The Heterogeneous Nature of the Japanese Archipelago: the Edo Period

The notion of Japanese homogeneity is often seen as the reason for Japan's reluctance to encourage immigration. However, the idea of Japanese homogeneity is far from being a historical fact and is best described as a “post-modernisation phenomenon” (Narzary 2004: 319). The Edo period (1603-1868) provides a good example of Japan's heterogeneous past.

The Tokugawa regime, with around 250 political units, often called states (kokka 国家) or domains (han 藩), on the three islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku characterised the politics and society of Edo era Japan (Ravina 1995: 999). The political structure of the Tokugawa regime was a confederation of feudal domains and, while each state or domain held overt autonomy or independence to varying degrees, the pre-eminent and most powerful domain was known as the Tokugawa Shogunate (Ravina 1995: 1000-1001; 1003).

The Tokugawa Shogunate claimed a monopoly on foreign affairs and, as the “supreme warlord house”. It also claimed a monopoly of force in dealings between states (Ravina 1995: 1001-1003). Despite the political and military pre-eminence of the Tokugawa Shogunate, it directly controlled only around 15% of the three main islands that made up the Tokugawa regime for most of the period. The 250 or so other domains, which varied in size and influence, held, with few exceptions, economic monopolies and near monopolies on coercive power over their territories (Ravina 1995: 1000).

As can be seen by observing of the heterogeneous nature of the Tokugawa regime, there was no homogeneous Japanese national identity during the Edo period but a multitude of domain and state-based identities. People under the Tokugawa regime considered themselves to be members of their kokka or han rather than citizens of a yet uncreated Japanese nation (Narzary 2004: 312).

The heterogeneous nature of the history of what is now modern Japan is even more striking when areas and populations outside the political structure of the Tokugawa regime are considered. During most of the Tokugawa period, the Ainu of Ezo (later Hokkaido), were considered, and considered themselves, to be ethnically distinct from the peoples living on Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku under the Tokugawa regime. The same is true of the people of the kingdom of Ryukyu, in modern day Okinawa, (Narzary 2004: 314-316).

The Japanese word Ainu was used as the name of the peoples living in Ezo as well as a general word for barbarian (Narzary 2004: 314). Between the 15th and 18th centuries the Ainu fought several major battles with various armies from Honshu and the Ainu were increasingly dominated by domains of Honshu. The Tokugawa Shogunate itself eventually assumed complete control of the island in 1807 so that the Tokugawan northern frontier could be protected from Russian advances (Tezuka 1998: 350; Yonezawa 2005: 118).

Until its annexation by the Meiji government in 1879, the Kingdom of Ryukyu was acknowledged to be a part of the “Chinese world order” which placed it outside the legitimate authority of the Tokugawa regime and meant that the Ryukyu kingdom had various tributary obligations placed on it by the Chinese Imperial Court (Narzary 2004: 314-315). The Ryukyu kingdom was forced into submission in 1609 the powerful Shimazu clan from Kyushu (Narzary 2004: 314-315). The King of Ryukyu was effectively made a Shimazu puppet and from that point on and had to balance the competing demands of China and Shimazu, as it officially remained within the Chinese political structure (Narzary 2004: 316).

Ogasawara is an interesting is a lesser known annexation made by those in the Tokugawan political sphere. This small group of Japanese islands, located approximately 1000km South of Tokyo, is another example of the ethnic diversity of pre-modern Japan. The original inhabitants of this small island group settled there from a variety of locations including the United States, Europe and several Pacific islands (Chapman 2011: 190). In 1862 the Tokugawan magistrate of foreign affairs visited the islands and declared them to be part of Tokugawan territory (Chapman 2011: 194). With the creation of the Meiji state the islands' inhabitants, like elsewhere in the Japanese archipelago, unproblematically became Japanese citizens (Chapman 2011: 194).

The cultural, ethnic and political heterogeneity of the Edo period was also matched by linguistic diversity. During this period and well into the early Meiji period a large number of languages of even the main island Honshu were not mutually intelligible (Shimoda 2010: 715).

An analysis of the historically heterogeneous nature of the Japanese archipelago goes far in showing the subsequently constructed nature of Japanese national identity. The lack of a homogeneous Japanese national identity during the Edo period stands in contrast to the two different Japanese identities of both the Meiji period and that of today. The fall of the Tokugawa regime signalled the end of the Edo era. The Meiji regime that followed set the Japanese archipelago on a course of modern state formation and with it, conscious efforts to construct a national identity.

This is a section of a thesis I did during my Master’s of International Relations. For references and the full thesis click here.

Suggested citation:

Hall, Christopher, J. (2013), Japanese National Identity Narratives and Refugee Policy [Master’s thesis, UNSW], https://www.christopher-james-hall.com/japanese-national-identity-refugee-policy