Keywords

During a series of online meetings for a co-authored paper in early 2022, Professor Jin Sato (Jin sensei) shared his idea for an edited volume on ‘untranslatable’ Japanese specialised terms in the field of development cooperation. His idea was prompted by the book Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World (Sanders 2016). We1 were fascinated by Jin sensei’s idea since, to our knowledge, no such previous study existed in Japanese development studies.2 With suggestions from his postgraduate students, Jin sensei and I began to list some of the (domestically) well-known Japanese terms considered to be ‘untranslatable’. The entries in this edited volume were initially selected for their ‘untranslatability’. Yet, as our work progressed, the notion of ‘untranslatability’ became not only redundant but also problematic. Most of them were found not strictly ‘untranslatable’ but ‘untranslated’ since they were meant for ‘internal use only’ (thus, not for the non-Japanese audience). Although the ‘untranslatablity’ issue is shared by all languages, a particularly ‘Orientalist’ view was found in the case of Japanese development lexicon, highlighting the supposed uniqueness. Indeed, considering the historical popularity, usage and utility of development lexicon, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to them in Japanese, let alone in English. As scholars, we all struggled due to this, and the lack of clear official definitions.3 And, as our work progressed, our efforts to study some words that entered the Japanese development lexicon and the related ideas behind them, were complicated in three ways.

Firstly, we found certain assumptions at the heart of many of the Japanese terms  including yōsei-shugi (the request-based principle), ōnā shippu (ownership), genba-shugi (the hands-on approach). During the conversations and interviews (Interviews 2022a, b, c, d; Personal Communication 2022), practitioners and researchers questioned the point of our enquiry—as they believe these terms already possess consistent and well-established meanings.4 In contrast to their attestation, most of them were not able to fully verbalise such ‘common knowledge’ about the terms. Secondly, we became increasingly aware that those assumptions—particularly, in the absence of clear official definitions—reduce the complex semantics of those terms that change over time and space to one-dimensional and simplistic ones. As cases of kaihatsu-yunyu (the development-import scheme), sanmi-ittai (the trinity) highlight, the complexity and diversity of semantic changes were key to better understand respective Japanese and Chinese actors’ vested interests, motivations, and priorities in their usage and adaptation/localisation. Thirdly, we consider the above two traits to be problematic because they not only cause us to overlook complex and ‘under-explored’ semantics of those words but also because some of them have become ‘buzzwords’ (Cornwall and Brock 2005; Cornwall 2007), which perpetuates simplistic assumptions to promote Japan’s ‘unique’ development experience. For instance, they are used to refer obliquely to Japan’s ‘successful’ modernisation and industrialisation experience in its development cooperation policy initiatives (Kim et al. 2023; Matsumoto 2023; Oyama 2024).

As such, it becomes clearer that the significance of exploring the lexicon of Japanese development is not entirely limited to their ‘novelty’—i.e. addressing the knowledge gap through in-depth analyses of locally specific phenomena in Japan as well as its connections with the world. More importantly, we realised that this project may be able to expand thinking via Japan as method (Craig et al. 2017; see also Chen 2010; Mizoguchi 1989; Takeuchi 1978) towards a more decentred and pluriversal approaches to knowledge production in development studies. In order to highlight this broader contribution, we do two things. First, we synthesise findings from each chapter through dimensions of time and space in which the selected Japanese terms were constructed, popularised or spread. In doing so, we demonstrate how intricately the semantics of terms change through the latter's connection with many other—temporally and spatially different—worlds and their experiences, which in turn highlights the risk of boasting Japan’s uniqueness in development knowledge production. Second, we then consider Japan as method to take the discussion further. Our intention here is to demonstrate how and what development and related activities mean in different contexts (van Wessel and Kontinen 2023, p. 20) through a pluriversal approach, using Japan as method. It seeks to contribute to efforts towards decentring and toward pluriversal approaches to knowledge production in development studies by exploring little-studied Japanese development lexicon.

1 Exploring the Semantics of Development Through Time and Space

In order to better synthesise findings from each chapter by moving beyond the ‘untranslatability’ angle, we take a contextual approach to explore intricate semantics of development through ‘time and space’ by capturing such changes (both diversity and complexity) in different times and spaces most fruitfully.

