Unthinking the nation state as area: Interrogating Japan and Japanese studies

Abstract

Geographers and others have recently addressed the problematic of area studies by suggesting alternate ways to recognize the connectedness of peoples and places. However, some areas seem so self-evident as to resist their undoing. One such area is the nation state. In this paper, I examine the resilience of the nation state as area through the example of Japanese studies. I discuss the emergence in the United States of Japanese studies as a field, and thus Japan as an area worthy of study, due to its enemy status in World War II, which highlights a troubling disciplinary origin in interrogation that still haunts the academy. I continue by explaining how Japan’s postwar amnesia of its pre-1945 empire and the influence of one research monograph in particular helped produce the enduring notion of a homogeneous and spatially isolated Japan. Subsequent decades of research have tried to undermine this notion, albeit without questioning the ontology of Japan itself. In this paper, I outline challenges to unthinking the nation state as area, including existing institutional barriers and the role of Japanese studies as a source of professional identity, both in general and for me personally.