On the Western Edge: Comparisons of Japan and Australia (Network Books Symposia)

Australia and Japan are geographically on the western edge of the much talked-of ‘Pacific Rim’; psychologically they are often seen as occupying similar positions on the edge of Western cultures. Both have significant indigenous populations: Aborigines in Australia, and the Ainu of northern Japan, who have a history of sometimes savage oppression. Both countries have chosen, at various times in their histories, to claim or to accentuate their racial and cultural homogeneity. And both are seen—by themselves and by others—as having ambivalent desires to be colonial powers, and to be affiliated with the neo-colonial power of the United States.

Contributors to this important and theoretically innovative collection of essays explore issues of transnational concern from the geo-political positions of Australia and Japan, countries and cultures that seem to be located ‘on the Western edge’.