150126 VU Identity in East Asia (2024W)

Aims
Students will be able to identify key themes of East Asian states’ identity narratives and understand how these shape citizens’ view of themselves in relation to others and the world. Students will be able to see how identity and interests are mutually constituted so that understanding a state’s espoused identity can help us understand a state’s actions. By examining how East Asian state’s identities are contested, shift, and evolve students will see how states’ interests are redefined.

Students will develop an understanding of social ontology, an approach that views the world as consisting not of an objective, pre-existing reality but rather of ‘social facts’ created through human interaction and agreement (e.g., money, laws, nations, etc.). Students will gain an understanding of how these social facts are deeply embedded in language, symbols, and norms and see how a concept like identity is shaped by ongoing social processes rather than being static or objective. As such this course draws on ideas from a constructivist approach to international relations.

Content
This course involves an in-depth exploration of the concept of identity to gain a deeper understanding of how citizens in East Asian states make sense of the world. In focusing on ideas rather than purely material factors, this course will utilize a constructivist approach to explore how identities are constructed and re-constructed in the distinct historical, cultural, and political contexts of East Asia. By emphasizing how common understandings are created through social interaction we will examine how particular narratives become dominant within a society and how this legitimizes certain social orders and courses of action. We will also examine how national identity is formed both internally and through making distinctions with an ‘other’, the implications of identity change for relations with surrounding states, and the significance of gaining (or not) recognition from others.

After the theoretical introduction the course will examine how identity was (re-)constructed in East Asian states in the 20th century, particularly post-World War II. We will witness how socially constructed understandings of key historical events continue to shape perspectives today, and how relations between East Asian states are strongly influenced by each state’s espoused identity. Throughout, students will be asked to also consider the ethical dimension of identity politics.

The course will facilitate an engagement with questions such as the following. How does North Korea claim to have more legitimacy than the South? Why are Mitsubishi and UNESCO such thorny issues in recent South Korea Japan relations? In what ways was Japan a victim of WWII? Does Japan tend to look east towards the Pacific or west towards the continent? What did the Chinese nuclear weapons programme and the North Korean nuclear weapons programme have in common? Why is non-interference in domestic affairs so important to China? Why are the people on South Korean banknotes from hundreds of years ago?

Methods
Classes will involve lectures followed by Q & A and then at least 30 minutes of class discussion regarding assigned readings and/or discussion questions assigned prior to the class. Each week, two students will act as designated discussants to start discussion. Active participation from all students in discussions is encouraged and expected.