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Bodies and Structures 2.0: Deep-Mapping Modern East Asian History

On "Liminality"

The concept of liminality was first theorized by an Arnold van Gennep. In his book, The Rites of Passage, Gennep discusses the schema of the rite of passage as it proceeds from preliminal rites (rites of separation), to liminal rites (rites of transition), to postliminal rites (rites of incorporation).

By theorizing rites of passage, Gennep posits that transitional moments can be observed universally. Then, Victor W. Turner developed van Gennep's theory conceptually by applying the idea of liminality to a variety of contexts and understand the different human conditions and activities in societies of larger scale.

Turner articulates the notion of liminality thus:

The attributes of liminality or of liminal personate ('thresh-old people') are necessarily ambiguous, since this condition and these persons elude or slip through the network of classifications that normally locate there; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and ceremonial.

Anthropologists, sociologists, historians, social scientists, and other scholars in the humanities are still inspired by Turner and have utilized the concept of liminality in their studies.

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Border and Liminality of the Japanese Empire
This module elucidates the construction of border/boundary that demarcates as well as connects "the metropole"and the "colony" of the Japanese colonial empire. This particularly focuses on the border/boundary between Okinawa/ the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan with a particular attention to individuals who travels around Yaeyama Islands.

If taking border/boundary as fundamentally spatial concepts, Henri Lefebvre's Production of Space (1991) is the first and foremost book that demonstrates the dynamic nature of border/boundary. In reconsidering the conventional understanding of space that is divided into "physical space"and "mental space", Lefebvre (1991) demonstrates the theory of "social space". Social space is distinguished from both physical space that is defined by practico-sensory activity and mental space that is defined by philosophers and mathematicians. In re-theorizing the concept of space as a space as a social product, Lefebvre (1991) explores the history of space, and points out the dominance of nation-states in production of space in the contemporary age. He maintains that neither a substantive "legal person"nor an ideological fiction can define a nation state. Rather, the combined forces of the market, which is a complex ensemble of commercial relations and communication networks, and military violence produce the space of a nation-state (Lefebvre, 1991, 112).

This module explores how the border between Japan (the metropole) and Taiwan (the colony) was not instantly determined by the governmental treaty, but constantly negotiated by people who travelled across the border zone. Here, I would like to introduce the notion of "liminality" in demonstrating the malleable and changeable nature of the border Islands, Yaeyama. The concept of liminality was first theorized by a French anthropologist, Arnold van Gennep, but the concept has been creatively broadened and applied to various contexts by the contemporary scholars. In fact, today, the concept of liminality is employed nearly equally to the ides of "in-between," "ambiguity," or "marginality." Yet, I should stress that this module employs the notion of liminality by highlighting the transitionality of the ïn-between'' subjects.

Therefore , this module thus demonstrates the ways in which Japanese imperialist nationalism made Yaeyama Islands the liminal zone and the extent to which liminality defined Yaeyama people's migration to colonial Taiwan. Besides, this demonstrates that people of Japan and Okinawa were active agencies of the Japanese colonial empire, and their discourse and practices of nationalism were incorporated into the colonialism.