Reconsidering Orientalism/Occidentalism: representations of a Japanese martial art in Melbourne

© 2013 Dr. Mayuko MaekawaMy research analysed a small Melbourne community of non-Japanese practitioners of a Japanese martial art (kendō), and I focused on their understanding of their practice, of their community, and of Japan and Japanese culture. In particular, I focused on the way non-Japanese practitioners represent a practice of the Other and the way they interact with that otherness. More specifically, three key points are suggested in my research. (1) While Orientalist stereotypes locate the Other from the spectator’s objective perspective, I would suggest the way Melbourne kendō practitioners interact with the Other is through a process of creating ‘familiarity’; locating oneself within surrounding differences and building subjective involvement into a practice of the Other. Such subjective involvement is further emphasised by their preference towards ‘something new’ and ‘something different’. By selecting kendō as a thing to ‘add’ to their everyday life, they structure this everyday life by appropriating a new phenomenon as an activity to make their life enjoyable. (2) Through participating in this practice of the Other, Melbourne practitioners recognise kendō as a form for ‘expressing the self’, ‘developing the self’, and ‘challenging the self’. Kendō practice provides them a space to explore a different self which is somehow restricted in daily life. In contrast to Orientalist representations which seek ‘authentic otherness’, Melbourne practitioners are interested in self cultivation in which they seek a sense of the authentic moment of expressing their being ‘here and now’ through finding alternative belongingness in the kendō community. (3) The practitioners’ subjective involvement is further complicated by their recognition of themselves. The narratives of some practitioners show the way they interact with the Japanese Other by building the eyes to see themselves from the perspective of the Japanese Other, and thus they have a ‘two-way’ interaction in which their identities as kendō practitioners are constantly challenged, reflecting their foreign position among a minority of Japanese practitioners. In other words, their identities as kendō practitioners traverse the borderline between the Self and the Other