Picturing political space in 1920s and 1930s Japan

The formation of the modern nation-state involves the constitution of individuals as national subjects and the formation of new kinds of governance. ¹ Although discourses of nationalism appear to be based on universalism, on principles of treating all citizens as equivalent, there are in fact various exclusions built into the practices of modern nation-states. Such exclusions, however, have been naturalised in various ways. Women and men, the working class and the bourgeoisie, and members of ethnic groups from outside the mainstream are constructed as different from each other, and these differences are often presented as being based on natural attributes. A major part of the history of modern political systems in the twentieth-century has been the attempts by members of marginalised groups to have their claims for inclusion in the national community recognised, along with the right to participate in the governance of the nation. Ghassan Hage refers to these two aspects of citizenship as ‘national belonging’ (those who are part of the national community) and ‘governmental belonging’ (those who are seen to have a ‘natural’ role in the management of the nation). ² In this chapter, I will consider how contests over national belonging and governmental belonging were reflected in the visual culture of Japan in the 1920s and 1930s.