Abstract

What did it mean for Okinawa to be a “colony”? How did the Okinawan people, who suffered under Japanese discrimination and prejudice since Ryukyu’s annexation, live in Taiwan under colonial rule? What did they go to Taiwan in search of? This book presents a reconsideration of modernity and Japanese imperialism in Okinawa through the experiences of those moving back and forth between domination and subjugation.

Reviews
“It is tempting to put one’s hand on one’s heart and ask, ‘What is it about the privilege of those who moved between domination and subjugation at the boundary of Okinawa, Taiwan, and Japan that makes the past so perilous?’ ‘Is the dismal light of privilege that “those who moved between domination and subjugation” at the border between “Okinawa,” “Taiwan,” and “Japan” really a thing of the past?’ ” —Yuju Wen, novelist
“This book shows us how the identity of Okinawa is not self-evident, but is constructed and shaken by the experience of emigration and repatriation, as we follow the lives of each individual.” —Taisho Nakayama
“The book traces the lives of each of them, showing how they were “colonial and imperial in the empire. This book approaches the structural anguish of those who had no choice but to bear the two.” —Hisahiko Kamizuru, anthropologist

Author’s Information

Born in 1976. Completed a Master's degree at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo. Obtained a PhD (History) from the Australian National University. After working as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Asia Studies, National University of Singapore, and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of Taiwan History, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, she became an associate professor in the Faculty of Contemporary Society, Kobe Gakuin University in April 2014. Her specialties are social history and historical sociology.
Main publication: Liminality of the Japanese Empire: Border Crossings from Okinawa to
Colonial Taiwan (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2019), Rethinking
Postwar Okinawa: Beyond American Occupation (Lexington Press, 2017,
Co-author and editor), Handbook of Practical Citizenship Education for Multicultural Coexistence (Akashi Shoten, 2020, co-author and editor)