Case Studies on Aboriginal Writings by Japanese Police in Colonial Taiwan

This thesis investigates the colonial and aboriginal administration policy in colonial Taiwan, and hence discusses the representation of Taiwan aborigines and related issues in the writings of Japanese police. Focusing on the writings of Japanese policemen and the context of their act of writing, this thesis will use six different influential and unique case studies as examples, including Sakura (佐倉), Inokuchi (猪口), Senoo (瀨野尾), Fujisaki (藤崎), Yokoo (橫尾) and Nakamura (中村). By examining their work, life and writing experience during their involvement in police force in colonial Taiwan, I shall discuss the complexity of their personal role as “human”, “Japanese”, “Japanese police” and “Japanese police in colonial Taiwan”, and their struggle of biological and psychological impacts in the context of spatial movement, cultural shuttling between national prestige and values, and the shift in nation, colonization and aboriginal policy. It is as well an important step towards constructing the historical development of Japanese writings in colonial period.

In fact, during colonial period, Japanese policemen living in aboriginal boundary were observing the closest life of Taiwan aborigines and thus, through their writings on the representations of aboriginal cultures, I shall discover that their writings either on own interest or as work requirement, including works on Chinese poetry (Han-shi), the construction of aboriginal policy, reflections on policy and reports on South seas region in wartime, these cases tend to unfold the interaction of Taiwanese aborigines, Chinese and Japanese police in the eyes of the basic level of the colonial government. By inquiring the writing practices in the context of historical change, national policy and cultural difference, on the one hand they were observing the “Others”, yet on the other hand they were adopting a shifting of gaze both geographically and culturally, of which it helps to build their own values and self-actualization in the colonial land as well as to respond to the greater change in imagining “nation” , these writings tend to display the complexity and agency of the roles of Japanese police in colonial Taiwan.