Peter MÜHLEDER (University of Vienna)
“Undōkai : a Cultural Performance between Nation, Community and Individual”

Schooling is considered a major part of childhood socialisation as a means to generate responsible members of society. This is true for Japan maybe more so than for other countries. Socialisation in Japanese schools happens through moral education, teacher guidance and extra-curricular activities. The latter can be seen as an amalgamation of both former aspects. Perhaps the most intriguing of these extra-curricular activities is the Sports Day (undōkai) with it’s heavily emphasis on bodily practice. It was introduced in Japanese schools shortly after the Meiji Restoration and played a mediating role between national ‘modern’ life and rural ‘traditional’ life: On the one hand, it was instrumentalised by the Japanese nation state, in order to regulate the citizens’ body, while on the other hand its ludic elements allowed the Sports Day to escape the government’s intended functions and was interpreted and performed by local communities as a festival (matsuri).

This ambiguity can still be experienced within school Sports Days today, but since the recent wave of educational reforms, initiated by Prime Minister Nakasone in the 1980s, with their focus on ‘healthy nationalism’, liberalisation, individuality as well as the policy of revitalising rural communities and emphasising local differences, it is time to reconsider our traditional conceptions of ‘nationalism’ and ‘localism.’ I will discuss undōkai in the light of these new discourses and will show, based on my own ethnographic material and other anthropological works, how these discourses were staged within the frame of Japanese schools, and how the Sports Day may play a role in socialising Japanese children with the changing meanings of concepts of ‘individuality’, ‘community’, and ‘nationality.’



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