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Forced Labour in Imperial Japan's First Colony: Hokkaidō

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2025

Pia M. Jolliffe
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Abstract

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This article examines the role of forced labour within the context of Ezo/Hokkaidō's colonization. I draw attention to how in this process, different groups of subaltern people – the indigenous Ainu, political convicts, indentured labourers and Korean workers – contributed to the making of imperial Japan's first colony and the building of the modern Japanese nation state. Yet, even with their shared conditions of working under a Japanese ruling class, these subaltern labourers were not united. My article highlights how their experiences were instead, largely shaped along ethnic, gendered and generational lines.

Keywords

Forced laborAinuconvictsKoreansEzoHokkaidōgenderethnicitycolonialismsubalternity
Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 18 , Issue 20 , October 2020 , e6
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2020

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