1.1 A Contextual Approach to Changing Semantics

Time

Most of the terms in this volume highlighted both the ‘natural’ progress of semantic change throughout their life course and inevitable adapting and localising through time. Also, the time dimension accentuates the significant impact of domestic and international political economy. As we consider such complexity and diversity of semantic changes through time, three types of semantic changes are most notable. The first type concerns ‘philosophicalisation’. Some of those terms—initially vague or unclear in their meanings—have evolved over time to rationalise Japan's differentiated ‘aid philosophy’. A prime example is the request-based principle (yōsei-shugi). The request-based principle began to circulate in 1986 in order to clarify Japan’s aid delivery method  responding to criticism from the OECD-DAC. Initially, it referred to a technical procedure during project formulation, which then gradually evolved into a guiding principle or philosophy of Japan's aid. Similarly, jijo doryoku and ōnā shippu also fall into this category. The former has been promoted as a distinct philosophy within Japan's aid policies despite not being unique to Japan. The latter was integrated into Japan's aid philosophy as in the first ODA Charter approved in 1992 and was introduced as a pivotal approach of the Japanese aid policy at the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 1993 (see ōnā shippu).

The second category concerns the rise and fall of their strategic utility. For instance, despite their importance as Japan’s aid methods, kaihatsu-yunyu, sanmi-ittai and yen loans, have not been widely publicised due to external criticisms towards Japan's mercantilist aid practices in the 1970s and 1980s. However, changes in the international development landscape (including the emergence of the Aid for Trade agenda and the rise of China’s South-South Cooperation in the 2000s) have led Western countries to reevaluate and even adopt the ideas and practices they once criticised (Mawdsley 2018). For other terms like kokusai-kōken, their strategic utility peaked in the early 1990s along with Japan’s top donorship. Yet, prolonged recessions since the burst of ‘bubble’ economy in the mid-1990s led to a decline in public enthusiasm for foreign aid and eventually a decrease in discussions promoting kokusai-kōken.

The third type consists of terms for which semantics evolved over time through the accumulation of practical application and intellectual reflection. For example, kaizen was significantly influenced by the American industrial engineering and the International Labour Organisation's Declaration of Philadelphia. Born out of these external stimuli, kaizen evolved over time to become associated with historical practices of labour-management relations at large Japanese companies, and which later gained international recognition. Another example is  naihatsuteki-hatten (endogenous development), for which roots can be traced back to a reaction by some critical Japanese scholars against Western modernisation theories of development. Naihatsuteki-hatten has influenced various forms of international development practice—particularly, with the contribution of scholars like Kazuko Tsurumi over time.

Space

With the space dimension, determinants of semantic changes are found at two levels. The first is at the international level, for example, contrasting reception of some Japanese terms between the Global North and the South due to the structural inequality/unevenness in the global political economy. The second is at the national level (within Japan) where different perceptions are formed and circulated by the ‘producers’ and ‘users’ of terms across sectors and society. As various spatial elements intersect, they have been reshaping what are seen as ‘good’ methods and principles for Japan's development cooperation. Key traits of sematic changes through space can be broadly summarised into the following two groups.

The first category encompasses terms of foreign origin. Illustrative instances include the terms ōnā shippu and sanmi-ittai. The former constitutes a loanword derived from its pronunciation in katakana script, while the latter represents a Chinese rendition crafted by an Italian missionary. In contemporary usage, they serve as translations for ‘ownership’ and ‘the Trinity’, respectively. Nevertheless, it is imperative to underscore that these translations carry distinct nuances and meanings compared to their English counterparts. The phenomenon of such translational disparities has been extensively examined in scholarly literature (Yuk 2016, Wang 2020), highlighting the multifaceted asymmetries inherent in linguistic expressions across different cultural and geographical contexts.

The second category includes terms for which meanings are place (or field)-dependent or place-specific. For instance, genba-shugi represents a development principle in Japan that emphasises locally driven practical methods when discussing Japanese overseas business activities and technical assistance projects in developing countries. However, in the context of organisational reforms at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Tokyo during the 2000s, genba-shugi advocates the significance of on-site strategies in Official Development Assistance (ODA), promoting an approach that seeks to shift control away from other branches of the central government bureaucracy. Doboku, in the field of construction (including infrastructure) in Japan, has become mainly associated with ‘negative’ features of ‘physical labour’—i.e. crude, dirty, muddy and sweaty. Yet, in the field of development cooperation, such images of doboku have become an essential component of Japanese-styled aid works that accentuate hard works in mud together with the local communities in developing countries. Another example is the trinity, which was designed to rectify trade imbalance with developing countries by strengthening the nexus between aid, investment and imports in the field of Japan’s development cooperation. However, when adopted by China, the Trinity came to justify mutually beneficial cooperation in which Beijing secures the supply of resources while actively pursuing investment and trade for Chinese goods to open up markets.

