary structures contribute to the reification, demarcation and naturalisation of ‘Japan’ and ‘things Japanese’ as distinct objects of study in need of their own guild of specialised interpreters. The article argues that to overcome methodological nationalism, scholars of Japan need to reconsider their choice of subject matter and reflect more upon their use of the adjective ‘Japanese’. It proposes three research agendas for the academic study of Japan. First, we should study discursive and institutional processes of Japan-making instead of being complicit in them. Second, we need to rethink ‘Japan’ as our main spatio-cultural unit by focusing on diversity within the Japanese isles and beyond (including migrant and Indigenous perspectives). Third, we should conduct and contribute to comparative research that focuses on both local particulars and transnational connections, rather than using the nation-state as our main unit of analysis.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44630015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6888
Henrik Kloppenborg Møller
{"title":"Alessandro Rippa, Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development and Control in Western China","authors":"Henrik Kloppenborg Møller","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6888","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6888","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46497015","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6886
Oshie Nishimura-Sahi
While the Japanese education system and policy have been studied extensively, Japanese philosophy and thoughts have rarely served as a theoretical and methodological resource in the field of comparative and international education. Resonating with a current scholarly attempt to explore the possibilities and limitations of using Japan as an epistemic resource, I have experimented with drawing upon Japanese philosophical thinking, namely Watsuji Tetsurō’s (1889-1960) comparative phenomenological study, to analyse the current foreign language education reforms in Japan. In this paper, I tell the story of my thought experiment in which I explore autoethnographically how my epistemic mindset has changed during my PhD journey through a slow dialogue with Watsuji’s study on milieu, relationality and ontological inquiry into human beings. Aiming to multiply the epistemological resources for educational research, I analyse reflexively on the way in which I was destabilised by Japanese philosophy in (un)learning educational practices in Japanese contexts. In so doing, I explore how ‘foreign’ educational comparativists might be able to move beyond the storyteller role in foreign contexts or the expert role in home contexts and, accordingly, contribute to promoting a pluralistic knowledge production.
{"title":"Fūdo in Foreign Language Learning in Japan and Finland","authors":"Oshie Nishimura-Sahi","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6886","url":null,"abstract":"While the Japanese education system and policy have been studied extensively, Japanese philosophy and thoughts have rarely served as a theoretical and methodological resource in the field of comparative and international education. Resonating with a current scholarly attempt to explore the possibilities and limitations of using Japan as an epistemic resource, I have experimented with drawing upon Japanese philosophical thinking, namely Watsuji Tetsurō’s (1889-1960) comparative phenomenological study, to analyse the current foreign language education reforms in Japan. In this paper, I tell the story of my thought experiment in which I explore autoethnographically how my epistemic mindset has changed during my PhD journey through a slow dialogue with Watsuji’s study on milieu, relationality and ontological inquiry into human beings. Aiming to multiply the epistemological resources for educational research, I analyse reflexively on the way in which I was destabilised by Japanese philosophy in (un)learning educational practices in Japanese contexts. In so doing, I explore how ‘foreign’ educational comparativists might be able to move beyond the storyteller role in foreign contexts or the expert role in home contexts and, accordingly, contribute to promoting a pluralistic knowledge production.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45918523","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-07-03DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6885
Jens Sejrup
In light of today’s global boom in landmark architecture, urban megaprojects and reconstructions of cultural heritage buildings, this paper analyses two large-scale reconstruction projects at iconic historical locations in Japan: the Heijō Palace in Nara and Dejima in Nagasaki. Since the 1990s, the two projects have recreated long-lost built environments, gradually transforming the sites, turning them into museums and exhibition spaces and giving rise to thorough reform of the surrounding urban fabric. In this paper I trace the involved agents’ motivations to engage in historical reconstruction from early-phase experimental efforts to legitimise the sites’ protected status to present-day politico-economic mobilisations of important historical locations to boost city attraction values. In this way, I link these two unfolding projects in Nara and Nagasaki to issues of urban boosterism, heritage production and the facilitation and commodification of tourist experiences of past realities. Approaching the reconstructions as contemporary heritage in traditional guise, the paper argues that both sites revolve materially, spatially and thematically around the master-metaphors of flow, growth and intercultural connectivity that characterise the present age. Elucidating processes of authentication and intersections of ideological and economic interests in and around the two sites, the paper asks in what ways Japanese cities exploit lost iconic localities and reconstructed heritage under post-industrial conditions marked by globalisation and intense cultural-economic competition.
