Carla Rey Vasquez  

Abstract

Through an ethnographic investigation of school lunchboxes, this paper explores how health, gender, and ethnicity are understood through children’s interactions. It examines the way children construct, affirm and/or challenge social distinctions and issues of inclusion/exclusion by looking at the contents, concepts, narrative and activities related to the consumption and sharing of lunch food at a primary school in Wellington, New Zealand. The study reveals that children´s lunchbox-related interactions are embedded in moral systems, which allow the lunchbox contents and discourses to be the source of moral  gender, and ethnic distinctions. Children can distinguish each other based on their knowledge of and access to ’healthy foods‘, while gender-based ideals are reproduced in the healthy vs. junk food dichotomy. While children reproduce government, as well as family and school structures, the paper demonstrates that children are also social agents in their own terms, who utilize and negotiate these very structures to create their own systems of distinction. It thus contributes to the ‘anthropology of childhood’ (Mandell, 1984; Robinson, 2000; Turner et l., 1995) by seeking to comprehend children’s knowledge on its own terms, and by revealing patterns of socialisation, complex cultural understandings,  socio-cultural dynamics, and children´s notions of their own identity and their perceptions of those of Others .

The Indian Chicken Sandwich

Indian Chicken Sandwich, Image by Carla Vasquez

I was conducting participant-observation research amongst 6 year olds in a multi-ethnic, inner city Wellington school when I first encountered a quite novel student lunch. “This is an Indian chicken sandwich” – Quali[1], the Somali girl who held it, told me. The sandwich consisted of two slices of white bread cut into triangles and filled with Indian chicken her mum made the night before for the family dinner. The complete sandwich had then been toasted by her big sister and put in her lunchbox. This was indeed a novelty item in the playground, as most other sandwiches were filled with cheese and ham, peanut butter, and jam. I begin this paper with this chicken sandwich as it illustrates my concluding argument—namely that the consumption of students’ lunches, as I encountered them in this Wellington primary school, embraces normative or ‘mainstream’ discourses and practices that seek to domesticate ethnic and cultural difference. While the Indian chicken attempts luxury, ethnic and cultural distinctions, and thus seemingly disrupts the normativity of the de-rigour ´white´ sandwich, these still need to be concealed in the form of a sandwich.

Methodology and Theoretical Basis

Image by Carla Vasquez

I conducted fieldwork at one co-ed, primary school in one of the most multicultural suburbs of Wellington, New Zealand, for the period of one month. The primary school studied is a decile 3, which according to the ministry of education refers to the relatively low socio-economic background of the families of pupils who attend this school. The school roll includes children from 80 different countries and a total of 242 pupils, describing itself as a “multi-cultural school that connects students to the world in a myriad of ways and with a cultural belief in the importance of people” (school webpage).

I  conducted participant observation, interviews with the children and teachers, and four focus group discussions within a particular classroom. As part of my research I have attended school and engaged in the same activities as the children, and have spent all morning teas and lunch times speaking with them. As a methodological framework I have adhered to the new sociology of childhood theories (Mandell, 1998) and have aimed to lessen my adult qualities by participating in school activities as a child (i.e. sitting on the matt, colouring, singing), stressing to the children that my role within the school is not that of a teacher, and avoiding any adult like responsibilities (i.e. dissolving conflict, telling children off, telling children what to do).  This method was selected with the purpose of understanding the way in which children’s social worlds operate. It was also meant to encourage children to perceive me, as much as possible, as one of them, so that they would reveal practices they hide from teachers but that are of significance to them and to my study (i.e. food sharing, as this was discouraged at the schools, or comments about adults). Likewise, this method could lessen the power dynamics experienced by children so that they would not feel pressured to answer my questions (Mac Naughton et al., 2001).

This paper stems out of a broader study that investigated the way in which the contents of schoolchildren’s lunches reflect and indicate their understandings and practices of health, ethnicity and social class in three New Zealand primary schools. The paper draws heavily on Bourdieu’s theories of Distinction (1984), suggesting that individuals and groups engage in material as well as in ”symbolic and social classificatory” struggles, to maintain or enhance their relative standing within hierarchies and ensure their reproduction (Bourdieu, 1985: 725).  This paper is also framed around theories on the ‘domestication of difference’ (Hage, 1998; Urry, 1995; Van der Veer, 1996: 321) whereby the cultural, social and political homogenisation of nation-states is purposefully managed through discourses of multiculturalism. As Hage explains, in Australia and other late settler societies such as New Zealand, the rhetoric of multiculturalism emphasises tolerance and equality of rights, and values difference. However, this also determinedly positions ethnically dominant groups as the prime arbiters of ethnic Others within the nation-state, via either proclaiming their inclusion and/or exclusion within the nation, policing tolerance and conviviality between differentiated ethnic groups, or doing the ‘valuing’ of their consumable ‘traditions’.

Healthy Food: The Moral Realm of School Lunchboxes

The most prominent feature in regards to food at school is that it is embedded in a highly moralized realm. Children are constantly educated by direct teacher instruction and through school edicts into the benefits of healthy food in ways that re-enforce the notion that they should eat things that are “good for them” such as fruit and vegetables. This notion of ’healthy food’ is often discussed in contrast to ’junk food‘, which is presented to children as bad and fattening.

Moreover, junk food is condemned on behavioural grounds, where it is often condemned by teachers, and indeed also children, for making them behave in “silly ways”. This practice is illustrated in an exercise conducted by a teacher, in which the children were asked to express their thoughts as to whether or not they should be allowed to have lollies (sweets) at school. Most of the children’s responses stressed the idea that children should not be allowed to eat lollies at school, and these were some of their reasons:

• “Lollies make us silly because they have sugar in them. We won’t be able to work”.

• “Lollies will make us fat. If we eat them at home and at school it is too many”.

• “People who aren’t allowed to eat lollies will get them from other people. If we eat too many lollies it will make us sick”.

• “They (the lollies) will get stuck on kid’s teeth all day. Our teeth will go rotten and fall out”.

‘Lollies’ Image by Carla Vasquez

I shall note here that to ‘junk food’ children often relate sugary foods, but I have also heard children and teachers talk about MSG, colouring, butter, and the like, as of ingredients that make food unhealthy.

Such discourses about ‘healthy food’ are not solely generated by the teachers, but are also actively engaged in and created by the children. As this quote demonstrates, the children often create distinctions based on the eating and knowledge of ‘healthy food’:

Carla: Does anyone bring weird food (to school)?

Lara: Yes, Priscilla does. She brings apples…

Mara: That is only because she (Lara) doesn’t eat much healthy food.

Lara: Yes I do!

Carla: Why do you think Lara doesn’t eat healthy food?

Mara: Because she doesn’t. I don’t see her eat healthy stuff.

Carla: So what is healthy food?

Mara and Lizzy: Fruit skins, pears, bananas, apples, strawberries.

Carla: Ok, so fruit. What else?

Mara: Carrots, carrots are healthy food

Lizzy: Yes, but carrots are a fruit. Others could be cauliflower, broccoli, and salad.

I have also experienced events where children accused each other of bringing chippies or cake, saying “you are not allowed to bring those things to school” and even telling the teacher, who then confiscated these items.

Gendered Distinction: How Sharing Made Boys Naughty

The differentiation based on the consumption and knowledge of healthy food also serves to reproduce strong gender distinctions that exist within the school environment. This is especially evident in a school regulation that prohibits the swapping or sharing of any foods between students, mostly on the basis that swapping/sharing could lead children to consume foods they are allergic to. However swapping, or more accurately as my participants have often corrected me, sharing, is a well practiced activity in the school playground. I have not observed instances of direct trading or balanced bartering of food, and as such I believe that the term sharing is more appropriate. Sharing can take multiple forms, from students claiming to have a picnic, forming a group circle and putting all of their food in the middle so that it essentially becomes indistinguishable who it belonged to and helping themselves freely to any piece, through to asking others for a chippie, breaking up cookies into multiple pieces to give to their friends, and putting an undesired sandwich in someone else’s lunchbox so that they would eat it. Sharing may also involve bargaining, such as asking for a piece of someone’s sandwich in exchange for someone else´s piece. As the sharing of food is prohibited, the activity takes place covertly, in “special hiding places” or via cleverly conducted activities; a picnic, passing food under tables or behind other children, as the children explained.

Contrary to literature on gifting and gender that has emphasized that women are the primary gift givers in Western societies (Vaughan 2004; Waring 1988), I was fascinated to notice that the sharing of food at schools took place prominently between boys. This, I believe, is also related to the moralizing arena in which food and food consumption are situated. Indeed, since the sharing of foods is prohibited, it is perceived as a “naughty” activity by the children, and thus morally condemned. If a child is caught sharing he or she is made to pick up the rubbish in the school or to sit in the stairs outside the classroom during class time, making this punishment evident to all others. Boys often appear to be motivated to exemplify their gender by contesting institutional authority through the sharing of food, and thus engaging in a form of rebellious rather than socially facilitating or empathetic gifting.[2]

This aspect can be connected to the fact that within the school visited, gender was the foremost important form of distinction amongst the children. This was displayed through boys and girls sitting in different places, labelling items as “a boys thing” or a “girlie activity”, and creating a dichotomized system of identification that connects girls to concepts such as fluffy, cute, pink, nice, well behaved, soft, and so forth, in comparison to connecting boys to hard, funny, naughty, blue, and so forth. Within this dichotomy, girls seek moral capital, a form of cultural capital that constructs and renders moral dispositions natural. Once established as such, individuals can, based on moral dispositions, dispute higher moral/social standing in comparison to others (Valvedere, 2005). Moral capital can be acquired by acquiescing to authority and regulations and thus by not sharing, which further provides girls with higher, institutionally-acknowledged status. For instance, children often received stickers or “caught you being good” cards that would grant them prizes, a form of recognition that is admired by their peers. This correlates with a high moral status that could also be obtained through the eating of healthy foods.

In contrast, sharing food provides boys with their gender-specific moral capital, derived from being wilfully naughty, risk-taking and rebellious. Institutional recognition of this only adds to a boy’s status amongst his peers. This is evident in the following discussion with one of the boys:

Carla: Do you boys always share?

Philip: yes, only boys are allowed to share

Ivon: No, no one is allowed to share.

Carla: How do you do it so that the teacher won’t catch you?

Nikorau: We hide it under stuff, or pass it under the table.

Carla: So why do boys share more?

Philip: Because boys are cool!

Carla: What happens if you get caught?

Ivon: You get sent to pick up the rubbish or you have to sit in the steps

Nikorau: Yeah, yeah, and then you are the man!!!!!

Boys are more likely to share food not only because they consider this a boy-like activity, but because even once they get caught for sharing, this act proves their identity as boys, and distinguishes them as the ‘best’ type of boys compared with their peers. This example also demonstrates that symbolic capital, the way in which different forms of capital become recognised as legitimate or authentic markers of social distinction (Bourdieu 1984: 101-116), does not only operate in a positive/negative spectrum, but may refer to aspects that could be understood as negative forms of capital by some, and used by others to create positive distinctions.

Creating and Challenging Distinctions: Kids Can Also Play with Capital

The moral systems in which the children’s food consumption is embedded, including institutional prohibitions and endorsements, allows children to create systems of distinction themselves, and to challenge institutional and parental authority in multiple ways. While the teacher often re-enforces the fact that children must eat their own foods as it is what their mothers – as teachers would have it – would like them to eat, through the covert sharing of food children access foodstuffs that they may be denied at home and that in some instances revoke their parents’ forms of middle class distinction. This is demonstrated in the following extract from my field notes:

(Before morning tea)

Teacher: Please make sure you are eating your lunch. Do not give anyone your lunch, especially not if it’s got peanuts, eggs or strawberries, they are not good for some people. Your lunchbox has in it what your mum has asked you to eat, what she thinks you should eat. So do not give your food to anyone else.

(Morning tea)

Anawim is eating Nikorau’s KFC

Carla: Anawim, do you ever have KFC at home?

A: No, I’m not allowed to

Carla: Why?

A: Because my parents say is not good for us to eat.

Thus, while Anawim’s middle class parents[3] have a ’healthy food only’ policy, and he is often sent to school with organic biscuits, he subverts this by eating KFC at school. This demonstrates the socialization into, and child’s awareness of, the compartmentalized nature of social life, where authority, edicts, activities and identities are separated and often operate in contradictory ways. Furthermore this results in a  friction of habitus[4] (Bourdieu 2005) which the children are negotiating.

