Paper short abstract:

With air defense preparations intensifying at the Japanese home-front, blood became a key feature in the war rally of “medical patriotism.” I examine the portrayal of blood science in these war slogans, showing that (re)presentation of blood was a contested site challenging the state’s authority.

Paper long abstract:

Blood is often associated with the embodiment of a homogenous power to bond and unify a community. However, by examining its discursive representations at the height of the Second World War in the Japanese home islands, I argue that blood served as a discursive site for negotiating contradicting loyalties and agendas. With the increasing pressures of resource scarcity and the occurrences of enemy air raids by late 1942, the frontlines of war were edging closer than ever to the home-front. Japanese doctors invented the war slogan of “medical patriotism” [igaku hōkoku] to rally local medical associations into supporting the state’s mobilization of entire communities for air defense preparations. I investigate how the subjects of blood and blood groups were infused into the war propaganda machinery. On the one hand, through the organization of countrywide events such as blood donation drives and blood group testing, the knowledge of blood science was widely propagated among the masses—in an attempt to promote a form of wartime “philanthropy of blood” and to showcase the country’s progressive medical culture. On the other, this revealed many unresolved issues in the medical scene, including the deplored practice of blood trading, and more importantly, the Allies’ advantage in blood science research that inevitably portrayed the Japanese medical community in negative light. The (re)presentation of blood, especially that on blood groups, was thus not a straightforward affair in wartime Japan, but instead a contested site that challenged the authority of the state.