ABSTRACT
Burakumin are a Japanese minority group who experience a complex kind of discrimination. But “Burakumin” is also a word that conceals a complex system of ever-changing signs signifying particular kinds of differences in Japan. This chapter argues that “Burakumin” reveals important emergent features of Buraku history and social existence in the period 1868-1945 which still have a strong resonance today. By focusing on “Burakumin” as a “discourse of difference,” the complexity of the marker and the reasons for its application, as well as the role, function and effects of certain historical narrative modes and related interpretative problems underpinning it comes into stark relief. Furthermore, the inconstant and contested nature of practices of structural and ideational representation of Burakumin, the perpetual policing and regulation of their public signification within Japan, and the inherent destabilising nature of the label in relation to broader processes of Japanese national identity formation also becomes more readily apparent.
