Unraveling the Okinawa-Davao Imaginary: Okinawa's Colonial Ambivalence in Sakiyama Asao's "Davao Pilgrimage"

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration of the 1997 novella, "Davao Pilgrimage," read within and against the circulating discourse regarding the Davao and Okinawa relationship being imagined in Okinawa during the late 1990's. I examine the story focusing on the textual clues through which the narrative represents Okinawa's position of being both the colonizer (in respect to the Philippines) and the colonized (in respect to Japan). I contend that in "Davao Pilgrimage," Okinawa's position as colonizer is constituted by issues surrounding the categories of race and gender conditioned by the inequalities of global capitalism. At the same time, the narrative is informed by Okinawa's past, as Okinawa's dominant position of colonizer in the story is enabled by Okinawa's colonial history with Japan. Ultimately, I argue that "Davao Pilgrimage" is expressive of Okinawa's colonial ambivalence, particularly its complicity in Japan's colonialism in the Philippines in addition to Okinawa's own colonial relationship with Japan. Considered against the Okinawa-Davao imaginary that I will describe, I want to use this reading of "Davao Pilgrimage" to reconfigure and reveal a more troubling understanding of this relationship in hopes of elucidating Okinawa's ambiguous coloniality in Asia.