Volume 12 | Issue 35 | Number 1 | Article ID 4171 | Aug 29, 2014 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Jus Koseki: Household registration and Japanese citizenship 戸籍主義 戸籍と日本国籍 Karl Jakob Krogness on the development of the koseki system (and the changing household unit it shapes) and the The anthology Japan’s household registration outcaste registers of the early modern period, system and citizenship: Koseki, identification as well as early Meijihinin fraternities, and documentation, David Chapman and Karl international marriage, and ways in which the Jakob Krogness, eds. (Routledge 2014) provides koseki as an ordering tool inevitably, down to a first, extensive, and critical overview of today, creates chaos and ‘strangers’ and Japan’s koseki system. Situated from the ‘undecidables.’ seventh century Taika Reforms until today at the center of Japanese governance and society, The following revised chapter from the book the koseki opens up for comprehensive and examines the koseki register as the official deep exploration the Japanese state, family, ledger of citizens 日本国民登録簿( ) and and individual, as well as questions relating to interrogates Japanese legal citizenship: to what citizenship, nationality, and identity. The scope extent is citizenship actually based on the of potential koseki-related research is extensive Japanese Nationality Law’s principle ofjus and is relevant for many disciplines including sanguinis (the principle whereby a child’s history, sociology, law, ethnography,citizenship follows that of the parent(s), as anthropology, cultural studies, literature and opposed to jus soli, where citizenship follows media studies, gender and queer studies. Given place of birth) when thekoseki register the koseki’s origins in the householdhistorically and structurally is not centered on registration regimes of China and itsbloodlines? The chapter proposes an subsequent influence on the householdalternative principle termed jus koseki, which registration systems of Korea and Taiwan strongly influences Japanese citizenship during the colonial period, thekoseki also bestowal, but also influences Japanese society opens the way for comparative studies within more generally at the level of the state, family and beyond East Asia. and individual. DC and KJK Koseki has implications for normativity, • • • • • marginalization, exclusion, social order and individual rights. Phenomena examined here The koseki system (戸籍制度) has since early include issues such as reproductiveMeiji exerted profound influence on the technologies, illegitimacy, children of unknown Japanese civil law system. As such, the koseki parentage, individuals lacking koseki in Japan (戸籍) is highly relevant for understanding today or in Colonial Korea, statelessness, modern Japanese society at the level of the marriage and ‘same conjugal surname’ (夫婦別 state, the family, and the individual (see for 姓), same-sex partnerships, legal gender example Kawashima 1948; Toshitani 1987b). change, and the intertwinement of family and Earlier Japanese society, too, may fruitfully be citizenship – whether legal, colonial, or sexual. analyzed from the vantage point of the koseki The book also offers an historical perspective system because the history of household-based 1 12 | 35 | 1 APJ | JF registration as an administrative tool for (Kashiwazaki 1998a, 1998b) explore how the ordering and controlling society began already koseki system informed the eventual selection in the seventh century and became crucial in of the jus sanguinis principle. She rightly notes the Edo era. that the 1899 Nationality Law represented a balance between adopting western law and This chapter is an initial examination of how maintaining the internal consistency of the household-based registration shapes modern household registration system (Kashiwazaki Japanese society through a principle I propose 1998a: 286). Further, she argues that the to call jus koseki which in Japanese would then western principle of jus sanguinis was chosen 1 be koseki shugi (戸籍主義). Here I specifically because it worked well with the koseki system, explore the influence of thekoseki system in where ‘children’s names are added to the relation to Japanese citizenship, which is based existing registry of their parents. This is on the nationality law principle of jus sanguinis conducive to jus sanguinis in that one’s (血統主義 ), which means ‘the right of blood’ inclusion into the membership circle (the under which the right to citizenship isaggregate of registries) follows from having a bestowed according to the citizenship of one's parent who is a member’ (Kashiwazaki 1998a: parent(s). 