Likewise, the children often challenge a prevalent middle class form of morality/ distinction, which is based on claiming that their children are allergic to particular items. While allergies are indeed a danger in school, one teacher contested this general ethos: “Parents sometimes say they (children) are allergic to things, like dairy. Then they go and eat a yogurt and they are fine. I think it´s a trendy thing.” A similar contestation was expressed by one participant, a five year old girl whom, when asked about the sharing, explained:

Rose: I only share my food…

Carla: Who do you share it with?

Rose: My friends.

Carla: What sort of foods do you share?

Rose: My milkies,[5] I share them with Bella because she can’t eat milk or eggs.

Carla: So how come you can give them to her?

Rose: Oh, because they are special

Carla: Does she get sick?

Rose: No, she is fine.

Through sharing, children therefore disrupt parents’ proclamation of their child as allergic to dairy, and do so in ways that also emphasize their identity as friends.

The Domestication of Ethnicity: How the Indian Chicken Ended Up in the Sandwich

For the last section I return to the Indian chicken sandwich, as it represents the capacity that children have for simultaneously creating assimilatory and ethnic distinctions. It is important to note here, that while diversity and multiculturalism are enacted actively in some school realms, for instance, children are encouraged to say good morning and are taught songs in different languages, say prayers in Maori and are allowed to dress “in their ethnic clothing” (school guidelines), the realm of food remains highly homogeneous – being essentially mainstream New Zealand or ‘Kiwi’ (Howland, 2004), with sandwiches being the most common food at school.

Such homogenization is probably the result of parents being sent strict guidelines regarding the sort of food they should pack for their children’s lunches. The guidelines are adopted from the school directly from the Ministry of Education “Food and Nutrition for Healthy Confident Kids” document, which dictates: “Make nutritious pack lunches using rolls or sandwiches with a filling of cheese and lean meat or egg” (Ministry of Education New Zealand, 2007). Moreover, children who arrive at school without lunch assemble in the library at lunchtime and are fed white-bread jam sandwiches by the librarian. Children are also enculturated into this practice through discussions about their lunchbox food, such as the following:

Teacher: What is a good thing to start your lunch with?

(Children raise their hands)

Navneet: A sandwich.

Teacher: And then?

Lizzy: Yogurt?

Teacher: Yes, and then some biscuits or a muesli bar, or cake. You can then finish with a piece of fruit, like an apple, because it also cleans your teeth.

In this way teachers also expected that the children will transmit this information to their parents.

The discourse on the sandwich as the basis for the lunchbox is however problematic for children of different ethnicities or cultures, who eat different food at home and for whom the sandwich is a foreign item. Since the discourse is embedded within the above-mentioned moral realm, which promotes it as the primary or foundational healthy food to send in the lunchbox, individuals from other ethnicities are forced to adapt and produce a “kiwi lunchbox”. In my study, this was further complicated by the teacher’s views in relation to Others’ consumption practices. For instance, when she asked me what I was talking about with one of the Somali girls:

Carla: I was asking Mary why she doesn’t bring Somali food to school.

Teacher: I guess the other children will embarrass her. And also, they mostly eat rice and curries, that sort of thing. So you need a fork and a spoon for that, it kind of gets in the way.

Carla: You mean like it would take longer and no time for play?

Teacher: Yes exactly.

The notion that the school children will embarrass those who bring “ethnic” food was also reiterated by some Somali girls, who explained that their parents did not allow them to bring “their” food because other children would laugh. When I asked them if this was indeed the case, they said that no one had ever laughed at their food.[6] It is thus clear that through multiple discourses, the possibility of bringing food other than sandwiches to school is diminished, in ways that resemble Van der Veer’s (1996) and Hage’s (2003) domestication of difference (see above).

However, as the Indian chicken sandwich demonstrates, assimilation can contain elements in which normativization is also challenged. Not only are the children bringing food that demonstrates an ethnic identity, but they are doing so in ways that, significantly, conform to the strictures and structures that have been promoted as ideal and that challenge the way in which their food has been constructed by the teachers. Thus, contrary to the way in which Bourdieu (1984) presented the consumption of foods in minority groups, food in this case is not used to display belonging to a minority group, but it is used covertly within a system that silences diversity in favour of the consumption of foods that are enjoyed by the children. This could be an example of a veiled ethnicity, white on the outside but Somali in the middle (Howland & Rey Vasquez, forthcoming).

Finally, this sandwich also represents the complex, multiple, and contested identities that children find themselves negotiating, as this conversation demonstrates:

Carla: What is in your sandwich?

Quali: Indian chicken, my mum makes it. I’m from India.

Carla: Are there other children from India in the school?

Alofa: Yes, Kallim, Natia and Michelle.

Carla: How do you know that they are Indian?

Alofa: Natia’s house is next to mine.

Carla: And are you Indian Quali?

Alofa: No, she looks like she is Somalian.

Quali: Yes I am Somalian.[7]

Carla: How did you know she was Somali Alofa?

Alofa: Because she looks like it.

Thus, contrary to the way in which food and ethnicity have been theorized by some scholars (Camp 1989; Kalcik 1984; Rikoon 1982) the sandwich does not represent a child’s (Quali’s in this case) single ethnic identity, but several of the identities one can access. The sandwich can be seen to operate as a form of ethnic distinction, to demonstrate one’s ethnic differentiation from the other children, while also playing with and conforming to the notions of the kiwi sandwich. Moreover, Alofa’s comment underlines the notion that it is not only through food brought to school that children understand each other’s identity, but that they also do this in response to discourses they have previously encountered.

Yet, this seeming disruption of hegemonic structures takes place only at a superficial level.  While the children bring food that demonstrates “their” ethnic identity, they do so in ways that conform to the rules and structures that have been promoted as ideal. They are, themselves, seeking to integrate or self-domesticate their Otherness within the mainstream, New Zealand paradigm. This is an effort to make their chicken curry palatable (Morris, 2010).

Concluding Remarks

This research demonstrates that children form an understanding of multiculturalism, gender, cultural diversity and stratified forms of consumption (luxury, mundane, poor) that allows them to make sense of the muddled ethnic and class identities they face in their everyday environment. By foregrounding the views of the children, it becomes clear that socialization is not a one-way process, but that children engage actively in distinction-making practices, both dynamically engaging (i.e. from reproduction to contestation) the structures provided by adults and institutions, and by creating their own. This short paper illustrates the fertility of the largely overlooked qualities of food as a topic of inquiry within the context of an anthropology of childhood.  The few articles available on the topic of lunchboxes (see Allison, 1991; Donner, 2006; Kelly et al., 2010; Nukaga, 2008) demonstrate the value of studying an everyday insignificant object as revelatory of broader societal values in ways that strengthen the empirical use of Bourdieu´s theories. Given the limitations of this paper, several aspects have only been alluded to. These include the scientific or polluting basis for allergies and consumption, a material analysis of lunchbox contents, middle class dynamics and home habitus, as well as the “whiteness” at stake within the ethnicity discourse. I have nevertheless opened “the box” for an intellectual discussion of the interconnectedness between ethnicity, gender and social class and their relation with socialization. I urge for inquiry into these topics through the perspectives of children. Without such analysis the sandwich remains half eaten.

Notes:

I would like to acknowledge the intellectual contribution that Dr. Peter Howland has provided for this paper. His work, support and friendship are an inspiration for my research and life in general.

References

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Joy Hendry

Professor Emerita, Oxford Brookes University
MacGeorge Fellow, University of Melbourne

In the autumn of 1910, anthropology was offered for the first time as a subject examined at the Advanced (A) level of the General Certificate of Education to pupils in their last two years of secondary education in England. It was not the first time the subject had been offered in English schools, for the International Baccalaureat (IB) has been offering it for years, but only a minority of English pupils are able to opt for the IB path, so it was limited to those who were mostly anyway from an international background. The A level is the standard school leaving examination in the UK, and if schools can find the teachers to offer the subject, it could potentially be available throughout the country in a few years time.

In this essay, I would like to consider some of the benefits of teaching anthropology in secondary schools. I will also mention some of the possible problems that may arise, but my main argument will be to assess the potential of this innovation for rethinking what anthropology can offer the contemporary world, and how the technology now available to provide resources for such a course may at the same time open up the field beyond its presently limited scope. I will also make one or two suggestions about why it has taken a group of practitioners  whose average age is almost four times that of the potential pupils to come up with the idea!

In my school days, anthropology was available in a few universities, but none of my teachers ever mentioned its existence; indeed, they may never have heard of it themselves. I certainly hadn’t. It took me an undergraduate degree in general science, when I used unknowingly to drink in a bar a few floors below one of the most famous anthropology courses in the world, and three or four years of living and working abroad, to discover the discipline that eventually became my career! In those days – known subsequently as the swinging sixties – it was fortunately possible to pick up the discipline in an intensive post-graduate course, at least in Oxford and Cambridge; indeed, Edmund Leach, one of its main proponents in Cambridge at the time expressed the view that the subject should not be taught too early, and Oxford, where I did my own study, only offered anthropology to people who already had a first degree, often in another discipline.

The world has changed a lot since then, and there are now more courses, but many people still have only a vague idea what anthropology is all about. This state of affairs seems to continue, despite the broadcasting, since not long after colour television became readily available, of several excellent series of quite popular television programmes, which drew directly on the work of anthropologists. A few did even feature an anthropologist in front of the camera, but many more simply added their name to the credits at the end, and recently, a charming presenter will even act as though they are arriving in a distant location for the first time to learn first-hand the ways of the people who live there . The work that goes into making the arrangements for such a visit is rarely mentioned, though it may often involve more than one anthropologist, including someone who has worked locally, and other TV researchers to find the locations.

A more recent innovation has been the availability, on line, of huge amounts of information about peoples who live in different parts of the world, some recording the work of anthropologists but much of it posted by the people themselves. It is interesting that television producers still tend to emphasise the lack of technology of the exotic peoples they set out to film, while many of them may actually own mobile telephones and have access, at least, to computers and the internet. In this sense, we should perhaps be relieved that anthropology does not get mentioned, for one thing we do need to do is to shake off the image, retained by some who have heard of us, that we all work with “primitive” peoples in far off places.

I would like to argue that if anthropology were to become widely available as an option in the secondary school curriculum, not only in England, but much more broadly, that image could finally be shattered, once and for all. Moreover, the value of using anthropological knowledge and techniques could also be disseminated at an appropriate age to allow adults in many walks of life to make decisions about the people they meet based on some basic understanding of difference and diversity, rather than on uninformed prejudice. With many years of teaching anthropology at an undergraduate level behind me, I can vouch for the transformation that occurs in the young people we encounter there, but they are still too few, and wouldn’t it be great to magnify that level of change?

So how could teaching in schools bring some of these changes about?

Well, first of all, schools in Britain, as in many other countries, are full of diversity themselves these days, so that children growing up in the same classroom may well discover considerable variety among their home backgrounds. The A level syllabus is designed not only to introduce aspects of the lives of people living elsewhere, but also to encourage sharing and discussion in the classroom about the lives of pupils taking the course. Examples for the illustration of the principles of anthropology are also taken from different living environments in many countries, from the inner city, through cultivated countryside, to land that has been classified by outsiders as “wilderness” but which may well sustain whole communities. Thus children in a variety of locations can compare their own lives with residents of a similar background elsewhere.

A project in the second year of the A level includes some hands-on research, which can be done out in the local community, or even amongst members of the same class. The learning of techniques of research is of course part of this process, but at the same time, it cannot fail to make the participants aware of the possibilities for investigation within their own neighbourhood. Class presentations about the research as it proceeds will inevitably bring an increased knowledge of the community to the all the young people taking the course who live there, and if they stay on in the area after they leave school, even if they do no further anthropology, they will be better equipped to deal with one another in their future working lives.

Indeed, they should be better equipped to deal with people in many walks of life, and as many of the school leavers will go on to study quite different subjects, or to move straight into gainful employment, this enhanced knowledge of cultural variety should move with them into all of their academic and non-academic worlds. Anthropology is already taught to a limited extent in courses of nursing, policing, and indeed, teaching, where practitioners are likely to have encounters with those from an increasingly large range of origins for whom the expectations of that encounter may be quite different. Misunderstanding such difficulties could cause embarrassment at the very least, may even lead to violence, and worse, could result in long-term inadequacies in the education of individual children.

