Managing "strangers" and "undecidables": population registration in Meiji Japan

During the formative years of the Japanese nation and empire, the use of the koseki as the bureaucratic mechanism of organization not only affect the lives of those in Japan but also many throughout north-east Asia, producing millions of 'undecidables' and 'strangers'. All societies produce strangers; but each kind of society produces its own kind of strangers, and produces them in its own inimitable way. According to Chen the Japanese government's ultimate goal was the 'legal and administrative integration of the empire'. After this, the Meiji government introduced various legal reforms through to the 1890s and a new constitution and parliament became effective in 1890. Japan's colonization of the Korean peninsula, Taiwan and the creation of the puppet-state of Manchukuo each brought different challenges to population governance. The family registration system was a tried and recognized domestic process of identification and documentation that would provide an efficient way of demarcating sovereign boundaries and demographically defining the population