Constructing Automobility in Japan: A Transwar Perspective

The automobile ranks as the iconic artifact of the twentieth century and Japan stands as an iconic manufacturer of that artifact.  Yet, while the history of the Japanese automotive industry has been well documented and much debated, the social history of the automobile in Japan remains largely ignored.  While a wealth of literature considers the way in which the automobile refracted and shaped concepts of individual subjectivity, gender, citizenship, safety and liability in North America and Europe, the multivalent role of the car in twentieth-century Japan remains to be explored.

Taking the interwar period as its starting point and concluding with the inception of mass motorization in the early-60s, this paper traces the construction and contestation of automobility in Japan across the divide of the Second World War.  First introduced as the plaything of the wealthy, the automobile provided one focal point for debates about the socio-economic implications of technological advancement as it joined urban transit systems in the 1920s and 30s.  Automotive journals, with titles such as “Speed” and “Motor,” attempted to facilitate the integration of automobiles into Japanese life and in doing so, constructed automobility in ways that were intended to bridge the technological modernity of the “West” and the socio-economic realities of Japan.  By tracing these journals from the interwar period through to their postwar reincarnations, this paper argues that the act of driving, with its attendant infrastructure and social activities, provided an important means for Japanese to map their socio-economic position domestically and their membership in a global modernity.