일본 Nation Building의 탈구축 - 비(非) 야마토 민족 서발턴의 주체화 시도에 주목하면서 -

Abstract

When leaders in the Meiji Period were forging the nation state, they created the concept of the Yamato Minzoku (people) in order to justify Imperial rule. This concept was based upon the myth that Imperial authority had once been absolute. The same myth was applied to simultaneously give birth to other Minzoku (national or ethnic) concepts regarding those peoples who had not been under Yamato rule in ancient times, namely the Emishi of the North-East, the Kumaso of the Southern Kyushu, and the Izumo Minzoku who were said to have ruled Japan before the Yamato. Imperial authorities regarded these peoples as enemies of the national integration process and consequently marginalized them. Furthermore, after World War II, a discourse that Japan had been a homogeneous country since ancient times and that this homogeneity was spurring contemporaneous economic growth gained traction. This discourse rendered the inherent diversity of the Japanese people invisible, and even the very name of the ethnic majority became ambiguous. This paper examines the confusion surrounding national or ethnic concepts in Japan, and reconsiders Japan’s nation-building process from the perspective of non-Yamato subalterns to reveal the true internal diversity of the Japanese people. Although they might be seen as similar majorities from the perspectives of the Korean minority subalterns and indigenous Ainu subalterns, it is the contention of this paper that multiculturalism including the majority can be achieved by encouraging solidarity among all subalterns regardless of ethnicity, by recognizing that Japan is composed of a multiethnic and multicultural people, and by affirming and accepting the different ethnicities and their values. There is a possibility that the deconstruction of Japan’s nation-building process and the non-Yamato subalterns’ attempts to become independent social actors will lead to greater diversity, a shift that might also stimulate integration and the recognition of cultural diversity.