The characteristic of the third group pertains to changes (expansions or contractions) in the geographical scope implied in some terms. For example, the geographical scope of Asianism shifted from that of imperial Pan-Asianism (e.g. Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere) to a principle of the ‘heart-to-heart’ diplomacy with Southeast Asian countries in the face of mounting anti-Japanese sentiments. Nevertheless, there is a concern that these alterations in  the term’s geographical scope  are intended to depoliticise it and conceal contentious ideas.

In summary, our analysis through time and space provides insights into the complexity and diversity of semantic changes that reflect the changing needs of times and places. This complexity and diversity highlight how risky a simplistic representation of uniqueness is in the development knowledge production.

2 Beyond the ‘Myth’ of Uniqueness: Development Knowledge Production in the Increasingly Polycentric Global Development Landscape

Intensifying aid competition and geopolitical tensions indeed pose a great challenge to the efforts for expanding pathways towards pluriversal knowledge production in Japanese international development studies (IDS). Two particular challenges are noteworthy. One is the Japanese government’s growing efforts to promote the ‘uniqueness’ of the country’s development experience and knowledge, partially in response to mounting geopolitical tensions and aid competition (Kim et al. 2023). JICA’s Development Studies Program is a prime example of such an initiative that provides lectures and training courses to personnel from partner countries to learn about Japan's modernisation and industrialisation experiences beginning with the Meiji restoration in the late nineteenth century (see below). The other is how such ‘uniqueness’ is fully expected by non-Japanese audiences, who come to such training sessions, and day-to-day interactions, with preconceptions forged in a world of discrete nations and myths. However, none of the chapters claim their findings to be ‘uniquely Japanese’. In contrast, rather than focusing on ‘novelty value’, our findings underscoring how selected Japanese development lexemes are products of a broad range of international connections and exchanges.

Hence, in order to address these ‘forces’ that continue to paint the Japanese development experience and knowledge as ‘unique,’ we situate such a ‘myth’ of uniqueness (see Dale 1988) within recent debates on decolonial/postcolonial and pluriversal knowledge in Anglophone development studies (hereafter ADS, see Kim 2023). Instead of covering the wide range of decolonial/postcolonial and pluriversal debates in ADS, we focus on two particular debates that are essential in our endeavour to move beyond the myth of uniqueness. First is the relative absence of decolonial debates in Japanese IDS, in reference to Japan’s self-positionality. Second is how such self-positioning in turn allows the (re-)production of the uniqueness myth.

2.1 ‘Japan, the Ambiguous’ and a Relative Absence of Decolonial Debates in Japanese IDS

I am a white British-Australian academic, who has always learned and worked in ‘privileged’ institutions. Cambridge University, my current professional home, is intimately intertwined with, and still benefits from the profits of, enslavement, colonialism and ongoing structural injustices in national and international academia. As a Geographer and one who specialises in ‘development’, I am caught up in disciplinary lineages and legacies fraught with complicity in colonial and post-colonial power structures. I do not believe I can fully decolonise my thinking, practices or being. But I can commit to the journey of listening and changing while trying to stay attentive to the dangers of complacency and tokenistic virtue-signalling (Mawdsley 2024, p. 205).

