Paper short abstract:

People qualified as "mixed blood" often appear in modern literary writings in Japan. They have been portrayed as being burdened with the conflicts of the contact zone in each era. I shall consider the representation of such figures through analysis of literary texts from the 1920s-1940s.

Paper long abstract:

People qualified as "mixed blood" often appear in modern Japanese literary writings. In this paper, I will consider the representation of people who cross national, ethnic and blood boundaries, while exploring novelists and poets from the 1920s-1940s.

"Mixed-blood" people have been represented and consumed as agents of conflict in the contact zone of each era in prewar Japan. As the number of imperialistic colonies and settlements grew, so the contact zone, where Japanese and other ethnic groups intermingled, also expanded. This contact ranged from economic, political, linguistic and cultural to sexual, creating new problems of "mixed-blood" children. "Contact zone" does not simply mean a space where people encounter each other. Spaces of contact are often accompanied by a hierarchy. Therefore, the contact zone is not only a space for encounters; it is also a space for negotiating and communicating how to behave in a place where power is unbalanced.

Novelists and poets from the period examined used "mixed-blood" people in their writings, describing the conflicts between two or more countries or ethnic groups via the bodies, behaviors and languages of their characters. Readers also imagined the conflicts of these countries and ethnic groups by reading the bodies, behaviors, words and bloodlines of the figures portrayed. Significantly, the nationality and ethnicity portrayed are neither equal nor equivalent. The significance of analyzing the representation of "mixed-blood" people in literary works lies in the fact that we can observe the hierarchy of the specific time and place as well as witness the moment of confusion in the hierarchy itself.

This paper will focus on Japanese literature from the 1920s to 1940s, including Japanese language works from Japanese overseas territories and colonies like Korea and Taiwan, at a time when the Japanese Empire was expanding. This was also the age of Americanism, influencing people's consumption, culture and lives. Authors to be mentioned include Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Nakajima Atsushi, Nagai Kafū and Oguma Hideo.