Of course, understanding something about the depth of cultural difference that may be encountered does not give these practitioners an inside knowledge of every culture they might encounter, but it can certainly offer hints, and alert them to a variety of possibilities. For example, many languages suppress expressions about intimate parts of the body, and so people may misrepresent the symptoms of an illness or injury, which can then be teased out by a nurse, or other medical practitioner who is aware of the likelihood of such a problem. Teachers with only a minimal amount of anthropological knowledge can also be aware that children apparently making a muddle of the names of their relatives, an issue which could cause hilarity among their classmates, are simply using a different system of classification, quite normal in their own families and linguistic groups.

This kind of understanding may not always be used in a positive way, indeed a little knowledge of other cultural practices can add fuel to the flames of a dispute, or provide resources for those who are intent on bullying their classmates. However, that kind of behaviour will probably take place whether knowledge is accurate or not, and the new more accurate knowledge shared by the wider community of classmates could even help to alleviate some of the problems for victims of such treatment.

There could also be a problem if teachers of the subject are not well prepared, and thus disseminate inaccurate information, or conflate the discipline of anthropology with other, closely related fields such as sociology or religious studies. At present, in the UK, there are few courses that allow teachers to take anthropology while they train, so that qualified teachers may be drawing on a limited background, or even learning anthropology as they go along. However, the pupils signed up for study at the advanced level of the school-leaving certificate in the UK are already rather capable of doing their own reading and research, and it is to be hoped that the field will soon build up a sufficient body of trained teachers to fill the positions as they become available.

As the online journal Global Ethnographic, for which I am writing this piece, picks up on the propensity of the time for students of all ages to turn to the internet for information, it is particularly important that there be help available with selecting, evaluating and interpreting the vast morass of possible websites, blogs and film clips that can be accessed. As mentioned before, there is plenty of information on line about peoples from all over the world, much of it written by themselves, but some written by outside observers who have had only a brief encounter and understand very little. With a modicum of training in a discipline that devotes itself to collecting, interpreting and comparing such information, which we call ethnography, the materials will be in much safer hands.

In general, then, my suggestion is that the introduction of anthropology teaching in secondary schools – in Britain or elsewhere – could add to the sum of general knowledge picked up at that important stage of life a crucial skill for future interaction among people of different cultural heritage that has been sorely lacking in many countries to date. Of course, we have all heard of multiculturalism, it has become a stale subject that has even begun to annoy people in many parts of the world; but few people have an idea about just how different ways of thinking may be, and how those embedded systems of thought may influence the behaviour of those who hold them. This realisation may not immediately help to solve the world’s international disputes, nor will it prevent all future wars, but it will certainly increase the number of people who understand different perspectives, and may make them hesitate immediately to classify people as terrorists before they think about the idea that they might see themselves freedom fighters.

I am writing this paper during a brief period of residence in Australia. It is my second one, the first having been some 16 or 17 years ago, and I have encountered a major change of attitude amongst many ordinary people on the streets to the first occupants of the land they regard as their own. When I was here before, I could barely get anyone to speak about the Aboriginal people, except in very negative terms, and even the anthropologists at the university to which I was attached, shied away from their study, preferring to work in more distant locations. This is a very political subject in Australia, and it continues to be so, but it is now one that people at least discuss, there are news and discussion programmes about the issues, and since the institution of “national sorry day” there have been organizations for reconciliation set up all over the country. There may still be a long way to go here, but I feel that I have witnessed the kind of positive change that could be sparked by a greater knowledge of what anthropology is all about.

This is the main reason why I think that a lot of effort has been put into writing the curriculum and setting up the A level by people who have lived through a major part of their lives. We have seen the way that attitudes can change, some for better, some for worse. One of the latter relates, in my view, to our having come of age in those years described as the swinging sixties. It was a time of great hope within Europe for a future that could put the devastation of the two world wars behind us, and move forward into a new, more cooperative age. Although America then went to war in Vietnam, there was much protest and quite a few draft-dodgers. It was no longer a matter of great shame to be a pacifist or to oppose military interference in another country.

The numbers of people around the world who stood up and opposed the more recent invasion by Britain and the United States of Iraq indicate that this change has not disappeared, but unfortunately, they were not strong enough to sway their governments. Had there been more people in and around those governments who understood the nature of Iraqi society, who understood the growing impatience in the Middle East and elsewhere with the imperialistic behaviour of the United States, to say nothing of Britain, things could have been very different, in my view. But the point here is that members of my generation have witnessed change within our lives. We enjoyed the era of John Lennon singing “give peace a chance”, but we have seen more bellicose attitudes re-emerge. I don’t know how my colleagues on the committee that devised the A level feel about this subject, but I do know that most of them have witnessed the kind of change I am discussing here.

So, finally, how might anthropology be changed in the light of this innovation? I mentioned earlier the perception held by the general public in the UK that anthropology is all about “primitive” people who live in far off places. Another view, held widely and way beyond the UK, is the association of anthropology with the colonial endeavour. Worse, and partly because of this idea, it is regarded negatively by many of the descendants of the people with whom anthropologists have in the past worked, and who may now choose to study indigenous or native studies if they share our interests, maybe because they feel that the approach will be more respectful of their ways of life.

I propose then that the introduction of anthropology into secondary education may help to banish these stereotypes to the history of the field, but may also give us an opportunity to think about new ways in which our research can be carried out in a respectful fashion. The nature of the research endeavour is usually somewhat hierarchical, for it is difficult to engage the people we call “informants” without knowing more about the discipline than they do, and without therefore adopting a superior stance. It is a false stance, of course, because we wouldn’t be doing the research with them if they didn’t have knowledge that we need, and that we hope they will share with us, so in fact one way round this problem is to ensure that the people we work with realise that we are the ones who are learning from them. One of my favourite phrases in Japan, for example, is that I might be a professor in the UK, but I am always a student in Japan.

The classroom context gives us a new opportunity to think about these relationships, and to engage young people studying the discipline with building new techniques of working. In almost any part of the world these days, classes are multicultural, or at least shared by people from varied backgrounds, so that conversations within the learning environment can be built on diverse experiences as the pupils make progress in learning what anthropology is all about. Children who might normally struggle to keep up, perhaps because they have recently moved to the country with their parents and are not as fluent as others in the local language, can suddenly offer something of great value to the class. What a coup for the offspring of asylum-seekers, for example, and the same could be said for children of Aboriginal or Native origins in a multitude of countries where their families have for generations been subjected to discrimination.

As we offer opportunities for disadvantaged children to achieve a sense of value in their own worth, the discipline at large can learn from their experiences. I am not suggesting that we invite A level students to submit papers to academic journals — far from it – my idea is rather that the discourses of the discipline can be opened up to all kinds of everyday communication which will undoubtedly appear in online media such as blogs, tweets and other media as yet to be invented. Anthropology may therefore at last infiltrate the conversations of the general public in a fashion that ensures a more accurate place for it and its value in the virtual and real worlds of the 21st. century!

Notes

1. The syllabus was initially devised over the previous three years by the Education Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute, headed by Hilary Callan, director of the Institute during that period, but now retired, and Brian Street, who chaired the committee, also due to retire! Other members include Judith Okely, C.W. Watson, and Barry du Four, all of an age not far removed from theirs, as far as I can tell!

2. The Bruce Parry series, named Tribe is one such example, and it was only when Bruce was interviewed on a radio programme (Excess Baggage with Sandy Toxwith) that he mentioned, with some gratitude, the prior work done by anthropologists who have worked in the areas he visits to set up the programme with the local people.

Paul H. Mason

Abstract

In the port-cities of Brazil during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a distinct form of combat-dancing emerged from the interaction of African, European and indigenous peoples. The acrobatic movements and characteristic music of this art have come to be called Capoeira. Today, the art of Capoeira has grown in popularity and groups of practitioners can be found scattered across the globe. Exploring how Capoeira practitioners invent markers of difference between separate groups, the first section of this article discusses musical markers of identity that reinforce in-group and out-group dynamics. At a separate but interconnected level of analysis, the second section investigates the global origins of Capoeira movement and disambiguates the commonly recounted origin myths promoted by teachers and scholars of this art. Practitioners frequently relate stories promoting the African origins of Capoeira. However, these stories obfuscate the global origins of Capoeira music and movement and conceal the various contributions to this vibrant and eclectic form of cultural expression. This article unpacks myth-making at two levels of analysis:

(1) invented realities promoted by teachers in the horizontal transmission of Capoeira, and

(2) the constructed teleologies about the vertical transmission of the art.

Unpacking acts of myth-making at two levels of analysis reveals the interplay of discourse and repertoires of bodily expression.

1. In a Capoeira Academy in Salvador da Bahia

Class was in session. I was playing the atabaque drum—a freestanding upright leatherhead drum with a wooden body and a metal stand. To my right was a group of student musicians who were playing an assortment of percussion instruments. A student on the far end was playing the agogo cow bells and another was rhythmically running a stick across a wooden friction instrument called a reco reco. Next to them were two students playing samba-like tambourines called pandeiros. Between the pandeiro players and me were three students playing berimbaus, monochord, musical bows with gourd resonators affixed to one end. All these students were not participating in a typical music class. This was a training session of Capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian art of combat-dancing where music and dance fuse with martial arts. While some students were busy practicing on the musical instruments that comprise a Capoeira orchestra, others were learning the bodily movements of this holistic art.

As I played the atabaque drum, I tried to take part in the vocal call-and-response songs being led by one of the berimbau players. We were singing a song distinct to the style of Capoeira we were practicing, Capoeira Angola. Other styles of Capoeira include Capoeira Regional and Capoeira Contemporânea. Singing and playing an instrument at the same time can be difficult. I struggled to maintain a steady rhythm on the drum. Several times, the teacher came over to correct my playing. She took over the drum and demonstrated the correct technique. I then attempted to copy her as best as I could.

Playing only three drumbeats in time with several other musicians was harder than you would imagine. Believing I was off the beat, I stopped singing to focus on maintaining a steady rhythm on the drum. Despite my best efforts, the teacher came over again and again to demonstrate the rhythm. Her persistent intervention made me anxious about being off the beat. I paid close attention to her timing. I adjusted my playing accordingly. I concentrated on imitating her accurately. However, even when I imagined that I had corrected my timing immaculately, she came over yet again to demonstrate the rhythm. Her repeated instructions were a blatant indication that there was a crucial aspect of the musical aesthetic I was missing.

Eventually, the teacher explained to me, “You are playing too Regional! In Capoeira Regional they play the drum like that, ‘bom BOM bom’. But, in Capoeira Angola we play it like this, ‘BOM bom BOM’.” In both examples, she struck the rim of the drum’s leather surface on the first and third strikes and the middle on the second strike. In her example of Capoeira Regional, transcribed in figure one, the first and third strikes were softer and the second strike was louder so that the sound went: ‘soft, loud, soft’. In her example of Capoeira Angola, also transcribed in figure one, the first and third notes were louder than the second strike: ‘loud, soft, loud’. The emphasis on the middle note in the Capoeira Regional rhythm created a mountain-like volumetric contour in the musical phrase. The volumetric contour of the Angola rhythm, in comparison, created a more steady pulse with two loud notes per cycle instead of just one. The Angola teacher was trying to highlight the steadiness of Angola music in comparison to the rising and stimulating inflections of Regional rhythms.

Figure 1: Notation of a Capoeira Angola teacher ‘s rendition of the difference between a rhythm for Capoeira Angola and a rhythm for Capoeira Regional.

The most curious part of this instruction was that Capoeira Regional orchestras do not actually feature a drum. This Capoeira Angola teacher had invented a picture of Regional drumming against which to articulate something about her own style. The volumetric contour of her Angola rhythm dipped while the volumetric contour of her representation of Regional rhythm peaked. The Angola rhythm was meditative and steady like a heartbeat while the Regional rhythm was uplifting and invigorating. Through a musical example, this teacher was expressing a stereotype of Capoeira Regional that I had heard her articulate in conversation in various ways at other times: “Capoeira Angola is low, protracted, and theatrical while Capoeira Regional is more upright, fast-paced, and martial.” This discourse oriented the horizontal transmission of bodily practices.

By creating an image of Capoeira Regional music, this teacher was asserting the uniqueness of her own practice. She articulated this uniqueness through overt physical gestures during Capoeira play and through singing songs specific to her school’s identity. For example, she would regularly lead the orchestra in a song dedicated to Iemanjá, the Queen of the sea:

Verse

Não deixe meu barco afundar, Don’t let my boat sink
Não deixe, rainha do mar Don’t let it happen, Queen of the Sea.

Chorus

Minha Sereia Rainha do mar, My mermaid, Queen of the Sea,
Não deixe meu barco virar, Don’t let my boat capsize.

