Beyond Recognition: The Power of Refusal in Ainu and Uchinaanchu Homelands
This event is supported by 911吃瓜 David Lam Centre in partnership with Granville Island and Vancouver Writer鈥檚 Festival.
In this presentation, we grapple with issues shared by Ainu and Okinawan liberation struggles.
Yaunmosir (Hokkaido) and Uchin膩 (Ry奴ky奴) are ancestral and present-day homelands for Indigenous Ainu and Uchinaanchu in Japan. These are Japan鈥檚 oldest settler colonies. Okinawa was subjected to double colonial occupations: Japan (1879-1945; 1972-present) and the US (1945-1972). Both communities struggle with the merits of asserting 鈥淚ndigenous鈥� identification when faced with 1) US settler militarism (Okinawa), 2) racism and prejudice, 3) a monolingual society that imagines itself as monoethnic, and 4) right-wing hate against 鈥渕ulticultural policies.鈥�
In this presentation, we grapple with issues shared by Ainu and Okinawan liberation struggles: 鈥渆xtraction鈥� and 鈥渆thnographic refusal.鈥� 鈥淓xtraction鈥� often gestures toward fossil fuel removal; here we examine 鈥渆xtractive logics鈥� (Gago-Mezzadra 2017) of Japan鈥檚 settler colonial policies that disrupt life-nurturing relationships in Ainu and Okinawan ontologies. 鈥淓thnographic refusal鈥� (Simpson 2014) provides a framework to expose the myth of state claims that 鈥淚ndigenous recognition鈥� enables justice. Instead, we engage with Ainu and Okinawan communities as multi-layered, recognizing they/we exercise self-governance and self-representation, and reclaim space for internal dialogue to determine what form/s justice should take. For example, Japan鈥檚 multiculturalist policies promote tourism and 鈥渢radition鈥� while erasing Indigenous self-determination and commoditizing Indigenous values. Panelists draw from personal experience/research on a) Hidden strategies for narrating multiple Ainu identities in historiography (Arai); b) U.S. military settler colonialism and Japan鈥檚 assimilation policies following the forced annexation of Okinawa (Oyakawa); c) Reclaiming knowledge with Indigenous resurgence through Decolonization (Sakai); and d) Language reclamation and empowering Ainu self-determination (Cagielnik).
Speaker Biographies
Panelists: (Research Fellow, Hokkaido University) is an Indigenous Ainu scholar and activist whose grandfather was a lead plaintiff in the Nibutani Dam case (which was the first time Ainu were recognized as Indigenous by Japan鈥檚 courts). (Lecturer, Okinawa University) is an Indigenous Okinawan scholar and activist, founder of the Ry奴ky奴 Peoples Independent Research Society, Instructor of Uchinaaguchi, and regularly advocates for Okinawa at the United Nations. (postdoctoral fellow, Cornell University), is an Indigenous Okinawan scholar who works with Indigenous knowledge systems as methods to strengthen marine protection in her home community toward Indigenous resurgence. (Research Fellow, Hokkaido University), is a Japan-based Belarusian scholar who works for Ainu language revival by teaching her children with her Ainu partner.
The panel will be moderated by (Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria), who has worked to support Ainu, Adivasi and Indigenous rights in Japan and India since the 2000s.