Dis-Spacing Yasukuni Shrine: Karatani Kōjin and the Parallax Gap of Spatial Difference

Abstract

The Japanese philosopher and literary critic, Karatani Kōjin, offered a new approach to understanding world history with his 2010 book Sekaishi no Kōzō (The Structure of World History: From Modes of Production to Modes of Exchange). In this text he outlines how economic activity can historically be thought of through three forms of exchange: the nation, the state and capital. Within this fundamental shift in reorganizing the past is an invitation to also think about the relation of politics and space. Arguably each mode of exchange also produces particular types of spaces within a capitalist landscape and points to the problem of producing a politics that neglects the relation between capitalism and space. Thus, the aim of this paper is to situate Karatani’s philosophy of history into a concrete historical space to explore how the social form of Capital-Nation-State operates on an everyday level. To this end, I suggest that Yasukuni Jinja, the Tokyo shrine dedicated to commemorating Japan’s war dead, be thought of as a space that facilitates these three forms of exchange through the nexus of Empire-Ritual-Emperor. By examining everyday life on the shrine grounds, it is possible to observe acts of reciprocity (Nation), plunder and redistribution (State), as well as commodity exchange (Capital) and thus it can help illuminate how these three forms of exchange became fused together.