As a female teacher, she wanted to move away from chauvinistic songs that often circulate in other Capoeira groups. Singing orations to the Queen of the Sea served to honour female role models while simultaneously proclaiming her group’s geographical location by the sea. After training sessions, the group would regularly discuss and reflect upon their practice. The uniqueness of their school was expressed and reinforced during discussions led by respected teachers. Highlighting similarity and difference between Capoeira groups was a strategic manoeuvre in the marketing of cultural skills. Teachers who wish to maintain and expand their student base need to market their particular skills and the distinctiveness of their group. Such discourses are especially obvious in instances when the image of the other is fabricated—an act illustrated by the representation of Capoeira Regional drumming by a Capoeira Angola teacher.

Describing another group predominantly on the basis of stereotypes creates a perceived homogenisation of the out-group and catalyses homogenisation of the in-group. Students are encouraged to unify their shared practices and the representation of intra-cultural diversity is reduced. In-group favouritism and out-group derogation asserts common values among members, builds shared realities, and reinforces consensus. In a discussion of in-group and out-group dynamics, Richter and Kruglanski (2004: 104) have highlighted how the psychological need for closure is a key factor in the formation of stable cultural activity. They identify the need for closure as a motivational impulse that can elicit unmoving adherence to the most highly visible constructs centered upon pervasively accessible cultural norms and ideals. The accentuation of difference solidifies the group consensus and establishes a homogenising culture that is “secure, and thus appealing, to the group members who are high in the need for closure” (Richter and Kruglanski 2004:101). The need for closure in Capoeira comes from a desire to attract paying students as well as propel the genre in a manageable and marketable direction. When culture becomes a commodity the marketing of cultural skills becomes a carefully negotiated affair. At the horizontal level of transmission, discourses are created that orient physical articulations of identity.

Interviews with revered Capoeira teachers (2009) at the Forte San Antonio in Salvador da Bahia—one of the biggest epicentres of Capoeira activity in Brazil—revealed wildly divergent views about Capoeira as a field of practice. Some Capoeira teachers suggested that there are as many styles of Capoeira as there are different schools, while others said that wherever there is a berimbau all Capoeira is the same. Capoeira teachers are driven by desires to promote their group, increase their class size, and potentially gain more cultural capital and monetary wealth. These desires and the competition between groups drives the psychological need for closure.

In any one particular academy, the style of Capoeira performed is compelled by both teachers and a mixture of cultural forces to be recognisable, consistent and marketable. Centering a repertoire of body movement and musical aesthetics upon easily identifiable markers strategically catalyses centripetal in-group tendencies. Creating an ‘other’ of conflicting aesthetics fosters centrifugal out-group derogation. By accentuating the differences between groups and styles, strategically deploying images of the other, and establishing acceptable and unacceptable repertoires of music and movement, Capoeira teachers maximise the centripetal forces that impel their students towards a homogeneous standardised practice and minimise the centrifugal forces that may hurtle a group towards incommensurable heteroglossia.

2. Global Origins

In Capoeira groups, like many social communities sustained by a common field of practice, esteemed practitioners can horizontally influence centripetal cultural forces. Teachers and students emphasise and sometimes fabricate in-group and out-group differences. In addition, practitioners also vertically promote the distinctiveness of their art by deploying origin myths and stories of lineage. These stories are marketing constructs but also orient students to distinct expressive corporeal practices. In the first section, we explored how music can be used to demarcate the exceptionality of a group. The next section focuses on movement and demonstrates that origin stories are creatively constructed and deliberately deployed. Nonetheless, these origin myths are deeply entangled with the physical play and musical accompaniment of Capoeira games.

“Capoeira originated from African slaves brought by the Portuguese to Brazil four hundred years ago…” I still remember the story that one of my first Capoeira teachers recounted to many of his new students. He was from Bahia and he had taught Capoeira in England, France and Spain.

“In the early days, the African slaves wore chains around their wrists and ankles. They were forbidden from training combat skills. Anything that could potentially jeopardise the power of the Portuguese elite was banned. So, the slaves disguised their combat training in music and dance. Unable to move freely in the chains, they learnt to manoeuvre on their hands and deliver deadly blows with their feet.”

The exact details of the story changed, but the central theme was always the same: Capoeira was the outgrowth of slavery and subversion. I knew the story well. As a young practitioner, I repeated the story myself many times and heard countless variations from other practitioners.

The idea of music as concealment was promoted by the two most influential teachers of Capoeira, Manuel dos Reis Machado (1899-1974) who started a Capoeira academy in 1932, and Vicente Ferreira Pastinha (1899-1981) who started an academy in 1941 (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008:30). Their position is best summed up by D’Aquino who wrote:

Because it developed and was practiced under the watchful eye of white masters and plantation supervisors, Capoeira was disguised as a diversion, as an innocuous dance performed for their own as well as their masters’ enjoyment. (1983:24)

Capoeira practitioners recount many versions of this story as part of the história da Capoeira without separating myth from history (D’Aquino 1983:97)[1].

Origin stories involving slavery and concealment do not perfectly correlate with existing historical evidence of the development of Capoeira. The musical and physical aspects of Capoeira have been continually contested among practitioners. From the few available sources, for example, the berimbau did not become linked with capoeira until at least the third quarter of the nineteenth century (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008:129). Until at least the mid-nineteenth century, the drum had been the musical instrument associated with capoeira (2008:31). The drum was pictured in paintings of foot-fighting (e.g. Earle 1822; Rugendas 1824), in the records of capoeira arrests (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008:31), and in tourist writings (Ribeyrolles 1941:38). As an act of oppression against expressions of African culture, Brazilian authorities put a ban on drumming in the early and mid-nineteenth century (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008:135). At least for a while, musical accompaniment for Capoeira did not formerly exist (Rego 1968:58). Up until the 1980s, the instrumentation used for Capoeira games was not fixed or consistent. The composition of the band had no specific arrangement in terms of their place or order in the circle (Talmon-Chvaicer 2008:132). Only in the twentieth century did the berimbau become steadfastly connected with capoeira (Ibid.).

Origin myths subtend a certain kind of physical disposition in Capoeira games. Led by the berimbau, games of Capoeira are played by two practitioners at a time. Within a circular space called the roda, Capoeira performers search for spatial freedom while being physically challenged by an adversary. The story of disguising martial arts in dance is utilitarian to Capoeira teachers who wish to attract students, orient them towards the special kind of play found in the roda, and inspire them to embody a sense of freedom-searching integral to the movement repertoires of the art. The roda is a constrained environment. Searching for freedom in the roda means continually looking for uninhabited and danger-free spaces that are recurrently being opened and invaded. The search for freedom of the African slaves in the history of Brazil is a potent metaphor for Capoeira performers who search for physical freedom in the confining space of the roda.

Stories of concealment promote the search for freedom and also propagate the Afro-Bahian mentality of subversion believed to have spawned from the slavery period. Such stories establish continuity with the past and serve the same ends as invented traditions which facilitate social cohesion and socialisation, and legitimise institutions, status, or relations of authority (Hobsbawm 1983:9). Teachers of martial arts establish the value and values of their discipline by recounting the virtues of predecessors (Green 2003:1). These historical narratives should be viewed “as consciously organised and utilised rather than invented” (2003:9). Issues of falsehood and truth can be reconciled by understanding that myth promotes a way of being in the world as opposed to an epistemic way of seeing the world (Daniel 1990:227-228; Lewis 1992:19).

In Capoeira, the emphasis on foot techniques and the lack of hand assaults is often attributed to African traditions where “…the hands should be used for good work, i.e. creative activities, while the feet should be used for bad work, i.e. punishment and destruction” (Dawson 1993:13). However, the most iconic bodily movement of the Capoeira repertoire, an inverted spinning kick with hands on the ground, is not necessarily African in origin. This arcing kick is known as the rabo de arraia (stingray’s tail kick) or the meia-lua de compasso (compass half-moon kick) among other names. The rabo de arraia blends seamlessly with the base movement of Capoeira play, the ginga (see figure 2), and maintains the circular and flowing motion of physical interaction in the roda. The syncopated sway of the ginga keeps players in permanent motion, maintains their relationship with the music, and allows them to attack or defend at any moment. To perform the rabo de arraia from the ginga, “the attacker doubles over and places both hands on the ground. The attacker looks, upside down, between the legs and, as the body revolves on the pivot foot, swings the heel of the trailing leg out” (Downey 2005:235n2). The circular motion, mobile stability, and bodily inversion cement the rabo de arraia as a cornerstone of Capoeira technique.

Figure 2: Typical foot placement of the Ginga, the basic swaying movement of Capoeira. The weight of the practitioner is maintained on the front foot and the ball of the back foot.

Music and dance rarely leave a historical record, but an inverted spinning kick with hands on the ground is described in nineteenth century accounts of French Boxing (Charlemont 1877; Charlemont 1899). Nineteenth century descriptions of Capoeira mention foot-fighting and open-hand fighting (e.g. Wetherell 1856 quoted by Assunção 2005: 101), but no description of anything like the rabo de arraia. Versions of this inverted kick appeared in French paintings, such as an 1857 picture of boxing practiced by the French army on board a ship (figure 3) as well as in other drawings of the period (Loudcher 2000). Nineteenth century paintings of Afro-Bahian fighting by Augustus Earle (figure 3) and Johann Moritz Rugendas (1824), among others, only depict fighters executing ginga-like movements (Assunção, 2005:100-101). No paintings of Afro-Bahian fighting from this period depict the rabo de arraia. Archaic forms of the rabo de arraia and meia-lua de compasso are only seen in later pictures found in Burlamaqui (1928:24) and da Costa (1962:73-74).

Figure 3: ‘Negroes fighting’ by Augustus Earle ca. 1822 (Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK12/103. National Library of Australia. PIC T1411a.pic-an2822650) compared with ‘Boxe Française à L’Armée’ ca. 1857

Figure 3B: ‘Negroes fighting’ by Augustus Earle ca. 1822 (Rex Nan Kivell Collection NK12/103. National Library of Australia. PIC T1411a.pic-an2822650) compared with ‘Boxe Française à L’Armée’ ca. 1857

The rabo de arraia could very well have travelled from French boxing into Capoeira[2]. Nineteenth century French travellers showed interest in the covert and public fighting activities in Brazil (e.g. Allain 1886:271-272; Itier 1853:62; Ribeyrolles 1941) and French sailors were among those who were arrested for Capoeira (Holloway 1989:658; Soares 2001). ‘Capoeira’ in the nineteenth century referred to ruffians, vagabonds, and gangsters who frequented wharf areas and had a strong association to the world of sailors (Dias 2006: 41, 83, 96-97, 195; Downey 2002:5; Leal 2008:63). If an inverted spinning kick was imported from French boxing into Capoeira, then it is because the circular motion, stability and inversion allowed it to be integrated with other movements of a circular nature. This arcing kick also proved highly compatible with the musical-movement relationships that developed within twentieth century Capoeira.

Capoeira is an amalgamation of many, sometimes disparate, elements that were brought together in Brazil. Yet, stories of origins tend to be Afrocentric (Thompson, 1988; Thompson 1991; Dawson 1993; Dossar 1992; Kubik 1979; Kubik 1986; Desch-Obi 2000) with many practitioners and authors determining Capoeira to be an import from enslaved Africans, usually making special note of the Bantu people of Angola (Desch-Obi 2002:361; Lewis 1992:20; McGowan and Pessanha 1998:119). Stories of the African origins of Capoeira have been deployed throughout the twentieth century to various ends. Brazilian authorities stimulated the Afrocentric perspective as a means to empower self-determination among Afro-Brazilians. Afrocentric essentialism also facilitated the economic development of Brazil with a newly independent black Africa (dos Santos 1998:121). African origin stories have also attracted scholars of African diasporas who have found Capoeira a rich field of human activity in which to invest their theories. In talking about the African elements of capoeira, one has to be careful to avoid the metonymic fallacy where practices from an African village, town, or region are used to represent African-ness as a whole (Agawu 1995:384-385). Furthermore, anyone who understands African-ness as only being the trace of individual communities in West Africa misunderstands the Africans’ and Afro-Brazilians’ aesthetic and the cosmopolitan-ness of West Africa. The idea that unchanged elements of Capoeira are the most ‘African’ misrepresents the innovativeness and vitality of African music and dance traditions.

