2020: Indigenous Diplomacy: Sakhalin Ainu

Minderheiten in Japan: Ainu, Buraku, Ryukyu people, Koreans
Source: The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 22 | Number 2 | Article ID 5512 | Nov 15, 2020
Mit freundlicher Erlaubnis von Japan Focus


Indigenous Diplomacy:
Sakhalin Ainu (Enchiw) in the Shaping 
of Modern East Asia
(Part 1: Traders and Travellers)

Tessa Morris-Suzuki

Abstract:
Indigenous people are often depicted as helpless victims of the forces of eighteenth and nineteenth century colonial empire building: forces that were beyond their understanding or control. Focusing on the story of a mid-nineteenth century diplomatic mission by Sakhalin Ainu (Enchiw), this essay (the first of a two-part series), challenges that view, suggesting instead that, despite the enormous power imbalances that they faced, indigenous groups sometimes intervened energetically and strategically in the historical process going on around them, had some impact on the outcome of these processes. In Part 1, we look at the story of one Sakhalin Ainu family over multiple generations in order to highlight the strategic place of the Sakhalin Ainu in cross-border relationships – particularly in the relationship between China and Japan – from the early eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century.


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