GH14026

SoSe 21: Negotiations of Asian identities in history

Urs Matthias Zachmann

Comments

People create identities to achieve some sense in life, but also security and superiority. Many collective identities are directed against outside groups, who in turn try to cope by offering alternative narratives. The resulting negotiations revolve around key strategic terms, such as the nation, culture, race, but also gender, religion and class. This seminar looks at how identities are being constructed in East Asia (Japan, China, Korea and Taiwan) and how different types of narratives rose and fell throughout their histories. For this, we are looking not only at identities of the many, but also of minorities and subaltern groups. Rather than taking a broad survey, we will focus in detail on particular constellations in history that are interesting and illuminative. Examples are the identity constructions of Ainu or of Burakumin in Japan, of the Han majority or Muslim minorities in China, the historical identities of Hong Kong and Taiwan, of colonised Korea vis-à-vis Japan, or of personal victimhood in different East Asian countries. Through studying these examples, we will gather insight into the entangled histories of East Asian societies from a plurality of viewpoints. Moreover, many of the negotiations discussed in this seminar have repercussions unto this day. Finally, from a more theoretical viewpoint, we will also better understand the complex mechanism and vagaries of identity negotiations that increasingly take centre stage in our own societies today. close