Unfolding possibilities through a decolonizing project: Indigenous knowledges and rural Japanese women

Abstract

Rural Japanese women have been overlooked or misrepresented in the academic and nationalist discourses on Japanese women. Using an anti‐colonial feminist framework, I advocate that centring discussions on Indigenous knowledges will help fill this gap based on the belief that Indigenous‐knowledge framework is a tool to show the agency of the ‘colonized’. In this paper, I attempt to answer the following question: What is the role of Indigenous knowledges in the context of rural Japanese women? I first discuss my epistemological approach by exploring the notion of Indigenous knowledges and my location within it. This process led me to employ autoethnography as the central methodology of this paper. Second, in order to better situate rural Japanese women, I look at Japanese history, especially the Meiji period (1868–1912) when Westernization began to exert a major influence on the Japanese nationalist movement via its control over knowledges carried by rural Japanese women. Third, in order for me to reclaim these subjugated Indigenous knowledges, I introduce my lived experience through autoethnography as a starting point to explore the possibilities that lie in the Indigenous‐knowledge framework. Fourth, I further discuss the interlocking nature of the issues surrounding nationalism, representation, knowledge production and identity emerging from the discussion on rural Japanese women and my reflexive text. This leads us to an assessment of how an Indigenous‐knowledge framework may shift discussions/perceptions of rural Japanese women in particular. Lastly, I conclude by noting the potential implications and applications of further research on this topic in other parts of the world.

Keywords:

• Indigenous knowledges
• rural Japanese women
• autoethnography
• anti‐colonial feminist framework
• representation

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Isao Mayuzumi and Emiko Mayuzumi for their help in reminding me of the details of my memory. I also wish to thank Riyad Shahjahan, Lara Barker, George Dei, Vivian Jimenez, Elena Basile, and Chikako Nagayama for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers of the journal for their constructive comments.

Notes

1. I use a plural form of Indigenous knowledge in order to emphasize the nature of multiplicity inherent in this notion. Since some literature uses a singular form consistently, my inconsistent use of both forms does not imply any difference: both will be used interchangeably.

2. I use the term dominant Western knowledge to refer to the body of knowledge that has dominated the West and the rest of the world through Western imperialism, based on hegemonic power that has been historically and socially constructed/maintained (Baber 1996). I would also like to acknowledge that this body of knowledge includes ‘appropriated ideas that were stolen or became incorporated as a result of dialectical exchange with “Other” knowledges, cultures and civilization’ (Shahjahan 2005a, 236). Moreover, I am aware that there are multiple discourses within Western knowledge systems.

3. I have noticed that, over the past decade, it has become more common that people in my home village hold funerals at institutional settings rather than at individual houses. This shows that ‘tradition’ is not static. It also shows that subsequent social effects to their life styles and relationships of community members are unknown.