The above personal statement by Emma Mawdsley in her recent publication clearly epitomises the significant increase in efforts towards decolonial/postcolonial and pluriversal knowledge production in ADS in recent years (see Melber et al. 2024; Sumner 2022). This trend has been the result of scholarship since the 1990s that pushed for the decentring of ‘Western-centric’ knowledge production from both epistemic and ethical positions (Orbie 2021; McEwan 2019; Escobar 1995; Sachs 1992). Drawing upon anti- or decolonial, post-developmentalist and pluriverse thinking, critical debates in ADS engage with the power of development ideas, knowledge and institutions as well as their consequences—i.e. ever-growing inequality and poverty in the global South (Melber et al. 2024; McEwan 2019). More importantly, those debates challenge colonial legacies and ‘hegemonising, unidirectional, western-centricism of modernity’ that dominate the processes of global development (Demaria et al. 2023, p. 62) and related knowledge production (Escobar 2020). Thus, those debates accentuate the importance of the ‘pluriversality’ of knowledges by shifting reference point from the West (and its ‘universal knowledge’ in the singular, see Mignolo 2014) to the Global South, ‘Global East’ (Müller 2020) or Asia (Chen 2010) as method to transform knowledge production. And, some calls for ‘(re)centr[ing] the global South [by using] … global South experiences, theories and lenses …to understand capitalist development globally, foregrounding historical and contemporary hierarchies’ (Wiegratz et al. 2023, p. 25). Such scholarly efforts have gained further traction in ADS with the growing contributions from activists, researchers and practitioners with African, South Asian, Middle Eastern or Latin American origins (see DSA 2023; EADI 2022; Patel and Shehabi 2022; LIDC 2020; Pailey 2019; Reiter 2018).

As decoloniality ‘can only be achieved with the acknowledgement of historical wrongdoings and with the recognition of the ongoing coloniality of knowledge’ (Biekart et al. 2024, p. 9), emergent de-/postcolonial and pluriversal approaches and thinking within ADS naturally led to a call for more theorising about and with these societies in their own right (see also Kothari et al. 2019) and more critical research and pedagogical efforts to break from the colonial foundation (Brissett 2020; Cummings et al. 2021; Langdon 2013; McEwan 2019; White 2002). These efforts endeavour to challenge how mainstream development persists dichotomies of ‘developed North’ and ‘developing/underdeveloped South’ that reinforce ‘identifications, classifications, and categorisations of people and places using racialised, gendered, pseudo-cultural, and ethnic binaries’ (Biekart et al. 2024, p. 4). Such critical works accentuate how those binaries are ‘not only reductive but also lack any reflection on how and why the world came to be understood as divided in this way in the first place’ (Narayanaswamy 2024, p. 227). As the global development landscape has become increasingly polycentric—particularly through the rise of powerful South-South Cooperation (SSC) partners like China and India, such critical efforts are extended to interrogate the blurring of the very dichotomies (Sud and Sánchez-Ancochea 2022; Mawdsley 2017) and the complex, fluid and ambivalent positions of SSC partners vis-à-vis ‘the Rest’ (Haug et al. 2021; Mohan 2021; Waisbich et al. 2021).

In the midst of the aforementioned ‘decolonial momentum’ in ADS (and beyond) that seeks to better understand an increasingly polycentric development landscape (Kothari et al. 2019), Japanese IDS has been rather slow and ‘passive’ on this academic endeavour toward decolonial and pluriversal thinking (see Young 2005). Along with very few published works in ADS drawing explicitly on decolonial and pluriversal thinking in and on Japan (see Kim 2023; Masaki and Aizawa 2021), the aforementioned ‘decolonial momentum’ has received very little attention in Japanese IDS. Such ‘silence’ is rather selective as most fads in ADS have been introduced to Japan under the banner of ‘advanced’ or ‘transformational’ ideas. In the relative absence of decolonial and pluriverse debates concerning Japan’s development cooperation and related knowledge production, this silence on decolonial and pluriversal debates in itself is noteworthy for two reasons. The first case is the plethora of works devoted to critiquing Japan’s economic/development cooperation for its neo-colonial economic dominance in neighbouring Asia (Shimomura, 2018, p. 362, see also Iwaki 1985; Tsurumi 1974; Yano 1978) and the asymmetrical power structure in Japan’s development cooperation relationships with the Global South (Sumi 2004, 1990, 1990; Fujibayashi and Nagase 2002; Fuke and Fujibayashi 1999; Murai 1992; Nagai, 1983). The second reason is based on concrete evidence of decentring efforts among some Japanese policymakers and researchers between the late 1980s and the 1990s through East and Southeast Asia as method. In particular, Professor Yasutami Shimomura—a former Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund5 official who authored the OECF Occasional Paper (OECF 1991) that prompted a series of discussions and events leading up to the production of the East Asian Miracle report—reflected that those few Japanese researchers and policymakers’ efforts then could be considered as their attempts to promote pluriversal knowledges and understanding of development (Interview 2023).6 Their efforts were particularly evident during the preparation, production and aftermath of the World Bank’s 1993 East Asian Miracle report that questioned the ‘normalcy’ of neoliberal reformist ideas (i.e. the structural adjustment programmes by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund) as the ‘universal knowledge’ in the singular in international development (see Shimomura 2022, esp. Chapter 8, for details; Interview 2023).7 Yet, unfortunately, these two strands of research have been rarely explored in terms of decolonial and pluriversal thinking—i.e. whether Japan’s relationship with the Global South and related processes of knowledge production perpetuate and reproduce colonial power relations, hence obstructing possibilities for pluriversal knowledge making.

