Epistemic (Dis)Obedience: ‘Japanese’ Theory, Structural Inequality, and Kokusai Nihongaku

Abstract A global system of knowledge is marked by structural inequality. While ‘the West’ continues to be a privileged location of theory-building practices, ‘Japan’ does not. In this context, the question of ‘Japanese’ theoretical models and concepts invokes two intertwined questions: how to transcend specifically ‘Japanese’ experiences into general theoretical imperatives and how to retain a sense of ‘Japanese-ness’ in theory-building practices vis-à-vis ‘the West’. Researchers of kokusai nihongaku (international/global Japanese studies) have proposed what they call ‘metascience’ to address these questions, which in practice encompasses the reconsideration of categories such as ‘Japan’ and ‘Japanese’ and the reconstruction of the relationship between Japan’s self-knowledge and knowledge of Japan produced elsewhere, particularly in ‘the West’. By locating metascience within the history of nihongaku , a mode of self-knowledge production in Japan, this article highlights the efforts of kokusai nihongaku researchers to develop a ‘Japanese’ theory and simultaneously to challenge the structural inequality in a global system of knowledge. However, the article argues that kokusai nihongaku remains trapped in the pitfall of methodological nationalism, rehearsing the familiar conceptual matrix of the self, ‘Japan’, and the nation-state. Instances of epistemic disobedience that kokusai nihongaku seeks to forge through its metascience become instances of epistemic obedience. Following Morris-Suzuki’s notion of ‘liquid area’, the article suggests the need to liquify the locus of the researcher by dismantling this conceptual matrix.