Paper short abstract:

In wartime Japan, lots of national standards were established in order to regulate everyday life; national uniform, national housing, and national food. This paper scrutinizes the relationship between those regulations and industrial technologies resulting from mass production.

Paper long abstract:

In the late 1990s, two outcomes of significant international joint research were published in Japan: Total War and 'Modernization' and Deconstructing Nationality. Both attempted to shed light on the continuity between the prewar and postwar regimes in Japan on the one hand and the way the Japanese nation-state had artificially constructed nationality through ideological indoctrination on the other hand.

However, these works paid less attention to the historical meaning of nationality during the wartime period in Japan. This presentation will focus on the fact that many national standards were established in order to regulate everyday life in wartime Japan. These included national uniform (Kokumin-Fuku), housing (Kokumin-Jutaku), and food (Kokumin-Shoku).

Furthermore, what did the term nation (Kokumin) exactly mean in the wartime period? Why did such numerous standardizations prevail in the wartime period? This presentation will scrutinize these questions in light of the development of industrial technologies as well as the introduction of ‘Scientific Management’ discourses since the Great War period. In fact, this presentation notes that standardization provided the means of accomplishing the mass production necessary to prepare for the coming total war.

Through historical analysis of the wartime discourses of intellectuals as well as bureaucrats, this presentation will reveal the following points:

First, the establishment of those national standards was intended to subsume individual life ranging from family income and expenditure to foodstuff and clothing.

Second, the national subsumption through these standardizations was accomplished through the quantification embedded in various social surveys concerning peoples’ physical health and livelihood, including their housing, food, and clothing.

Finally, these standardizations demanded and promoted individuals to govern their lives to fit them.

In conclusion, this presentation suggests the dissemination of standardization and self-governance might facilitate the acceptance of the idea of management and information studies in postwar Japan.