A settler colonial city: Michael Thornton, ‘Toward a Japanese paradigm of settler-colonial urbanism?’ Urban History, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

A settler colonial city: Michael Thornton, ‘Toward a Japanese paradigm of settler-colonial urbanism?’ Urban History, 2024

08Jun24

Abstract: The city of Sapporo, founded in 1869 by the Japanese government as a colonial headquarters in Hokkaido, developed as part of a global wave of settler-colonial urbanism. Like counterparts in North America and Australia, Sapporo facilitated economic, environmental and political transformations across Hokkaido that led to the displacement of Indigenous Ainu society by a soon overwhelming number of ethnically Japanese settlers. However, several historical factors distinguish Sapporo’s settler-colonial urbanism from its peers, including the long history of relations between the Ainu and Japanese; the heavy role of the Japanese state in Sapporo; and the lack of mass relocations of the Ainu to reservations far from their traditional homes.

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