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Precis: " Between Empire and Nation: Settler Colonialism in Machukuo" (2012) by Pransenjit Duara

In “Between Empire and Nation: Settler Colornialism in Manchukuo” (2012), Pransenjit Duara examines the conditions faced by settler colonialism in the interwar years through the lens of Manchukuo, the Japanese puppet state in northeast China from 1932 to 1945. In order to do this, he explores how the imperialist formation, affected by transformations in both international and local circumstances of the interwar years, responded to the still deeper imperatives of global competitiveness underlying these changes. He employs the world-systems theory as a framework to read into the events and the developments of the settler communities of Manchuria, stating that it would bring to light the function of modern political forms in relation to the imperative of global competition in the dual logic of territory and capital (Arrighi). By navigating through a historical account of the development of Manchuria, to its settler communities, important civic and political groups, and the Pan-Asianist ideals that eventually led to imperialist goals, Duara makes a logical thread of the development of nationalism. In doing so, Duara suggests an examination through which Manchukuo reflected settler ideas and concerns, and the military power they depended upon, for the nation-state would inevitably remain as their frame of reference in understanding history.

(December 20, 2018)

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