We are keenly aware of the ‘ambivalence’ in Japan’s self-positionality as both aggressor/coloniser and (nuclear) victim (Asada 1998)—and, even a sentiment of being ‘colonised’ under the US occupation (see Fujiwara and Nagano 2011; Grave 2004)—that in turn has an impact on possibilities of decoloniality and pluriverse debates.8 This particular self-positioning was enhanced by the fact that the post-war IDS-related knowledge production deliberately muted the legacy of the pre-war and war-time ‘colonial policy studies’9 to address anti-Japanese sentiments in neighbouring Asia (Kim et al. 2023). This selective mutism was also a strategic effort to pave the way for Japan’s (more welcomed) post-war re-entry into international society (Interview, 2022e). Further, the Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Kenzaburo Oe elucidated Japan’s ‘split’ positionality as both the first non-Western country that achieved successful modernisation by imitating the West and a country ‘situated in Asia and has firmly maintained its traditional culture’ (Oe 1995, p. 6). The particular preoccupation with the West–East and developed–developing binaries is evident in the remarks by one of the former presidents of the Japan Society for International Development (JASID). He emphasised, while ‘for Westerners’ development is intended for Others, ‘for Easterners, development is more about ourselves’ (Sato, 2014). This remark accentuates development as the critical task for both Easterners’ and Southern partners to catch up with Western advanced economies through mutual help (Kim et al. 2023, p. 277). Such ambiguous positionality indeed complicates possible efforts towards decolonial and pluriveral knowledge making as it not only is founded upon but also reinforces dichotomies of the ‘developed North’ and ‘developing/underdeveloped South’.

Hence, in order to critically reflect upon the politics and processes of its own knowledge production—and more importantly its positionality, Japanese IDS needs to build decolonial/postcolonial efforts that are sensitive to ‘the relationship between power, authority, positionality and knowledge… [and alert] to the different kinds of knowledge and spatialities produced by different actors, and the ways in which some of these become dominant while others are marginalized or abandoned’ (McEwan 2019, p. 259). This conclusion aims to serve as one of the first steps towards such efforts for decolonial and pluriversal possibilities in Japanese IDS by exploring the uniqueness myth in development knowledge sharing. We do this by problematising the conflation of decentring and pluriversal knowledge production with diversification—i.e. shifting reference point away from the West by stressing its ‘uniqueness’ differentiated from Western donors (Kim 2023).

2.2 A Decolonial Approach to the Uniqueness Myth

In order to understand the uniqueness myth, it is important to situate processes of related knowledge production in the ‘Eastern’ donor Japan within the postcolonial debates on SSC partners that often differentiate their approaches and practices from those of Western donors. In order to address the different ideas, histories and positionalities of SSC partners and their impacts on development cooperation, two strands of critical research emerged. The first group aims to challenge the ‘biased’ views of these partners, which essentially amounts to Western-centricism—for example, in relation to ‘rogue aid’ (Naím 2007). Such a view was largely drawn from the assessment of ‘what SSC is essentially not’ (thus, focusing on deviances or ‘otherness’) against the criteria of Official Development Assistance (ODA)—that consists of narrowly defined norms and principles for DAC members—hence, SSC partners are not subject to compliance (Davies, 2008; Paulo and Reisen 2010). Those critical scholars also pursued rigorous empirical research to see material effects of SSC on the ground (Dreher and Fuchs 2015; China Africa Research Initiative 2016; Dreher et al. 2018; SAIS-CARI 2022). These studies not only debunked the misleading commentaries but also highlighted how SSC partners share similar challenges in their development projects with traditional donors (Carey 2011; Kragelund, 2015) including negative political, economic, social and ecological impacts on developing countries (Kenney-Lazar 2019; Lu and Oliver 2019; Mawdsley 2019; Mostafanezhad et al. 2022; Waisbich 2020).

