「他者」たちのアイデンティティ : 「東北」出身者たちとの対話から

抄録

The history of Tohoku as "the Other" started a long time ago. By analyzing materials published between the end of Edo and World War II, Kawanishi (2001, 2007) indicated that Tohoku, the northern part of Honshu in Japan, has historically been depicted as a faraway place for savage, uncivilized and poor farmers. In other words, people who live in the center area of Japan perceived Tohoku as "the Other=them." This kind of "gaze" still exists in the modern mass media. The people who are represented as "the Other" are influenced by the socially constructed images when shaping their identities. Keeping this point in mind, this paper examines how the people from "Tohoku" area form their identities by interacting with other people and internalizing the media images of Tohoku. In this paper, the results of an active interview with people from Tohoku area are closely analyzed to look into their experiences as "the Other". All 29 interviewees (M: 13/F16) are from the Tohoku area and many of them live in Tokyo. The analysis shows the diversity and hybridity of "Tohoku." The existence of diverse "Japanese" shows that single, uniform "Japanese" do not exist anywhere. After all, "Japan" is, as Anderson said, only an "imagined community." This paper finally suggests that the new ways of representing local people and their culture can be found in alternative media practices. Hopefully, this short paper may also present an alternative way of narrating "Tohoku."