Colonial Surveillance

Midori Ogasawara is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria.

"This book does not simply build upon but innovates a way of thinking about identification and surveillance systems demonstrably at the bedrock of modern society. An absolutely original contribution to the study of Japan and its empire." -Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, University of Colorado Boulder"Identification practices were crucial to Japanese imperial domination and persist in varying forms to the present day-Midori Ogasawara's study of Japan's systems of identification and surveillance provides a major contribution to our understanding of this history." -John Torpey, Graduate Center, City University of New York"A gripping and poignant historical sociology of Japanese surveillance practices, domestically and, particularly, in colonial incursions in Chinese 'Manchukuo.' Midori Ogasawara breaks new ground in combining intriguing ethnographical fieldwork with thoughtful modifications of surveillance theories to grasp both the stark realities of identification and state scrutiny and their differential impact on families and individuals in Japan and China. Readers are drawn right into the exacting research experience, deepened further by the striking photographs." -David Lyon, author of The Culture of Surveillance: Watching as a Way of Life