Definitions of ‘Capoeira’ in Brazil have shifted over time. In the nineteenth century, Capoeira referred to urban thugs and gangsters. The ‘Capoeira’ that newspapers and police reports mentioned in the early nineteenth century was not the Capoeira of today. Capoeira was a much more diverse practice, including not simply dances and challenge games, but also stone-throwing, knife-fighting, skirmishing with police, and a host of other urban ruffian forms of sorting out disputes, resisting authority, and passing time. The domestication of Capoeira began with repression by authorities in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, Capoeira became a musical fight-dance associated with folklore performances. As an expression of folklore, Capoeira pays homage to the history of slavery in Brazil through the integration of musical and physical activities that have come to be associated with Afro-Bahian history and identity. Practically speaking, the incorporation of music and the development of dance within Capoeira would have sorted out the most violent expressions of Capoeira as the movement and game increasingly succumbed to the rhythms of the orchestra and the surveillance of respected teachers. By the end of the twentieth century, a culturally stable musical-movement practice eventually emerged that was so compelling and consistent that, instead of being persecuted, it became an international export.

Lewis (1992) and Downey (2005) maintain a healthy suspicion of narratives that claim slaves brought Capoeira to Brazil from Angola. Indeed, the argument that music was used to conceal pugilistic training does not hold up to detailed analysis. Music would only serve to draw attention to an art form that contained kicks, sweeps, and headbutts. The practice of martial arts is better hidden by silence and secrecy than by an indexical noise and publicity. The kicks and sweeps of Capoeira are dance-like, but they are also blatantly combative and no amount of music could mislead a viewer to believe otherwise. Refuting the logic that music was used to conceal pugilistic training allows us to understand that origin myths promote the cohesiveness of the art and act as a counterpart to the physical activity of Capoeira play. At both the horizontal and vertical levels of transmission, instructors strategically organize and deploy artificial cultural representations to promote the cohesion, coherence, and consistency of their embodied field of practice.

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Holloway, T.H. 1989. A Healthy Terror: Police Repression of Capoeiras in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. Hispanic American Historical Review, 69(4), 637-676.

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Fumi Watanabe

Abstract

This paper draws on anthropological fieldwork conducted at the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture between 2004 and 2011. It describes the formation of the Oceania Centre and discusses certain “Red Wave” artists. In illustrating how their style of art is learned and　produced, the paper considers the shared stylistic repertoires thought to define such “collective” Oceanic art. When it discovers that senior artists experience a process of “individualization” seemingly counter to the principles of the Centre, the paper turns to investigate the origin of these stylistic differences between the artists. It concludes by discussing the function of style itself, finding that stylistic differentiation emerges not to threaten the stability of “the collective” but rather to produce for artists and audiences alike new relationalities.

1. Introduction

“I … I … I … The young always talk about the ‘I.’ However, when we understand more about what life means, that ‘I’ becomes ‘we.’” Epeli Hau‘ofa, the late founder and director of the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture, said this to me one sunny afternoon. He continued, “We, the people of Oceania, practice art in a certain way, a way that only we can understand and perform.”

In this article, I will examine how the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture (Oceania Centre) can be seen as a central forum for the mediation of a contemporary arts movement occurring throughout the Pacific region. The Oceania Centre examines images of life in “Oceania” and attempts to create a collective notion of “Oceanic” arts among the people of “Oceania.” This paper first aims to understand the Oceania Centre’s principles of “collective” art, then goes on to describe challenges faced by the Centre and its movement. I will seek to identify a critical point in this movement, a moment in which the artists’ desire for individualization runs counter to the principles of the Centre. Indeed, it is this clash that I will identify as the root cause of stylistic differences in the artists’ work. Critically, however, I will demonstrate how this style differentiation emerges not to threaten the stability of “Oceania,” but rather, how style itself is borne from interconnectivity and relationality which themselves go on to form new connections in the real and symbolic realms of social life.

The Oceania Centre views art as benefiting the community rather than the individual. Its founder outlined his vision for the development of contemporary Oceanic arts as follows:

The creative process unleashed must reflect fundamental principles of our societies, in particular reciprocity, cooperation, openness to community (in terms of both participation and viewing) and transmission of skills through observation and participation rather than through formal instruction (Hau‘ofa, 2005:8 ).

2. Collectivity

2.1 Establishment of the Oceania Centre for Arts & Culture

It is generally considered that the contemporary arts movement in the Pacific Islands gathered momentum beginning in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1960s. Led by foreign artists and intellectuals Georgina and Ulli Beier, the movement prompted the establishment of a National Art School within the University of Papua New Guinea. When the country gained independence in 1975, many artists took part in nation-building projects such as designing and constructing the national parliament. Despite the school’s importance during this period, it later closed due to political instability (Beier, 2005; Thomas, 1995).

Today, the Pacific art scene is developing on a grand and diverse scale across New Zealand and Australia. New Zealand Māori and Australian Aboriginal arts combine with the work of immigrants from across the Pacific who are increasingly active contributors to the diverse styles that make up the movement.

Hau‘ofa founded the Oceania Centre in 1997. The Centre is on the Laucala campus of the University of the South Pacific (USP) in Suva, the capital city of Fiji. For Hau‘ofa, “Oceania” was a zone corresponding exactly to the university’s broad geographical catchment area, which encompasses the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

Fig.1 Map of “Oceania”

Hau‘ofa, who witnessed the decline of the Papuan national art school, believes that the school’s formal way of teaching contributed to its demise. Based on his own experience with the creative writing process, Hau‘ofa believes that art should not be “taught” or “studied,” and that a formal pedagogical approach kills the spirit of creativity. Observing that learning in Oceanic societies often occurs in informal sitting sessions with others in the community, he ensured that the Centre never employed formal teachers or approaches and that it opened up all the processes of art production. The Centre was to be a “home for art” rather than a “school for art.” According to Hau‘ofa, the people of Oceania identify themselves by their “home.” The Centre seeks to become such a physical and mental “home” for a unique and arbitrary group of artists. Its annual reports show evidence of great attention to the preparation of its physical environment (Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Reports, 1997).

2.2 Oceania as “Our Sea of Islands”

Hau’ofa’s interpretation of “Oceania” is stated clearly in his two articles “Our sea of islands” (1993) and “The ocean in us” (1998). In them, he points out the remoteness and smallness of the Pacific Islands, which he sees as the causes of their lack of social and economic development. Hau‘ofa contemplates alternative paths to successful development. He then performs a reversal that illuminates for him a vital change in perspective. Hau‘ofa redefines Oceania from “islands in the far sea” to a “sea of islands.”

There is a gulf of difference between viewing the Pacific as “islands in the far sea” and as “a sea of islands.” The first emphasizes dry surface in a vast ocean far from the centers of power. When you focus this way you stress the smallness and remoteness of the islands. The second is a more holistic perspective in which things are seen in the totality of their relationships (Hau‘ofa 1993: 5).

According to Hau‘ofa, Oceania will never see economic, social, or spiritual development as long as it sees itself as “islands in the far sea,” or the “Pacific,” a view rooted in colonial geography. Referring to legends still being passed on, archaeological records revealing the extent of sea traffic, and locally derived techniques of star navigation, Hau‘ofa demonstrates that the people of Oceania (Polynesia² and Micronesia) had never understood their environment as one of isolated “islands” but had rather focused on the sea that linked their islands and bound the entire region. Insisting that the region’s people will be able to claim their rightful sense of place and historical legitimacy only when they see themselves as the inheritors of this sea of islands, Hau‘ofa calls for the emergence of Oceanic, rather than Pacific Island, identities.

The time has come for us to wake up to our modern history as a region, which so far, has been determined largely by others. We cannot confront the issues of the Pacific Century individually as tiny countries, nor as the Pacific Islands Region of bogus independence. We must develop a much stronger and a genuinely independent regionalism than what we have today. A new sense of the region that is our own creation, based on our perceptions of our realities, is necessary for our survival in the dawning era (Hau‘ofa, 1998: 8 ).

Hau‘ofa’s Oceania Centre therefore represents an attempt to utilize artistic and creative activities as vehicles for lending a sense of autonomy to the idea of “Oceania.” In this way, Oceania itself is reinterpreted as an inclusive cultural and geographic space. As White (2008) comments:

Although Epeli’s writings promote a recentering of thought and practice in Oceanian experience, his is not an exclusivist agenda. Given that assertions of cultural identity are typically concerned with declaring differences and drawing boundaries, Epeli’s Oceania is startlingly expansive and inclusive. Here again, oceans provide metaphors that allow openness and connection. (White, 2008: 20)

Born in Oceania, having lived his whole life in colonial and postcolonial environments, and being a writer himself, Hau‘ofa devoted half his life to finding a way for Oceania to generate a sense of pride that would lead to increased development and happiness. After mobilizing many intellectuals, including a community of writers, Hau‘ofa left formal academia and directed all subsequent effort into founding the Oceania Centre.

2.3 The Contemporary Oceanic Arts Movement: Aims & Principles

The concrete principles of the Centre are as follows (Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Reports (1997–2004); Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Strategic Plan 2005–2010; Hau‘ofa, 2005:8 ):

(1) Aims:

To develop contemporary visual and performing arts that are regional, transcending individual nations and capitalizing on the region’s cultural diversity. These arts should be of the kind that all of us in Oceania would consider ours, and be recognized by others as such.

(2) Space:

The place of production must be Oceanic, reflecting the Oceanic values of reciprocity, cooperation, openness to community, and transmission of knowledge and skills through observation and hands-on experience.

(3) Criteria:

To develop our own criteria for assessing the aesthetic merit and other cultural values of our contemporary creations, which is necessary for matters of cultural and artistic creativity that express who and what we are.

(4) To avoid mass production and imitation of others. To avoid the pitfalls of repetitiveness and mimicry characteristic of our arts and culture today, the Centre will always focus on experimentation and innovation.

It is important to point out here that despite the relatively prescriptive nature of his principles, Hau‘ofa’s did not intend to produce a single kind of “ethnic” or “Oceanic” art (i.e., an Oceanic style). Number 4 above hints at his vision of a diverse Centre that encourages innovative work with the potential to embody a re-interpreted cultural and regional identity. Together, these principles set out the core values of the Centre and become, as I will demonstrate, pivots around which artists negotiate senses of themselves as individuals and/or members of the Oceanic arts collective.

Although the Oceania Centre’s activities include sculpture, dance, music, and painting, in the next sections I will focus solely on the last medium. Paintings produced at the Centre are usually referred to as “Red Wave Art,” part of “a new big wave.” Hau‘ofa coined this term when the Centre was established, and it now refers to a school of painting recognized within Oceania and beyond. Artists from the Centre are called “Red Wave Artists,” the exhibitions are “Red Wave Exhibitions,” and sometimes the artists and their work are together called the “Red Wave Collective.” This phenomenon realizes Hau‘ofa’s goal of integrating the Centre’s activities into a collective movement rather than just a school of art.

2.4 Learning Through Imitation

The principles of the Oceania Centre listed above seek actualization through a unique pedagogical method: learning through imitation. Usually artists are not commissioned to produce. This freedom extends to the artists’ selection of motifs and themes for their work. Almost all of the Red Wave artists began their careers at the Centre without any sort of formal art education. For them, the Oceania Centre is not a mere atelier but rather an informal school in which they learn about art and techniques for producing it. This learning occurs through the aforementioned holistic experience of “sitting around in the community,” and the acquisition of painting technique sometimes relies on an ability to imitate senior artists. There is even a moment when senior artists will directly involve themselves in an amateur’s work by physically contributing brushstrokes to the amateur’s canvas. One senior artist explained to me:

More or less, all the artists start off by imitating. They teach in that way even in Western art schools. Indeed I learned a lot from John Pule or William. Maybe we, the Red Wave artists, will have a similar root. But I believe it’s fine if each artist grows his own branches after the root takes firmly. All the artists are suffering, you know, in their minds and in their actual lives. I’ve come to earn good enough money. I won’t be grabbing their source of income just because they imitate my work. (July 27, 2005)

According to the data I collected from the participant observation between 2004 and 2005, it turned out that  amateurs lend hands to other amateurs, middle-ranking artists lend hands to amateurs and to other middle artists, and seniors lend hands across all ranks. As these occurrences, crucial moments in the encouragement of imitation, decrease as an artist’s status increases, we can perhaps best view such imitation as a learning process. The complete lack of formal teachers and teaching at the Oceania Centre creates a social environment that reinforces the learning process, fostering a direct, sensational, and holistic set of connections among the artists and among their works. When an artist reaches a certain level of skill in interpretation and technique, “hand-lending” declines steeply and he begins to seek his own unique style.