{"title":"Pasts of the Present","authors":"Jens Sejrup","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6885","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v41i1.6885","url":null,"abstract":"In light of today’s global boom in landmark architecture, urban megaprojects and reconstructions of cultural heritage buildings, this paper analyses two large-scale reconstruction projects at iconic historical locations in Japan: the Heijō Palace in Nara and Dejima in Nagasaki. Since the 1990s, the two projects have recreated long-lost built environments, gradually transforming the sites, turning them into museums and exhibition spaces and giving rise to thorough reform of the surrounding urban fabric. In this paper I trace the involved agents’ motivations to engage in historical reconstruction from early-phase experimental efforts to legitimise the sites’ protected status to present-day politico-economic mobilisations of important historical locations to boost city attraction values. In this way, I link these two unfolding projects in Nara and Nagasaki to issues of urban boosterism, heritage production and the facilitation and commodification of tourist experiences of past realities. Approaching the reconstructions as contemporary heritage in traditional guise, the paper argues that both sites revolve materially, spatially and thematically around the master-metaphors of flow, growth and intercultural connectivity that characterise the present age. Elucidating processes of authentication and intersections of ideological and economic interests in and around the two sites, the paper asks in what ways Japanese cities exploit lost iconic localities and reconstructed heritage under post-industrial conditions marked by globalisation and intense cultural-economic competition.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45170575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-23DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6745
H. Møller
This article discusses how the gemstone jade mediates guanxi (‘personal relationships’), and how guanxi mediates jade trade in China. Outlining some affective, spiritual, moral and somatic meanings and efficacies of jade, especially as a gift, the article first discusses how jade materialities, cultural history and ontology influence human interactions with, and through, jade in contemporary China. Secondly, the article presents some more economically instrumental investments in, and exchanges of, jade and discusses why and how a national anti-corruption campaign engendered fluctuations in Chinese jade markets. Finally, the article discusses how guanxi ideally forges personal trust that facilitates transactions of jade, even though some younger jade traders consider guanxi insincere. Studies of guanxi in China’s reform era have conventionally given analytical primacy to how social relationships structure and give meaning to material exchanges. In contrast, this article argues that jade itself can be a catalyst for social relationships that span affect and instrumentality. Combining object–oriented, ontological and institutionalist approaches, the article conceptualises the outlined relations between jade and guanxi as material–social congruity and contingency in the Chinese context.
