Silence of Victimhood: Violence and Counterviolence in Contemporary Okinawan Literature of Medoruma Shun and Sakiyama Tami

Abstract

This thesis examines the representation of violence, silence, and hope in postwar Okinawan literature through the works of Medoruma Shun and Sakiyama Tami. The study addresses the critical problem of Okinawa’s historical victimization, settler colonialism, and military occupation, which continue to shape its identity and intellectual discourse. While the Battle of Okinawa and ensuing U.S. military presence have rendered Okinawa a site of in-betweenness, local writers have sought to articulate alternative narratives that resist both Japanese nationalism and American militarism. Using a combination of historical contextualization, textual analysis, and theoretical frameworks drawn from postcolonial studies, critical theory, and psychoanalysis, this research investigates how Medoruma and Sakiyama employ distinct literary strategies to confront Okinawa’s unresolved traumas. Medoruma’s works, particularly Niji no Tori (2006), engage with the rhetoric of counterviolence, exploring the transformative power of pain infliction (itami-atae) as a means of resistance. Conversely, Sakiyama’s texts, including Tsukiya, Aran (2012) and Unjuga, Nasaki (2016), embrace linguistic opacity and cultural deterritorialization, utilizing the Okinawan language (uchinaaguchi) to destabilize the dominance of standard Japanese. This thesis concludes that both writers challenge the homogenization of Okinawan victimhood while proposing divergent responses to its colonial legacy—Medoruma through the allegory of violence and complicity, and Sakiyama through the preservation of linguistic and cultural alterity. By juxtaposing their works with theories of Édouard Glissant, Frantz Fanon, and Rachel Bespaloff, this study situates Okinawan literature within global postcolonial struggles, highlighting its positionality in imagining a decolonized future.