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History in multiplicity: locating de Certeau's ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ in early postwar Japan

2006; Routledge; Volume: 18; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09555800600731114

1469-932X

Curtis Anderson Gayle,

Political Economy and Marxism

Abstract In early postwar Japan Marxian historians like Ishimoda Shō and Inoue Kiyoshi utilized history in order to help create the cultural conditions for a socialist revolution. Ordinary Japanese women were important to this project and to Marxian campaigns for social change among the working class during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Local women's history-writing groups such as the Ehime Women's History Circle were, conversely, inspired by these historians and shared with them the belief that history writing could become a 'revolutionary praxis' to change Japanese society. This article will discuss how, while influenced by Marxian positions on history, the Ehime group nevertheless sought to devise 'tactics' by which to distance itself from the larger 'strategies' represented by professional historians and institutions. In this respect, the relationship between Marxian approaches and the Ehime Circle reminds us of what Michel de Certeau has, more generally, called 'tactics' that both utilize and distinguish themselves from larger institutions and discourses. Keywords: Ehime Women's History Circlehistory-writingrevolutionary praxisIshimoda ShōInoue KiyoshiMovement for a People's History Notes 1. Kurahara Korehito was a specialist in Russian literature and helped establish the Japanese Proletarian League (Nihon Puroretaria Bungaku Renmei) during the early 1920s. In 1932 he was arrested and imprisoned for seven years. He became a member of the Central Committee of the Japan Communist Party after the war and continued to refine his ideas about the relationship of the working class to social change. 2. The Gramscian concept of hegemony has been defined as 'Intellectual or moral leadership, particularly by one class or part of a class over others'. See CitationPerry (2002: 164). 3. Ishimoda Shō graduated from Tokyo University and specialized in pre-modern Japanese history. He was both a didactic and charismatic figure within the Movement for a People's History. Eguchi Bokurō was a specialist in international relations as well as European history and was a professor at the University of Tokyo. 4. The Historical Science Society was founded in 1932 and continues to this day. The Association of Democratic Scientists, established in 1946, was an early postwar organization of historians and other progressive intellectuals committed to bridging the gap between elites and ordinary people. 5. Gluck elsewhere notes that 'rarely in history has the scrutiny of a blighted past so systematically been made the basis for fundamental societal change' (1992: 4) as in Japan during the early postwar period. 6. Inoue Kiyoshi was a colleague of Ishimoda and a participant in the Movement for a People's History. Educated at the University of Tokyo, he specialized in modern Japanese political history and later taught at Kyoto University. 7. Matsumoto was an historian of pre-modern Japan affiliated with the Historical Science Society and was a colleague of Ishimoda Shō. He was also from Matsumoto City in Ehime Prefecture and had ties to the Ehime Women's History Circle. 8. Inoue's colleague Uehara Senroku was an historian specializing in German history and world history. During the early postwar period he became interested in how Japanese history might be read in the context of world history and eventually became chancellor of Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo. 9. Marxian approaches to history on the whole often do not look to history writing as an existential tool, but rather focus upon how historical processes and structures define the individual's role in history. See, for example, CitationRigby (1998). 10. Here it should be noted that the phrase 'jokō aishi' was originally something from the prewar period. See CitationHosoi (1929). 11. Here I refer the reader to CitationMinshushugi Kagakusha Kyōkai (1955). 12. One look at the journals in local history (see CitationChihō-shi Kenkyū 2001) during the 1950s confirms that Marxian approaches to local history (chihō-shi) did not sufficiently include the voices of women. Thus, it is no surprise that the Ehime group – and other similar groups to follow – conceptualized their regional histories as alternatives to these. 13. I refer the reader to texts such as CitationRekishigaku Kenkyūkai (1947). 14. The 'colonization' of the nation, or minzoku, to an illegitimate state created and sustained by American imperialism was an important theme for Marxists in the early postwar era. See CitationGayle (2003). 15. After the first in Nagoya 1977, these were again held in 1981 (Asahikawa), 1983 (Kanagawa), 1986 (Matsuyama), 1992 (Okinawa), 1994 (Yamagata) 1998 (Kanagawa), 2001 (Gifu), and 2003 (Niigata).