[KS] Colonization vs occupation

[Michael Robinson]

Henry:

Koreans call the 1910-1945 period both the period of Japanese occupation or 
the period of Japanese colonial/imperial rule.  Colonialism is now I think 
more frequent, but when I started working on the period some scholars 
objected to "colonialism" perhaps because it implied a stable hegemony of 
long duration.  Occupation seemed perhaps more uncertain, or perhaps it 
implied no acceptance of such rule by a still "resisting" Korean population. 
Clearly the Japanese colonized Korea, Taiwan, Manchuria (even though this 
was a shorter period) with some intensity.  they employed a variety of 
techniques and the Japanese idea of colonialism changed over time.  Direct 
rule in Taiwan and Korea, indirect in Manchuria.  Current scholarship in the 
Japan field is now all agog about Empire.  Studies of the Japanese 
"colonization" of Tohoku, the Ainu, the Ryukyus during the Tokugawa 
period.....maybe this is more properly something different as in the 
settling of the American West...though that too is now brought into a 
colonial paradigm.  I think you are right that the 1937 advance into China 
and SEAsia, Indonesia Burma etc. were more military occupations, but had the 
war continued or the Japanese prevailed they were full of plans for how to 
administer their hold over all of Asia.  The problem with not thinking about 
Japanese and Colonialism is that European scholars spend virtually no time 
bringing Japanese colonialism into the loop of that very developed and 
interesting field of writing.  Be hopeful, however, because more and more 
work on Japanese variants of colonialism occupies much of modern Korean 
history writing now as well as a huge portion of the modern Japan field that 
is busily dissecting the Empire in very interesting ways.  It was pretty 
lonely in the 1970s working on this, but there is plenty of company now.

Mike Robinson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Henny Savenije" <webmaster at henny-savenije.pe.kr>
To: "Korean Studies Discussion List" <Koreanstudies at koreaweb.ws>
Sent: Wednesday, April 26, 2006 9:36 AM
Subject: [KS] Colonization vs occupation


> When Koreans and also Korean scholars refer to the Japanese period, they 
> refer to the colonization period. When Europeans refer to the German 
> period they refer to the occupation period.
>
> Can someone enlighten me why we speak about the Japanese colonization and 
> not about the Japanese occupation??
>
> When I speak of colonization I think of the Dutch, Spanish, British and 
> Portuguese and even the French, but never of the Japanese, mainly because 
> the time the Japanese occupied many countries is in my opinion too short 
> to justify the term colonization.
>
> Even though the Japanese exploited in many ways the local population as 
> the colonizers above mentioned, the Germans did the same thing, so I am 
> really interested why we don't speak about the German colonization, but we 
> do speak about the Japanese colonization
>
> Any idea is appreciated.
>
>
>
>
> Henny (Lee Hae Kang)
> -----------------------------
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