The second strand of research explores the significance and impacts of ‘postcolonial donors’ in the existing paradigm of development cooperation and their positionality and relationship with fellow Southern countries. Initially, research in this group made particular efforts towards decentring and pluriversal approaches by expanding conceptual and theoretical frameworks to better fit ‘postcolonial donors’ (Bräutigam 2011; Mawdsley 2012; Mohan et al. 2014; Six 2009; Tan-Mullin et al. 2010). These approaches then extended to critical engagement with positions of SSC partners vis-à-vis ‘the Rest’ that are not only complex and fluid but also ambivalent (Haug et al. 2021; Mohan 2021; Waisbich et al. 2021). For example, in contrast to the official rhetoric championing horizontality, solidarity and shared interests with fellow Southern countries, critical researchers find how powerful SSC partners like China and India in reality ‘seek to follow (and even, to some extent, emulate) the status-seeking practices of the incumbent powers’ (Cooper 2021, 1956). More recent research further highlights rifts between the rhetoric and actual practices of some powerful SSC partners that contradict their own principles of respecting the sovereign autonomy and integrity of all nations and the equality of all races and nations (Kim 2023). Indeed, those SSC partners, whilst adopting co-opted decolonial thinking, ideas and arguments, simultaneously perpetuated unequal power structures built upon the forces of prejudice, hate and extreme nationalism (for example, Hindutva in India, Chacko 2023; Mawdsley 2023). In their actions, critically observed, they have even shown ‘hostility’ to many examples of decolonial and pluriversal ways of being and knowing (Mawdsley 2024, p. 212).

Among those debates concerning SSC partners, the most critical point for our discussion here is the way in which those powerful SSC partners reject the Western development knowledge as ‘a product of hierarchical, imagined or technocratic constructs’ (Cheng 2019, p. 94). In doing so, they often emphasise the uniqueness of their development knowledge that is presented as better than Western knowledge. This particular ‘alternative “world theorizing”’ (Cheng 2019, p. 94) is seemingly influenced by an ‘anti-Western’ subjectivity that is formed through the propaganda and politics of the Cold War era, nationalism and anti-imperialism or anti-US sentiments (Chen 2010). Yet, by focusing on their difference or uniqueness from the West, those SSC partners not only perpetuate but also affirms the hierarchical and unequal structure that they are criticising (Kang 2023; Wallerstein 2006). Thus, shifting the reference point away from the West with an ‘anti-Western’ epistemological position alone would not automatically materialise more decolonial or pluriversal theorising. It rather turns into a form of ‘anti-Eurocentric Eurocentrism’ (Wallerstein 1997). As Chen stresses, instead of ‘being constantly anxious about the question of the West, we can actively acknowledge it as a part of the formation of our subjectivity. In the form of fragmented pieces, the West has entered our history and become part of it, but not in a totalising manner. The task for [more explicitly postcolonial endeavours in IDS] is to multiply frames of reference in our subjectivity and worldview, so that our anxiety over the West can be diluted, and productive critical work can move forward’ (Chen, 2010, p. 223). Chen’s argument in turn echoes the importance of ‘relational ontology’—how we ‘inter-are’ (Escobar 2018, p. 101)—and pluriversal approaches that ‘is not really anti-European or anti-West but … between, with, and from multiple worlds’ (Escobar 2020, p. 115).