 3. Divergent Painting Styles

After an iconographic analysis of about 250 works produced by 11 artists during 2003 and 2005, I have found that the higher the status of the artist, the more limited the selection of “motifs” and themes become, and that these motifs and themes are shared with other artists (Watanabe, 2007). When “style” was examined, however, the opposite trend emerged: after a period of sharing, artists tend to search for ways to diverge from common styles.

Though the issue of style in visual art has been discussed at length by both art critics and anthropologists, especially with reference to the cultural patterns they inform and are informed by, I will, at present, use the term “style” as the local artists do, to mean “a way of painting”. I will return to a detailed examination of style in the last section.

3.1 Basic Styles

Styles of painting at the Oceania Centre can be seen as belonging to one of two categories: basic or differentiated. “Basic” styles exist across all ranks of Red Wave artists and include the “Grid” style and the “Liquid” style.

3.1.1 Basic Style 1: Grid Style

The Grid style, which arranges gridlike lines on a canvas, is the most basic style and appears among all Red Wave artists. It has its origins in tapa cloth, which is still prevalent in Oceania. As a contemporary artistic style, it was first attributed to John Pule³. The grid is generally filled with traditional designs such as those seen on tapa cloth. The Grid style is thought to be the most important common attribute of Red Wave painting and widely recognized as an orthodox “Oceanic style.” Inside a grid, which may be only one part of a larger work, a story and accompanying worldview are depicted. Each box contains its own story, which often relates to stories in other boxes. The style is thus characterized by a sense of integrated meaning derived from the carefully organized portrayal of smaller narratives.

Fig.2 Take These Walls with You When You Leave. (John Pule, 1998)

Fig. 3 Kohai, Koau, Ko Momo (Who, Me and Momo). (Lingikoni Vaka‘uta, 2004)

3.1.2 Basic Style 2: Liquid Style

Obscuring, melting, and blending one object into another is what the Liquid style seeks to do. It has a distinctive method of using wavy lines, lines supposedly derived from ocean and water images. The Liquid style enables objects to flow into one another—a center resolving into a whole, a whole into a part—creating a sense of chaos. This style is considered a suitable way to visualize the mythical metaphors so rich in Oceania. The Liquid style not only blurs the boundaries between parts and whole but also doubts the very idea of boundaries. It also sets out to make connections, usually recognized metaphorically, some of which are subsequently brought into relief, and some of which are thrown into confusion.

Fig. 4 Distorted Journey. (Mason James Lee, 2006)

 We have seen above brief outlines of the Grid and Liquid styles. As I have noted, however, an artist with a certain level of skill will begin to create his own style. While the motifs common in their work are shared among the artists consciously, both the sense of common ownership and the desire for differentiation are rather unconscious. As we have seen, the artists seek to grow out of learning through imitation; however, I shall call the adoption of styles through such learning as “shared basic styles” and term the pursuit of individual styles “differentiated styles.”

3.2 Differentiating from Basic Styles

3.2.1 Differentiated Style 1: Storytelling

Having a “story” is considered a necessary condition for creating Red Wave art. What I term the “Storytelling style” is derived from the Grid style but developed for the proliferation of a certain set of motifs using many thin, monochromatic lines drawn with a paintbrush.

Fig 5. Na Kaci (The Call). (Josaia McNamara, 2005)

3.2.2 Differentiated Style 2: Liquid Style with a Center

In a sense that the outline of one object constitutes the outline of another, this style can be seen as derived from the Liquid style. What is crucially different here is that putting various blended objects at the center makes the work seem one single form when viewed from a distance. The forms of both the central object and its constituents are important, as is the harmony between them.

Fig. 6 Play Me Marama, Eka or Turaga. (Jeke Lagi, 2006)

3.2.3 Differentiated Style 3: Transparent Style

This is a style that originated around 2004 with Mason James Lee, known as a successor to the orthodox Liquid style. Figure 7 shows a drum behind a hand, with another arm visible behind the drum. Mason explains that this is a suitable way to visualize the mysterious atmosphere of Oceanic legends and their (and our) multilayered realities.

Fig. 7. The Great Drums of Motokana (Mason James Lee, 2004)

3.2.4 Differentiated Style 4: “Cubism”

Irami Bulimaivale, who has been at the Centre since 2000, established a style he calls “Cubism”.  He explains:

In the library, I was reading a book on Western art history, and realized, “This is what I want to do!” To decompose what is composed by a power unknown to me, and recompose again by myself with my own hand. What freedom! That is art!

Figure 8. Reflection (Irami Bulimaivale, 2006)

4. Discussion: On the Concept of Style

We have seen how artists acquire “Red Wave” styles through imitation but then tend to create their own styles in due course. Here we must question whether the desire for “my work,” which led to the differentiation of styles, indicates a clash between the collective idea of “Oceanic” art on the one hand and the desire for individualistic expression on the other—that is, whether the dualistic perspective set out by the dominant Art world has any legitimacy. Toward this end, I will now examine the concept of style, paying particular attention to how stylistic differentiation is thought to connect to the creation of relationality at higher level. In this way we will truly see what Hau‘ofa’s “Oceania” could include.

According to Alfred Gell (1998), style is what enables any artwork to be referred to as whole(s) or as a part of “larger units,” and there is such a thing as the “psychological saliency” of artwork, a function of the stylistic relationship. For him, the purpose of formal analysis is identifying “axes of coherence” within a corpus of works and “structural invariants under transformation”.

Gell took examples from Marquesan motifs, which are carved onto many artifacts or surfaces, including human skin, and analyzed their structure as a combination of a basic motif, etua, and its variations. He describes 12 types of variations and realizes that each adopts “the principle of least difference,” noting that the same principles can be seen throughout Marquesan culture in general. Finally, following his “fractal” worldview (cf. Strathern, 1988), he concludes that the relationship between a basic motif and its modified version, one artwork and its whole corpus, and human “persons” and society follow the same structure, and artworks are “holographic” (cf. Wagner, 2001) fragments of an imaginary totality, or a unity connected by style.

If we apply this logic to the Red Wave styles, basic styles can be seen as functioning like Gell’s basic motifs. That is to say, both the Grid style and the Liquid style can be found in one work of art, yet the same “style” can be found in the relationship between the basic style and the other styles generated from it.

Red Wave art features two basic units (basic styles). It is startling to realize that one, the Liquid style, seeks to blur and remove boundaries while the other, the Grid style, seeks to draw lines into the world. The former doubts and resolves (into nothing) all arbitrary borders, illustrates various potential sets of images in order to lead people into chaos, while the latter re-establishes clear categories and boundaries. It is these two principles that emerge in the styles of Red Wave art.

Moving into an examination of the differentiated styles and looking at, for instance, “Liquid style with a center,” we see it being generated from the Liquid style by reversing its psychological saliency —resolving the center into the whole (and thus approaching the Grid style). The Storytelling style is clearly continuous with the Grid style because of its arrangement of thin-lined stories, which can be attributed to customs embedded in the producer’s body, though it removes the boundary (the grid) constituting the psychological saliency of the Grid style and tries to tell each story in juxtaposition to others without borders (and thus approaches the psychological saliency of the Liquid style). The Transparent style can be seen as a “progressively” transformed version of the Liquid style. We can find no centre at all, only more obscured boundaries, and yet a strong sense of patterned meaning, or what Bateson terms “redundancy” (Bateson, 2000), exists.

“Cubism” is an interesting transformation and obviously different from the others. “Cubism” was organized through contact with the “outside,” not simply modified from the basic unit, though it is also continuous with other “inside” styles for several reasons. The relationship between deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction is the psychological saliency of the Liquid style, but straight lines at the outlines of objects have been strictly avoided even in the Grid style, not to mention the Liquid style. What is more interesting than the discontinuity in appearances is that the artist evaluates “Cubism” according to its access to the “outside.” In other words, he stylizes the “outside” by making it the style’s “prototype” (Gell, 1998).

From an “institutional” art critic’s point of view, Oceanic art itself may be seen as the “outside,” and Irami could be absorbed into the existing art institution by producing what could be called “Pseudo-Cubism.” As we have seen, however, the production of Red Wave art is deeply embedded in its own network of relatedness, styles, and practices. “Cubism”, too, derives from connections wrought from this vast network, and it is this network, or set of styles, that keeps Red Wave art from being absorbed arbitrarily into existing artistic paradigms.

Such a perspective reveals the problem with seeing Red Wave art’s stylistic differentiation as a symptom of detachment from collective “Oceania.” We should view the mechanism of differentiation as the precursor to the formation of styles themselves. Such causation will inevitably lead to dynamic phases of change that may alter any existing principles, patterns, or institutions that stipulate and reinforce them. Contemporary Red Wave Oceanic art therefore avoids the dualism of “individualism versus collectivism.” Instead, it exists within a rich local world of interconnected networks that themselves work to produce change in the internal and external cultural fabric.

 Endnotes

2. “For geographic and cultural reasons I include Fiji in Polynesia. Fiji however, is much bigger and better endowed with natural resources than all tropical Polynesian states.” (Hau‘ofa, 1993: 4)

3. A Niuéan contemporary painter and poet based in New Zealand. He is connected to the Oceania Centre: he attracted many quality artists there with a free workshop in 1998, and he was acting director of the Centre for about half a year in 2006. Thomas dedicated his famous book Possessions (1999) to Pule.

4. See Watanabe (2010) for an expanded discussion.

References

Bateson, G. 2000. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Beier, U. 2005. Decolonising the Mind: The Impact of the University on Culture and Identity in Papua New Guinea, 1971–1974. Canberra: Pandanus Books.

Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hau‘ofa, E. 1993. Our sea of islands. In E. Waddell, V. Naidu, and E. Hau‘ofa (eds.), A New Oceania: Rediscovering Our Sea of Islands, pp. 1–13. Suva: University of the South Pacific Press.

Hau‘ofa, E. 1998. The ocean in us. The Contemporary Pacific 10(2): 391–410.

Hau‘ofa, E. 2005. The development of contemporary Oceanic arts. People and Culture in Oceania 20: 5–12.

Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Reports (1997).

Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Reports (1997–2004).

Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture Annual Strategic Plan (2005–2010).

Strathern, M. 1988. The Gender of the Gift: Problems with Women and Problems with Society in Melanesia. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Thomas, N. 1995. Oceanic Art. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Thomas, N. 1999. Possessions: Indigenous Art, Colonial Culture. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Wagner, R. 2001. An Anthropology of the Subject: Holographic Worldview in New Guinea and its Meaning and Significance for the World of Anthropology. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Watanabe, F. 2007. Opening “Oceania” through art: A case study of the production of the paintings at the Oceania Centre, Fiji. Contact Zone 1: 161–183 (in Japanese).

Watanabe, F. 2010. The Collective, the Individual and “Red Wave Art”: The Importance of Styles at the Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture. People and Culture in Oceania 26: 109-136.

White, G. 2008. Foreword. In E. Hau‘ofa, We Are the Ocean: Selected Works, pp. ix-xx. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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Yuko Nishimura

Introduction

In 1968, Shintaro Ishihara (now the governor of Tokyo) stated, ‘there is no other country like Japan, people who are virtually mono-ethnic, who speak the same language which is like no other country’s and which has a unique culture’ (Oguma 1995:358). 40 years later, similar statement was still repeated by Taro Aso (then the foreign minister of Japan) who maintained Japan is ‘one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race[1].”

Conservative government and nationalists like them have believed and fostered the image of Japan as a unified, mono-lingual, and mono-cultural nation（Burgess 2007). Yet the truth is that Japan has never been mono-ethnic.  According to Lie, such a myth of mono-ethnic Japan is fundamentally a post-World War II construct (2001:141).  Thus, during the long and stable economic boom of Japan from the 1960s through the 1980s the myth of Japan’s uniqueness was propagated widely inside and outside of Japan. For example, the Japan Foundation was established, in 1972, during the term of Premier Tanaka. From its inception, the aim was to promote Japanese culture outside of Japan. Scholars and artists of traditional Japanese art forms such as Kabuki, Noh, bunraku, calligraphy etc, were sent abroad to demonstrate ‘the uniqueness of Japanese culture’ (Large 1998:306). These efforts culminated in 1979 with publication of the Japanese ego boosting book by Ezra Vogel titled, Japan as No.1 (Vogel 1979).

