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- Convenor:
-
Urs Matthias Zachmann
(Freie Universität Berlin)
Send message to Convenor
- Stream:
- History
- Location:
- Bloco 1, Piso 0, Sala 0.08
- Sessions:
- Saturday 2 September, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel discusses the notion of modernity in the late Meiji period through the lens of gender, family and the law. It particularly asks what dynamic relation between these drove the formation of the Meiji state, applying interdisciplinary analyses of legal and literary texts.
Long Abstract:
Academic discourses often rather intuitively reference the 'Modern' as the key concept for understanding social, political and cultural developments in Meiji Japan. This panel intends to displace the familiar concept and rethink it in a new theoretical framework, engaging with a critical reading of citizenship, family and gender/performance. Choosing the Meiji legal system as common object of inquiry, the papers will show how, within this system, family, gender and citizenship were strategically deployed and practiced to reinscribe the modern into the feudal, and vice versa, in order to arrive at a particular 'Japanese modernity'. The panel applies an interdisciplinary perspective that combines legal, political and literary approaches in order to explain more fully the complex relation of family, gender and the law in the formation of the Meiji state.
The first paper opens up the discussion with a broader reflection on how Meiji conservatives redefined Japan's family system so as reintegrate Japan's particular customs into the universal standards of the emerging global order. It particularly focuses on the writings of Hozumi Yatsuka, one of the most influential lawyers of late Meiji Japan.
The second paper discusses how male agency and networks severely circumscribed the role of Meiji women in the making of particular statutes and. It will demonstrate how modern patriarchy cloaked itself in the notion of the family, thus making it difficult to recognise the essential role that gender played in the formation of the new Japanese legal order.
The last paper demonstrates how the understanding of gendered law informed the literary writings of Miyake Kaho and Higuchi Ichiyo. This becomes particularly apparent in the double-bind that Meiji society placed the new emerging class of jogakusei (school girls) in, torn between the ideals of the new education system and the legal trappings of a rigid adoption system.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 2 September, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
The Meiji legal system excluded women from public roles. Challenging the conventional view that the institution of the family (ie) was responsible, my aim is to demonstrate the power of masculine networks in the construction of the new legal order and of citizenship in modern Japan.
Paper long abstract:
In pre-war Japan women were not citizens in the same way as men in the eyes of the state. When the new Meiji government consolidated the basic state structure in the late 19th century, Japanese women lost a significant number of political and legal rights: denial of voting rights at both local and national level, exclusion from newspaper operation, and disbarment from joining political organisations, as well as discriminatory criminal laws and 'incapability' clauses in the new civil code. Why does the Meiji legal system so emphatically exclude women from public roles?
The conventional view is that the institution of the family (ie) was responsible, underlain by the authority of the father. State ideologues also likened the Meiji State to the family and portrayed the emperor as the father figure of the nation. The undermining of women's status is therefore thought to be closely related to the consolidation of the patriarchal legal structure. What has not been sufficiently appreciated however is the power of masculine networks, reinforced by contact with Europe, in justifying the new state regulations and legal concepts. The patriarchy that underlines the Meiji legal system was not only paternal, but fraternal. This 'modern' patriarchy is often cloaked in the notion of the family, which makes it difficult to recognise how essential gender was to the formation of the new Japanese legal order. Using various legal documents, such as statutes, proceedings of meetings where these statutes were discussed, and relevant judicial interpretations, my aim is to supplement of the work of Marnie Anderson, Hayakawa Noriyo, Harald Fuess, and others, and demonstrate the power of gendered relationships in the construction of the new legal order and of citizenship in modern Japan.
Paper short abstract:
This paper discusses the so-called 're-feudalisation' of late Meiji Japan by looking at the controversy around family law. Focusing on Hozumi Yatsuka's writings it shows how conservative intellectuals sought to rationalise Japan's particular family system from a universalist perspective.
Paper long abstract:
Japan's modernisation process is often portrayed in a binary fashion, oscillating between a proactive, if selective adaptation of western models as the universal standard, and an equally aggressive rejection of these, coupled with a nationalist nostalgia for returning to the Japanese or 'Asian' roots. Thus, after the bunmei kaika period of the 1870s, the explanation goes, the pendulum swings back and enters the phase of 're-feudalisation' of the 1890s. However, if looking more closely, this binary scheme e does not hold up and Meiji intellectuals' views of the modernisation process was much more complex than such a scheme would suggest. This holds particularly true for the role which family and the law played in the modernisation process. This paper examines their relation through a close reading of the writings of one of the most influential jurists of the time, namely Hozumi Yatsuka (1860-1912). In 1892, Hozumi published the treatise 'Minpo idete, chuko horobu' (If the Civil Code will come out, loyalty and filial piety will perish). This short text is seen today as the iconic expression of the so-called 're-feudalisation' of the late Meiji period. However, a closer reading reveals that Hozumi's attitude towards modernisation was much more sophisticated than pure nostalgia for traditional values. In fact, by relating Japan's family system to traditional, pre-Christian customs in Europe, Hozumi sought to establish Japan's particularism within a universal standard that would confirm Japan's status in the modern world while enabling it to maintain its traditional family system. Thus, in a skilful reversion of the usual scheme, Hozumi portrayed Japan's family system as the really universal, while 'provincialising Europe' as the more parochial and short-lived model. This by and large conformed with the hybrid notion of 'civilisation' and modernity that his Japanese contemporaries held in the late Meiji period.
Paper short abstract:
This paper uses literary writings to deconstruct the representation of western style education for jogakusei (school girls) in the milieu of the traditional adoption system. It shows how the Meiji legal system coerced jogakusei to ironically perform traditional norms in face of new social desires.
Paper long abstract:
In the latter half of 19th century, Japanese intelligentsia drafted a centralized and modern law, which largely contributed in the establishing a modern nation-state, to serve and represent its civilians equally. This paper will deconstruct the writings of Meiji writers to examine the effect imparted when common citizen faced civil codes, particularly the adoption law, which presents an "alternative" understanding of the family and social structure in Meiji Japan, deemed quintessential for building a nation-state. While the adoption system was continued to be practiced almost unchanged, several amendments were made and enforced in civil codes from time to time to ensure the safeguarding of family structure, well suited to the process of standardization of traditional family structure, but the updated civil codes were clearly incapable in representing and protecting the rights of the jogakusei who were subjects of the newly introduced western education system.
This paper will closely read the works of Miyake Kaho, who inspired Higuchi Ichiyo to become a professional author, and the works of Higuchi also to analyze the course of depiction of jogakusei in relation to the Meiji adoption system. With the comparison of the works of these two writers, this paper explains the double bind of Meiji society and its gendered legal codes placed on the new emerging class of jogakusei who ironically perform traditional norms in face of new social desires.