Recently, there has been a more explicit propensity to conflate decentring with diversification in Japanese IDS—i.e. shifting the reference point to Japan by stressing its ‘uniqueness’ when compared with the Western donors (Kim 2023). This tendency is commonly observed in Japan’s recent knowledge-sharing programmes that accentuate its ‘exceptional’ and ‘unique’ development experience and pack them as ‘alternative development models’ to those of Western donors. Japan’s case of the ‘uniqueness myth’ takes the centre stage in the aforementioned JICA’s Development Studies Program (JICA-DSP) that emerged during the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Meiji Restoration (Oyama 2024). The primary objective of the JICA-DSP is to provide learning materials and training to personnel from developing nations, elucidating the uniquely successful development trajectory of Japan. Approaches and discourses of the JICA-DSP portray Japan as an exemplar, representing ‘the foremost and preeminent case of successful modernization from a non-Western vantage point’ (Kitaoka 2019, p. 33). Nevertheless, this perspective tends to omit the complex processes and effects of the Meiji restoration (Nara 2018, pp. 3–5) and Japan's economic challenges and stagnation since the bursting of the bubble and the end of high-speed growth that began in the late 1980s. More importantly, it lacks the critical examination required to reflect on and re-evaluate existing paradigms and structural issues related to Japan’s own colonial and imperial legacy. Therefore, the JICA-DSP fails to critically reflect upon Japan’s own ambiguous self-positionality. It also fails to help both Japanese and international participants to imagine more decentred and pluriversal ways of development through which they are able to deconstruct the unequal and imperial order of things (Chen 2010, p. 253).

3 Concluding Remarks: Towards Pluriversal Knowledge Production

In this conclusion, we presented the studies in this book as a means of engaging with decolonial and pluriversal approaches via Japan as method. Through this process, three key insights to development knowledge making in Japanese IDS have emerged. The first insight stems from the diverse (both Western and non-Western) roots of Japanese terms in the field of development cooperation and their changing semantics over time and space. This insight helps us to see how Japan’s myth of uniqueness has historically been built as Japan’s responses or resistance to mainstream development norms and Western development knowledge. The second insight pertains to the tendency to turn those lexemes encapsulating the value of locally grounded methods (i.e. the effective technique of development cooperation) into philosophies and principles of Japan’s ODA. It is crucial to acknowledge that this particular ‘philosophicalisation’ in Japanese ODA has often been politically motivated. It has been largely driven by the needs of time and space, moulded by the ever-changing geopolitics and prevalent development thinking of different eras. The third concerns a relative absence of reflective and relational thinking in Japanese IDS. As some key figures in Japanese IDS have recently warned about the risks inherent in failing to relativise Japan and its development experience to the many other—temporally and spatially different—worlds and their experiences (Kodera 2023; Shimomura 2023).

All three insights are clearly showcased in the recent trend of knowledge production in Japanese IDS, which further highlights the importance of decolonial and pluriversal thinking on Japan’s ambiguous self-positionality and the depoliticisation of Japanese IDS in the post-war Japan. For example, JICA-DSP (from an Eastern positionality) appears ready to challenge the dominant status of Western modernity and knowledge. However, it inadvertently perpetuates binary dichotomies of ‘West–East’ and ‘developed–developing/underdeveloped’ by asserting the ‘uniqueness’ of Japanese development experiences and knowledge (Oyama, 2024; Wang, 2024). Japan’s ambiguous positionality seeks solidarity with ‘Easterners and Southerners’ while simultaneously attempting to differentiate from the latter (see Japan’s response to China’s appropriation of sanmi-ittai). One of the critical reasons for such ambiguous and ‘anti-Western’ epistemological position was partly due to the depoliticisation of Japan's approach to IDS in the aftermath of World War II. The depoliticisation process deliberately silenced the legacy of the pre-war and war-time colonial policy studies in order to seek acceptance from neighbouring Asian countries. In doing so, Japan’s approaches and methods of development cooperation (and related knowledge production in IDS) have been presented in relation to the agency of recipient governments. This is exemplified in the Japanese government’s promotion of its ODA, when compared with Western donors, as having greater ‘respect for partner countries’ and foci on ‘locally-groundedness’ and ‘practice-centrism’ (as shown in yōsei-shugi and genba-shugi). Such depoliticisation efforts have set a distinct pathway for Japanese IDS that is largely detached from political discussions and engagement. However, the downside of this detachment has been the difficulty for Japanese IDS to critically engage with Japanese ODA, which in fact has been increasingly politicised to serve Japan’s national interests and security amidst aid competition and geopolitical tensions.

