Theoretical Encounters: Postcolonial Studies in East Asia

Abstract

Postcolonialism has grown from a minor branch of English literary studies applied to the decolonising movements of the British Empire in the 1950s to a term increasingly applied to various legacies of exploitation, exclusion and discrimination around the world. As globalisation is recognised as a contemporary form of cultural and economic imperialism, and as world literature and the global circulation of media make available voices from hitherto under-represented peoples, postcolonial studies has become a many-headed beast. While South Asia (India, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and South-East Asia (former British, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish colonies) are represented in the field, East Asia remains under-explored. This essay applies postcolonial precepts to minority communities in Japan, particularly the indigenous Ainu, and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of applying the postcolonial framework to a non-European setting.

Keywords

• postcolonial studies
• Japanese imperialism
• Ainu
• East-Asian studies