A Spectacle of Authority on the Streets: Police Uniforms in Imperial Japan and Colonial Korea

Abstract

Nomura’s essay on police uniforms in Japan and Korea in the early twentieth century touches on many issues, such as the impact of Sinocentric ideology on changes in government uniform, European precedents of the modern security system of the police, the utilization of the police for panopticism in Michel Foucault’s terms, and the application of the Japanese police system to its colonized countries such as Korea. The reformed uniforms for government officials were related to the introduction of police uniforms. Yet citizens’ perception of police uniforms had more to do with suppression, forceful authority, and tight regulations. In fact, police uniforms presented a fearful symbol of the administrative power of the government rather than a friendly reminder of public service and guidance. In the minds of colonized people in Korea, the Westernized police uniform was one of the most acute symbols of the new era of humiliation and militarism. By examining patrolling police officers in their shiny, yet foreign dress, Nomura summarizes the minute chronology and ideological principles surrounding the modernization of police uniforms. This is one of the rare studies on how colonial authority was managed and permeated through the lives of colonized people.