According to Dale(1986), nihonjinron （theories on the uniqueness of Japanese）, which were rampant during this period, implicitly assumed that the Japanese people constituted a culturally and socially homogenous racial entity whose essence was virtually unchanged from pre-historical times. Nihonjinron also presupposed that the Japanese differed radically from all other known peoples. These arguments promoted a kind of cultural nationalism which were hostile to both individual experience and the notion of internal socio-historical diversity. Yet according to Lie, such a discourse of strong mono-ethnic ideology emerged only in the 1950s, under the 1955 System or the postwar Japanese political arrangements (Lie 2001: 125).

Japan has never been a mono-ethnic nor a mono-language nation. Its inhabitants include the indigenous minorities of Ainus and Okinawans, resident Koreans[2] and Chinese who immigrated during Japan’s colonial era of the 19th century and more recent immigrants from Asia and South America. Including those who have naturalized and adopted Japanese nationality, the estimated number of “non-Japanese” is comparable to 1992 figures for the United Kingdom, a far from negligible minority (Lie 2001:4).

Besides making Japan “number one,” the economic boom of the 1970s created an acute shortage of labour and brought an influx of Asian and South American immigrant workers into Japan. Changing demographics alarmed the Japanese government and the public and, for the first time the concept of Japan as an ethnic melting pot was openly discussed: who are the Japanese? How Japanese identity should be defined in a globalizing world.

This paper will discuss the process of reconstructing new identities among minority groups in Japan. Having been discriminated against and placed at the margin of society, the Japanese ‘Dalits’(the depressed) are now seeking to be included in the mainstream. While accepting the explicit socio-political order and the values of the dominant culture, they are also trying to change this ‘cultural hegemony’ by creating a counter-hegemonic sub-culture. Emerging minority leaders are trying to assure their communities that they both belong and do not belong; to pursue multiple identities and become ‘the Other Within’ (Yovel 2009).

Japan’s ‘New’ Minorities

The 1970s-80s was not only the period of ‘nihonjinron’ but also the economic ‘bubble period’. Japan, in short supply of labour, attracted many foreign workers, who are now called the “New Comers.”  In 1990, Japan’s immigration law was amended to allow emigrants of Japanese ancestry of up to the 3rd generation to return to Japan as Japanese citizens. Large numbers of foreign born niseis (the second generation) and sanseis (the third generation) have chosen to do so. Faced with barriers and discriminations in Japan, many of them joined civic organizations to force the Japanese government to protect their rights. Many joined existing Japanese working class organizations, changing the face of the organization itself. Thus, 80% of the members of the Kanagawa City Union are now non-Japanese temporary workers who speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Korean[3]. Their physical features and languages are quite different from mainstream Japanese and they do not (or cannot) hide their cultural identities. To the discomfort of many ‘native’ Japanese, these newcomers are assertive and proud to represent two cultures.

Out of interactions between “Old Comers” and “New Comers”, new self-help organizations have been born, particularly in urban areas. In Kanagawa prefecture for example, non-Japanese migrant workers and their Japanese supporters have started several nonprofits supported by the local government[4]: the Sumai Support Center (a rental house intermediary agency which offers mediation between Japanese landlords and non-Japanese migrant workers[5]), MIC Kanagawa (a volunteer medical interpreters association of seven languages), and the Kanagawa City Union of Japanese and non-Japanese temporary workers.

Cultural interactions on a grassroots level also have inspired and enriched the Japanese youth culture. Recently, for example, Mixed Roots Japan held a cultural festival called ShakeForward 2008.

Multi-language and multi-cultural pop groups such as Soul Blendz, Ainu Rebels, KP, Los Kalibres, and Tensais MC’s participated[6].  Mixed Roots Kansai is an offshoot of a multilingual FM station called FM Y-Y, which was started soon after the great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake of 1995. Started by a resident Korean woman with the help of an activist Catholic priest, FM Y-Y provided life-related information and cultural programs to non-Japanese speakers in seven languages. This station became a hot multicultural venue for young foreign born niseis and sanseis in Kansai (Western Honshu) area and has also attracted large numbers of Japanese youngsters who are dissatisfied with mainstream radio programs[7].

FM Y-Y has also proved to be a bridge between foreign born Japanese mutual self-help groups and the local government by providing public-information announcements and forums, from both sources, in multiple languages.  FM Y-Y’s ethnic programs boost the self-esteem of foreign born Japanese and also make Japanese minorities visible to mainstream Japanese society.

Japan’s ‘Old Minorities’

Ainus, Okinawans, Resident Koreans and Chinese were the old minorities with distinct cultural traditions. According to historical research, Ainus were not only hunters and gatherers but were also adventurous sea traders who traded between northern Japan and the Asian continent (Amino 2000, 2001). Nevertheless, attempts have been made to deprive them of their history, their language and their culture under the false pretense of making Japan “one nation, one language, one culture and one race.”

When Okinawa was occupied by US forces after the World War II, large numbers of Okinawans migrated to Japan’s mainland and to South America in a search of economic opportunity. Faced by open discrimination from ‘true’ Japanese, the Okinawans tried to hide their identities. At the same time, fearing the American military presence on the island would wipe it out, they tried to maintain their cultural heritage[8]. In Kawasaki City near Yokohama there are an estimated 40,000 ‘displaced’ Okinawans. In an effort to pass on their culture to the younger generation, they have organized a non-profit called the Society to Study Okinawan Music and Dance. This resulted in the local government designating Okinawan music and dance as an intangible cultural asset of Kawasaki City. In purportedly mono-cultural Japan, it is rare for a local government to designate a cultural asset originating from an entirely different region as their own. The interest in multiculturalism is also found in the cultural synthesis between Okinawans and nikkeis, the South American returnees. The nikkeis many of whom have some Okinawan ancestry add an interesting cultural mix to Kawasaki City that attracts youth who throng around multi-ethnic restaurants and shops in the city. The attraction of Okinawan culture is not limited to youth or to Okinawans—the majority of the members of the music and dance association are non-Okinawan[9].

A similar kind of resurrection of their culture is observable among the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.  The Ainu became victims of Japan’s modernization policies when Hokkaido was settled by Japanese in the late 19th century. Although they were given protected status as a backward community by the Meiji government, their self-esteem was destroyed by other government policies which encouraged public disrespect towards the Ainu culture.

To escape, some young Ainus moved outside of Hokkaido in the 1960s. Osamu Hasegawa is one. He is now a prominent civic leader of Ainus in the Kanto-Tokyo region of Honshu. Jointly, with members of an urban Ainu association  lela no kai, he now owns a popular Ainu restaurant called lela chise or the house of lela.

First, though, after leaving Hokkaido, he became a Christian pastor, hoping to help the poor and the destitute. However, he was fired when he started to work with Japanese ex-untouchables or Burakumin. It seems the conservative non-Buraku Christians of his parish did not want to be identified with the buraku community. He then became an organic farmer and day-laborer. He also became an organizer, founding an organization called the Ainu Liberation Federation. The AFL was modeled on the Buraku Liberation Federation, a powerful Buraku civic organization (discussed below).

Born soon after World War II, Hasegawa is typical of other rebels from the baby boom generation who challenged the establishment with militant political tactics and civic engagements. The baby-boom’s children, now in their late 20s and 30s, were influenced by rebellious parents, but most are often less interested in political action and more interested in expressing themselves through pop culture. For example, all of the above-mentioned hip-hop groups have websites and make political statements through the internet, posting their performances on YouTube.

Regardless of approach, they do embrace their ethnic identity and actively work to end discrimination. Hasegawa as a youth felt he had to blend into mainstream Japanese culture and only later re-defined himself as a rebellious Ainu. Thanks to his courage and that of other ‘rebels’ of an older generation, today’s minority youth feel free to   acknowledge and express their multiple identities on a national and international stage.

For instance, one of Hasegawa’s daughters married a foreigner, an Australian. At a UN conference she made a presentation about Ainus, the aborigines of Japan. She appealed for international pressure on the Japanese government to acknowledge Ainus as an indigenous minority so the Ainu can regain ownership of “taken” land and preserve their cultural heritage. Another daughter married a Korean organic farmer. And his youngest daughter is studying in the US to become a curator to promote Ainu history and culture. Hasegawa does not mind them marrying non-Ainu or non-Japanese. He often quotes his daughter who said “my father is half Japanese-half Ainu. My mother is Japanese, my husband is Australian and he is a quarter Australian Aborigine. So my children have a quarter identity of all of them.” Such statements show ‘the power of new identities’ (Castells 1997) created in a globalized world.

Hasegawa’s restaurant is also a cultural center for urban Ainus who want to regain their self-esteem by embracing their heritage. Hasegawa notes that young Ainus are eager to create a new image of which to be proud. He says intergenerational exchanges are also extremely important in keeping Ainu culture vibrant and attractive. Some Ainu elders in Hokkaido object to the hip-hop music of the Ainu Rebels because it is not ‘traditional.’  Other elders, however, see how the music and dance of the Ainu Rebels have changed the attitude of young Hokkaido Ainus who were previously ashamed to participate in the traditional dances or speak the Ainu language in public. One of the Rebels told her dying grandmother that she is proud of being an Ainu and that her mission as an Ainu Rebel is to popularize Ainu culture among Japanese children, helping them admire Ainu culture and see it as ‘cool.’ This strategy seems to be working. In their appeal to the younger population, both inside and outside of their own community, Okinawans and Ainus seem to be successful. Associating with immigrant cultural organizations, they are helping to create a fusion of multi-cultural hip-hop in the urban areas of Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Kobe.  But, this culturally affirming strategy seems to be difficult to achieve by Japan’s other ex-untouchable community—the Burakumin.

The Burakumin[10]

Japan’s ex-Untouchables or Burakumins are the invisible race—physically indistinguishable from other Japanese—but historically suppressed as pollutants (eta) and inhuman (hinin). In this regard, they are very much like India’s Dalits or ex-untouchable castes. Although buraku organizations, like the Buraku Liberation League, have a long history and are models for many “mainline” community-based organizations, buraku leaders lament that they cannot now attract young people from their community. The leaders say that, today, relatively few buraku acknowledge their unique culture and history and many feel ashamed of the community into which they were born. Many youth leave the buraku neighborhood in an attempt to erase their cultural identity and live as ‘nobody.’  When found out, they face discrimination in jobs and marriage opportunities. Marriage partners often face opposition from their parents and relatives and the divorce rate is extremely high. Although the community as a whole has a rich tradition of socio-cultural contributions to today’s Japan, the younger generation dismisses the great achievements of the civic movement led by their parents’ generation.

Buraku history goes back at least to the 3^rd century A.D., when they were “assigned” numerous special occupations of hereditary origin. Just like the Indian untouchable castes, the Buraku were essential mediators between nature and culture. They were embodied with symbolic magico-religious powers and were considered essential because they could remove ‘impurities’ and ‘evil spirits’ from the “sacred” space required for Shinto rituals. For instance, the famous Gion ritual festival of Kyoto is conducted in the summer to ward-off epidemics and calamities. In the pre-Meji era, untouchable (Buraku) ritualists were ‘the purifiers’ who walked in front of the palanquins to absorb the “impurities” and evils that might be present.

Just like the Indian hierarchical dichotomy between Brahmins and Untouchables, the Japanese Buraku and the Imperial Emperor represented the dichotomy between the “pure” and the “impure”; the Emperor was dependent on the services of Buraku to purify his ritual space and the capital.  Similarly, many Shinto priests entered their shrines through a symbolic entrance created by sticks held by the untouchable ritualists. While the Untouchables needed political protection from the government, the Emperor and Shintoism needed the Untouchables for purification of the religious space.

In 1873, after the Meiji restoration, the government abolished the eta and hinin status and ex-Untouchables were re-labeled shin-heimin (“new commoners”). By claiming to be ‘modern’ by western standards, the Meiji government removed the magico-religious function of untouchables which had been passed down for hundreds of years. This of course, was one-sided as the emperor remained ‘sacred’ and pure in his own right, just like the Christian God. Thus ended a long history in which the ritual role of Burakumins was essential to Shinto ceremonies.

Although they were considered pollutants and assigned the lowest rung on the social hierarchy ladder, many Buraku services were essential.  They were low level watchmen, criminal arresters, and executioners. Some industries such as leather goods, bamboo crafts, and animal butcheries were their monopoly and, often, they were economically better off than other peasants.

Japanese traditional theater such as Noh, Kabuki, and Bun-raku originated from the Buraku community entertainment industry. The famous Burakumin philosopher and Noh performer Zeami closely served the Shogunate. Famous zen gardens were crafted and made by Burakumin as they had the power to transform nature into culture.

