ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an introduction to the debates surrounding Japanese identity construction in the postwar period and to discourse theory—the theory used to conduct the analysis in the subsequent chapters. The chapter reviews the existing constructivist scholarship on Japanese identity construction, which has focused either on postwar norms of antimilitarism rooted in Japan’s defeat in World War II or on specific Self/Other relations between Japan and other countries. The book is novel in that it combines the norm constructivists’ focus on the wartime experience with the relational constructivists’ emphasis on relationality. As a result, it identifies the phenomenon known as temporal othering, which refers to the construction of a peaceful postwar identity that is differentiated not from other unpeaceful countries, but from Japan’s own unpeaceful past. The chapter outlines how the concept of temporal othering can explain the fierce struggles over identity in postwar Japan and how these struggles can be identified and analyzed in a discourse analytical framework. A final section previews the structure of the book.