In the increasingly polycentric global development landscape, we hope to make the case for decolonial and pluriversal thinking in Japanese IDS. These approaches were initially conceived as both an alternative and resistance to Western modernity—alternatives that highlight the significance of diversity, multiplicity and relationality. Nonetheless, it remains difficult to navigate worlds that ‘do not want relate [with others, for example, the]…ethno-nationalist and imperializing worlds’, while staying true to the core principles of the pluriverse (Demaria et al. 2023, p. 67). Hence, reflective and relative thinking in Japanese IDS would serve as a critical first step to instilling diversity, multiplicity and relationality. Such thinking not only helps to move beyond the myth of uniqueness but also critically engages with related dichotomies engrained in Japan’s ambiguous self-positionality by reflecting upon the historical legacy of rapid westernisation, colonialism and empire. Japan’s ‘political depoliticisation’ has hindered possibilities for Japanese IDS to reflect and re-examine ambivalence and to overcome binary oppositions of ‘West–East’ and ‘developed/North-developing/underdeveloped/South’. This task of decolonial and pluriversal thinking in Japanese IDS can foster engagement with ongoing debates and efforts in many worlds to create more critical, dynamic, relational and transformative perspectives. This requires first to relativise Japan’s own position in the (many) world(s) and to critically engage with the trend of instrumentalising ODA to serve geopolitical interests through active collaboration and co-creation of pluriversal development knowledges that ‘leave no one behind’.

We hope this conclusion serves as a first of many more works in IDS to actively engage with decolonial and pluriversal thinking of which the ‘core theoretical and political agenda is to transform our subjectivities. Through imaginings of [decolonial and pluriversal worlds]…, diverse frames of reference cross our horizon, multiply our perspectives, and enrich our subjectivity’ (Chen 2010, p. 255). Such imagining enables us to find and build concrete methods to embrace a broader spectrum of developmental experiences for self-transformation (Chen 2010, p. 255). We also hope for this edited volume to serve as a modest stride in forging a connection between Japan and pluriversal development knowledge making, enriching both in the process.

Notes

  1. 1.

    We in this chapter refer to authors of Conclusion— Soyeun Kim and Muyun Wang.

  2. 2.

    The Lexicon of International Cooperation (IDJ 1989, 1998, 2004, 2014) could be considered to be an exception. However, it takes the form of a development dictionary and does not focus on untranslatability.

  3. 3.

    The lack of clear official definitions was largely because those lexemes either 1) stemmed initially from practical needs (as in kaihatsu-yunyu, kaizen, genba-shugi), or 2) were products of post hoc inventions to respond to and debunk external criticism (as in yōsei-shugi, ōnā shippu, jijyo-doryoku).

  4. 4.

    These presumably ‘established’ meanings are (for e.g. securing overseas resource for Japan’s economic development) in the case of kaihatsu-yunyu).

  5. 5.

    OECF was a Japanese ODA loan institution operated between 1961 and 1999.

  6. 6.

    More recent critique has been provided by some key figures in Japanese IDS that laments the lack of efforts to reflect upon and relativise Japan and its development experience in relation to other parts of the world (Kodera 2023; Shimomura 2023).

  7. 7.

    Their central criticism of structural adjustment programmes was directed at the neoclassical development economics that does not take sufficient account of the diverse reality of developing country (Ohno and Ohno 1998, pp. 3–7)—particularly, its failure to address such realities of developing countries characterised as varied states of underdeveloped market economies (Shimomura 1997). Thus, Japanese researchers accentuated how such programmes’ one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions were inadequate as they ignore the very fact that each country was at different stages of economic development with various forms of market mechanisms (Hara 1992, pp. 32–36, Ishikawa 1996, pp. 7–10, Ohno 1996, pp. 92–96). Also, the lack of attention to social and cultural aspects of different regions, i.e. non-economic variables, was also pointed out as an underlying factor for uniform prescriptions (Hara 1992, pp. 45–54, Ishikawa 1996, pp. 13–18, Ohno 1996, pp. 94–95). Such concerns were in turn shared with senior finance bureaucrats and aid officials (Shimomura 2022).

  8. 8.

    Oe explored such ambivalence in his speech titled ‘Japan, the Ambiguous’ by commenting that the ‘ambiguous orientation of Japan drove the country into the position of an invader in Asia …[and] isolation from other Asian countries, not only politically but also socially and culturally’ (Oe 1995, p. 6).

  9. 9.

    Related knowledge production began in the early twentieth century to govern ‘natives’ in colonised territories. Japanese colonial policy studies were first taught at Kyoto Imperial College in 1903 and later at Tokyo Imperial College in 1909 (Kitaoka 1993).