The first dissection of a human body in Japan in 1772 is credited to Genpaku Sugita, a Japanese doctor who translated the Dutch book, Tables of Anatomy. However, the actual dissection was done by a Burakumin called Torakichi, as none of the doctors in those days knew much about the human body. As Sugita wrote in his diary, it was Torakichi who showed him details of anatomy by dissecting a body at an execution site. However, Torakichi’s name is never mentioned in the official records of Japanese medicine. The unique status of the Burakumin was stripped away by the “reforms” of the Meiji government. The Buraku people, without education or capital, were soon impoverished. They, along with resident Koreans brought to Japan as labourers, soon constituted modern Japan’s underclass.

The BLL and the Special Measurement Law

After World War II, the Buraku Liberation League[11] was quickly formed by Buraku leaders as a grassroots community improvement organization. The BLL initiated a literacy movement for Burakumin and it organized evening classes in neighborhood halls. The BLL also made sure that all the poor people could get into decent public housing.  After the Japanese government established the Special Measures Law for Assimilation Project in 1969, Buraku welfare projects (such as construction of public housing in the Buraku neighborhoods) became common. With strong backing from the Japan Socialist party, the BLL developed tactics called kyudan or “denunciation” in which it openly, and sometimes violently, confronted non­-Buraku people and organizations that were against BLL policies and measures (see Neary 1997 and Upham 1987).  The government and most media turned a blind eye to these denunciations, as the buraku issue had became an embarrassment to a supposedly democratic country. Once the buraku issue become a taboo subject, the gap between the non-buraku and the buraku was exacerbated.  The Special Measures Law, which was won by the political tactics of the BLL, improved the living standards of the community, but it also fostered a culture of dependency, corruption and mismanagement in their community organizations. When the government terminated the SML and assimilation projects in 1992, buraku neighborhoods had little economic vitality.  As youth assimilated into the ‘homogeneous whole’, neighborhood population dwindled. Those who acquired a stable job left the neighborhood to educate their children and get assimilated into the mainstream society and erase their buraku identity.

Achievements of Community Development by the Buraku People and the BLL

Despite the problems and controversies, between 1950 and the 1989, the BLL created remarkable examples of progressive community building, which proved to be an inspiration to later community development efforts in non-buraku communities (cf. Uchida 2006).

For example, in buraku community development and “liberation” projects, the residents themselves were encouraged to participate. This was new and different in Japan, where most community development programs were led and dominated by local government bureaucrats.  Neighborhood participants drafted neighborhood-assessment white papers and, based on their documented findings, negotiated with the local government about what was to be done.  The community assessments activities included community building workshops for residents, grassroots research activities and field visits to more advanced community building neighborhoods. These programs were later adopted by non-buraku neighborhoods, but few non-buraku community leaders will acknowledge they used buraku communities as their model.

Some of the measures the government took to help the community are also notable and progressive. For example, the Special Measures Law allowed local governments to loan money from the central government to finance low-rent public apartments and provide low-interest housing loans in buraku neighborhoods.

However, as the quality of life in buraku neighborhood began to improve, the population dwindled. And, when the government tightened its budget, the community ended up being split between middle-income and low-income sectors. When many of the former started to move outside the community to hide their buraku background, the poorest were left behind. Losing their most successful and talented people, the neighborhoods began to deteriorate.

Over time, the community became disillusioned with the BLL tactics of denunciation and the tendency of some BLL leaders to use the threat of these tactics to divert government funds into their own pockets.  More legitimate community leaders began to search for new ways to pursue their goals of economic independence and buraku self-esteem.

Kyoto’s Sujin Machizukuri Council led by Masao Yamaguchi is one example. This neighborhood leader and amateur historian, was appointed director of the Kyoto Branch of the BLL in 2000, following a highly publicized embezzlement scandal. After sorting out the organization’s finances and forcing the involved staff to return embezzled funds, he left the BLL.  He along with a few other local leaders interested in community development began the Sujin Machizukuri Council.

Working closely with the Kyoto city government, this civic organization invited non-community members (such as the director of the Kyoto Police Department, lawyers, accountants, and university professors) to become board members and made the organization’s operation transparent. The Council, working closely with city government, encouraged private developers to build mixed-use shopping centers that included market-rate housing. The model of mixed-use development has made the area more livable and has attracted a younger generation of residents that includes non-buraku people. The Council is also trying to develop theaters and museums featuring the neighborhood’s multi-culturalism and rich folk tradition. These cultural assets include not only buraku culture, but also that of resident Koreans, Ainu and Okinawans.

Conclusion

Japan is not mono-cultural. Even though opinion makers such as the media and elected officials have denied it, Japan has a rich multi-cultural history. It also has a history of discrimination again fellow Japanese, whether “native” or “naturalized who are physically and linguistically indistinguishable from the general population. At times, the opinion makers and thus the public, deny their existence, at other times they denigrate them.

The understandable anger felt by Japan’s minorities has too often been turned inward as they felt ‘ashamed’ of their heritage and tried to hide it through denial or self-destructive behavior.  Recently, though, there has been something of a transformation. Ainu youth are rebelling against negative stereotypes by incorporating Ainu traditional arts and culture in popular music and hip-hop. No longer ashamed, they are proud to be Ainu and other Japan youth are embracing them, challenging the cultural hegemony of the mainstream.

For Burakumin, reclaiming their cultural heritage as something positive as opposed to something to hide is proving more problematic. They have much to be proud of, not least of which is a history of community organizing and community building that has been copied by “mainstream” activists. Still, many buraku youths find it easier to meld into the mainstream, hiding their heritage instead of embracing it. Today’s buraku organizers see it as their task to bring buraku heritage out of the shadows and into the light, and along with it a sense of self-worth for the buraku people. If they are not successful, buraku culture may one day be little more than a footnote in Japan’s history and the Burakumin will lose recognition of the cultural history owed them.

Japan’s Buraku are, of course, not alone in struggling with multiple identities. The Marrano Jewish community in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) provides a historical reference point. There, in medieval times, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. Yovel (2009) explains how they and their descendants survived with multiple-identities.

The Marranos suffered from such social stigma and discrimination that even their economic and political success would not allow them to embrace their Jewish identity. They behaved as Portuguese or Spanish ‘Catholics’ in Europe and used their European names while doing business abroad, including India. At the same time, they maintained their Jewish names within the Jewish community and maintained the Jewish Marrano network to support their businesses and their Jewish identity. Outside of their community, they were rejected by ‘religious’ Jews as renegades and despised by most Christians as Jews with ‘impure’ blood. Yet, like a person who switches hats according to the needs and situation, the Marranos carried different identities and cultures; they incorporated Iberian lifestyles into their Jewish life; living as ‘Spanish’ or ‘Portuguese’ outside Iberia, and Jews at home. They had not a single identity, but created a new culture mixing Jewish and Christian symbols and lifestyles.

Many central features of modern Western and Jewish experience can be traced back to the Marranos “split” identity, according to Yovel.  He describes them as ‘the Other within’, arguing that the Marranos contributed to the dissolution of a single pattern of being Jewish, giving in return: Christian Jewishness, nostalgic Jewishness, social Jewishness or selective Jewishenss[12].

The history of Marranos shows that Burakumin experience can be ‘uniquely’ Japanese and yet universal: their forced multiple identities can be turned into a positive asset. This could be a powerful strategy for Japan’s minorities in the 21^st century.

References

Amino, Y. 2005 Chusei no Hinin to Yujo, Kodansha, Tokyo.

— 2000 Nihon towa Nanika, Kodansha, Tokyo.

Asahi.com 2007 “Weekend Beat”, June 9.

Burgess, C. 2007 “Multicultural Japan” remains a pipe dream Ideology, policies, people not ready for major influx of foreigners’, The Japan Times, March 27.

Castells, M. 1997 The Power of Identity, Blackwell.

Harada, T. 1975  Hisabestu Buraku no rekishi, Asahi Shinbun sha.

Kingston, J. 2004 Japan’s Quiet Transformation, Routledge.

Lie J. 2001 Multiethnic Japan, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Neary, I. 1997 ‘Burakumin in Contemporary Japan’ in Japan’s Minorities: The illusion of Homogeneity, ed. by M. Weiner, Routledge, pp.50-78.

Oguma Eiji 1995 Tan’itsu shinwa no kigen: ‘Nihonjin’ no jigazo no keifu, Tokyo, Shin’ yo-sha.
(in English)

The Japan Times 2005 ‘Aso says Japan is nation of “one race,” Oct. 18.

Uchida, Y. 2006  ‘Community Work o katsuyo shita Machizukuri’(Community Development  through Community Work) in Machizukuri to Community Work, Tokyo, Kaiho shuppansha, pp.4-18.

Upham,F.　1987 ‘ Instrumental Violence and the Struggle for Buraku Liberation,’ inLaw and Social Change in postwar Japan, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press,  pp.78­-123.

Vogel,E 1979 Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Yovel,Y. 2009 The Other Within: The Marranos: Split Identity and Emerging Modernity. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Suggested website references:

Ainu Rebels

Buraku Liberation League

FM YY

Hasegawa,Osamu

Kanagawa City Union and Satoshi Murayama

KP

Los Kalibres

Tensais MC

Lela no kai (lela chise)

MIC Kanagawa

Mixed Roots Japan

Shakeforward 2008

Sumai Support Center

[1](The Japan Times 2005, Oct. 18). Aso then became Prime Minister in September, 2008.

[2] Both Ainus and Okinawans were forcefully incorporated into Japanese nation state in the 19^th century but they are the old inhabitants of Japanese islands. Although there have been constant migrations from China and Korea throughout Japanese history, those who are called ‘Resident’ Koreans and Chinese　（Zainichi） are mostly the descendants of migrants before and during the World War II. In order to hide their ethnic identity and merge into mainstream, many of them obtained Japanese names and registered as Japanese but some do not, and they have been creating distinct cultural characteristics often with the suffix zainichi’(foreign residents in Japan). Nowadays, many of the second and third generation zainichis do not speak Korean or Chinese. They are called the Old Comers to distinguish them from those New Comers who have migrated to Japan after the 1970s.

[3] Satoshi Murayama, personal communication.

[4] Some local governments such as Kanagawa prefecture, Kawasaki city and Yokohama city are particularly willing to tackle issues related to non-Japanese foreign workers and work with local nonprofits. The Kanagawa government launched an advisory board consisting of non-Japanese residents in 2000. Kanagawa Gaokoku-seki Kenmin kaigi (Kanagawa Foreign National Residents Council) and the nonprofits Sumai Support Center and MIC Kanagawa were born out of these efforts.

[5] Finding an accommodation in Japan has been extremely difficult for non-Japanese partly because of cultural misunderstanding between the Japanese landlords and the non-Japanese renters. The SSC provides housing information to non-Japanese and also ‘educate’ the tenants about Japanese life such as garbage disposal and noise issues.

[6] The members of Blendz are Japanese with African heritage. Ainu Rebels are the young Ainu hip hop group; members of KP are the descendants of resident Koreans in Japan. Members of Los Lalibres are the descendants of Spanish -speaking Peruvian-Japanese and Tensais MCs consist of Portuguese speaking Brazilian Japanese and young Japanese singers.

[7] See such websites as (http://www.wajju.jp/shake2008/ ).

[8] See for example, Asahi.com June 9, 2007, ‘weekend Beat.’

[9] According to Okinawan Folk Art and Music association in Kawasaki city, the membership increased 14 times since its start in 1956 and there are non-Okinawan young members who are interested in Okinawan culture and become members (http://www.city.kawasaki.jp/61/61kusei/kigyoshimin/pdf/06-08.pdf).

[10] There are large number of books and papers written about Japan’s Burakumin. In this paper however, I limit my reference to the following two books: Harada, T.(1975), and Amino (2005).

[11] BLL has its origin in the pre-war civic organization called Suiheisha (Levelers’ Association) started in 1920. Initiated by Burakumin youths and non-Burakumin intellectuals, the establishment of this left-wing organization prompted the pre-war Japanese government to reconsider their policies towards buraku neighborhood (see Neary 1997).

[12] According to Yovel, just like Marranos who chose to ‘Judaize’ the customs for social or nostalgic reasons, many secularlized Jews in today’s United States still choose to remain within a Jewish social framework but with little or no religious faith. Prominent Jewish intellectuals express such split identity more or less like Marranos. For example, Derrida calls himself a ‘non-Jewish Jew’ and Freud calls himself a ‘Godless Jew’ (2009: 366-367).

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