Tokyo Ainu: The Dawn of a New Indigenous Political Geography in Japan?
Historically, Ainu policy measures in Japan have always been limited to Hokkaido. However, in the Japanese government’s recognition of the Ainu people as indigenous to northern Japan and its environs in 2008, the decision was made to include Ainu living outside of Hokkaido in negotiations over a national Ainu policy. In this paper, I survey the role played by the Ainu political movement in Tokyo in a forty years campaign aimed at equalizing the rights for Ainu irrespective of location and discuss the politics of the government’s new position.