{"title":"Jade and Guanxi in China","authors":"H. Møller","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6745","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6745","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses how the gemstone jade mediates guanxi (‘personal relationships’), and how guanxi mediates jade trade in China. Outlining some affective, spiritual, moral and somatic meanings and efficacies of jade, especially as a gift, the article first discusses how jade materialities, cultural history and ontology influence human interactions with, and through, jade in contemporary China. Secondly, the article presents some more economically instrumental investments in, and exchanges of, jade and discusses why and how a national anti-corruption campaign engendered fluctuations in Chinese jade markets. Finally, the article discusses how guanxi ideally forges personal trust that facilitates transactions of jade, even though some younger jade traders consider guanxi insincere. Studies of guanxi in China’s reform era have conventionally given analytical primacy to how social relationships structure and give meaning to material exchanges. In contrast, this article argues that jade itself can be a catalyst for social relationships that span affect and instrumentality. Combining object–oriented, ontological and institutionalist approaches, the article conceptualises the outlined relations between jade and guanxi as material–social congruity and contingency in the Chinese context.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45123465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6749
J. Delman
{"title":"Lena Kaufmann, Rural-Urban Migration and Agro-Technological Change in Post-Reform China. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 306 pp. ISBN 9789463729734","authors":"J. Delman","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6749","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6749","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41998771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6783
Vera Skvirskaja
One of the common features of post-Soviet Central Asian diapora is its close connection to the homeland (the independent countries of the former Soviet Central Asia) manifested in various economic ties, including investments into kinship networks and business ventures. This research note discusses the transnational Bukharan Jewish diaspora and its links to Uzbekistan that do not fit into this general pattern. Drawing on the history of Bukharan Jews as a ‘go-between’ minority at the time of Russia colonisation of Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it investigates the ways in which this structural role has been actualised after the collapse of the USSR and mass emigration of the Bukharan Jews from Central Asia. While the Bukharan Jewish diaspora do not seem to establish new economic lniks to Uzbekstan, the Bukharan Jewish community ogranisaitons strive to become a recognised player in the field of people’s diplomacy.
{"title":"Research Note: The New Role of a Central Asian Diaspora","authors":"Vera Skvirskaja","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6783","url":null,"abstract":"One of the common features of post-Soviet Central Asian diapora is its close connection to the homeland (the independent countries of the former Soviet Central Asia) manifested in various economic ties, including investments into kinship networks and business ventures. This research note discusses the transnational Bukharan Jewish diaspora and its links to Uzbekistan that do not fit into this general pattern. Drawing on the history of Bukharan Jews as a ‘go-between’ minority at the time of Russia colonisation of Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it investigates the ways in which this structural role has been actualised after the collapse of the USSR and mass emigration of the Bukharan Jews from Central Asia. While the Bukharan Jewish diaspora do not seem to establish new economic lniks to Uzbekstan, the Bukharan Jewish community ogranisaitons strive to become a recognised player in the field of people’s diplomacy.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48365098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6746
Frederik Schröer
This article traces forms of resistance in the early Tibetan diaspora (c. 1959–79) in India as both political and emotional practices. It thereby seeks to make productive recent insights of research into the history of emotions for the study of migration and diaspora in general and Tibetan exile in particular. It zooms in on resistance and suffering as key concepts of Tibetan diasporic public discourse, both constituting complex semantic networks that entangle elements from Tibetan and Buddhist heritage as well as the refugees’ historical experiences. The article demonstrates the centrality of emotions to exilic morality and moral renegotiations, by probing into their historical effectivity and change. Furthermore, it will show how these concepts and practices are temporalised. This will uncover the ways in which key concepts such as resistance and suffering establish and negotiate multiple temporal relations to diverse pasts, presents and futures.
{"title":"Resistance and Suffering","authors":"Frederik Schröer","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6746","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6746","url":null,"abstract":"This article traces forms of resistance in the early Tibetan diaspora (c. 1959–79) in India as both political and emotional practices. It thereby seeks to make productive recent insights of research into the history of emotions for the study of migration and diaspora in general and Tibetan exile in particular. It zooms in on resistance and suffering as key concepts of Tibetan diasporic public discourse, both constituting complex semantic networks that entangle elements from Tibetan and Buddhist heritage as well as the refugees’ historical experiences. The article demonstrates the centrality of emotions to exilic morality and moral renegotiations, by probing into their historical effectivity and change. Furthermore, it will show how these concepts and practices are temporalised. This will uncover the ways in which key concepts such as resistance and suffering establish and negotiate multiple temporal relations to diverse pasts, presents and futures.","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41843455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-22DOI: 10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6747
Swargajyoti Gohain
{"title":"Mona Chettri and Michael Eilenberg (eds.), Development Zones in Asian Borderlands, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021. 284 pp, with illustrations. ISBN 9789463726238","authors":"Swargajyoti Gohain","doi":"10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6747","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.22439/cjas.v40i2.6747","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35904,"journal":{"name":"Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48975736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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