Consuming racial others: Media representations of racial otherness in Japanese nationhood.

摘要

This dissertation critically analyzes how Japanese use the notion of racial otherness to construct their racial and national identities. Japan is one of the "most Westernized non-Western" nations and the most modernized First-World nation of the non-Western nations. To attain such a status, Japan vigorously incorporated Western cultures and ideologies to modernize and westernize itself. In this process, white Westerners have been the racial reference for Japanese to follow.; Historically, Japan has been physically isolated from other races. Its long-term national seclusion, geographical location, and strict immigration policies have maintained its racial homogeneity. Japanese have not frequently associated with non-Japanese in their everyday life. However, the media have provided ample representations of racial others for the Japanese imagination. By analyzing various media representations of racial otherness, from contemporary to historical, this study explores how the Japanese envisage other races, how they construct their racial identity, and ultimately, how Japanese nationhood is shaped.; This study concludes that the lack of real frequent presence of non-Japanese in everyday reality does not necessarily mean isolation from other races. Rather, mediated representations of otherness, which are often created and transmitted by limited social institutions, play a powerful role in strategically constructing Japanese's perception of race and their own racial identity. Through media use, the Japanese incorporated the idea of whiteness and Westernness in specific and strategic ways to explain and maintain a status of racial superiority in relation to non-whites and to relocate Japanese as close as possible to the top of the global racial hierarchy, where white Europeans and Americans have resided. Analyzing the ways in which Japanese consume racial otherness, therefore, is essential to understand the ways Japan and Japanese are today, such as Japan's status as the most Western non-Western nation.; This study demonstrates a case where race can be dynamic transnational ideology. And Japan is not an exception. In addition, Japanese's ambivalent positionality in the spectra of the East and West and non-white and white makes their consumption of racial otherness even more fluid and dynamic.