Transcultural nostalgia for the colonial past: intersecting memories among Okinawans and the Northern Mariana Islanders

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study examines how different cultural groups forge a shared longing for the past, or transcultural nostalgia. The article suggests that each group’s past and present political-economic conditions are key contributors to transcultural nostalgia. Furthermore, it suggests that travel between spaces is a key means of transcultural remembering. It historically and ethnographically examines the transcultural nostalgia among Okinawans who had migrated to the Northern Mariana Islands under the Japanese rule and repatriated after WWII and the indigenous islanders who had grown up as Japanese colonial subjects, as well as the repatriates’ post-war ‘spirit-consoling’ pilgrimages to the Marianas.