296). Kashiwazaki also notes that the Japanese Nationality Law includes elements ofjus soli Jus koseki, then, could translate as ‘the right of (by birth place 出生地主義) and jus domicilis registered household membership’, meaning (by residence) (Kashiwazaki 1998: 279). The jus that registration confers certain rights – in this domicilis principle (住所主義) will be relevant in case citizenship. This right, orjus , signifies broadly that it is reasonable – in fact, that to the later discussion. the majority of the Japanese it is self-evident – Kashiwazaki’s assertion begs the question, that the identification and ordering of the however, to what extent the koseki is conducive individual, the family, and the nation is to jus sanguinis when the family system that determined through household-based koseki represents does not stress bloodline registration. when it comes to continuing the household The authoritative manual for koseki officials, lineage? As Jane Bachnik’s important study on specialists and researchers calledSystematic ie (家) recruitment strategies concludes: Encyclopaedia of Koseki Terminology (Kōzuma ‘although “parents” and “children” do exist in and Tashiro 2001, hereafter ‘thethe ie, its organization is not based on such encyclopaedia’) relates that the koseki records relationships, nor is their existence necessary and documents the family relations of the for its continuity. Kinship […] is merely one citizens of Japan. Also, as non-citizens are not recruitment option for the group-defined recorded in the koseki and every citizen in continuity of theie ’ (Bachnik 1983: 178). principle is recorded in the koseki, the koseki constitutes a ledger of the citizens of Japan. The main focus of Kashiwazaki’s study isjus The principle that every citizen shall be koseki sanguinis so the implications of the close registered has existed from the first Koseki Law relationship between the koseki and Japanese of 1871 and continues today (Kōzuma and citizenship are not explored in more detail. Tashiro 2001: 598).2 What needs to be asked here is: In what ways and to what degree does thekoseki register The English literature on Japanese nationality influence the Japanese citizenship criteria? has neglected to examine the significance ofIndeed, is it relevant, perhaps, to speak of the the koseki register. Kashiwazaki Chikako’s existence of a principle ofjus koseki that comparative studies of Japan’sjus sanguinis influences the stipulated jus sanguinis? 2 12 | 35 | 1 APJ | JF A note on terminology is appropriate at this family class (zokushō 族称) of ‘peasant’ (nō point. In Japanese legal parlance, the term 農) is noted in the third column from the kokuseki (国籍) can be translated with the right. English terms ‘nationality’ and ‘citizenship’, and the term kokumin (国民) refers to the English terms ‘national’ and ‘citizen’. For the The profound influence of administrative sake of a focused discussion, I will here household registration began with the narrowly follow Andreas Fahrmeir’s definition introduction of the Chinese household of the term citizenship: registration system, which was a central part of the Great Reform (Taika) that began in 646. This system was immediately adapted to “formal citizenship”: the legal contemporary Japanese conditions and aims, definition of a close relationship and one major result was the reorganization of between individuals and one state, the social order. The Edo period established usually documented in passports or very early sectarian inspectionsshūmōn ( other citizenship certificates aratame chō 宗門改長) and censuses (ninbetsu (Fahrmeir 2007: 2). chō 人別帳) that registered the population by household unit. Work on creating a modern household register had already begun in 1868, Here, then, I use the terms kokuseki‘ ’ and and in 1871 the new household registration law ‘nationality’ (e.g.kokusekihō 国籍法, emerged in the form of Edict 170. Japanese Nationality Law ) to refer to this formal society was once again reshaped through a citizenship, and the terms kokumin‘ ’, ‘nation’ household register that fused early modern and ‘nationals’ here simply refer to thehousehold registration with western law; a type aggregate group of Japanese citizens. of civil registration that in the process defined the citizens of the emerging nation-state of The koseki and Japanese nationality Japan. According to Mukai and the pioneering koseki scholar Toshitani Nobuyoshi, this newkoseki system developed into ‘an indispensable element in the formation of the underlying foundations of the civil law system’ (Mukai and Toshitani 1967: 48). In particular, this was because the koseki system and the ‘ko’ unit (「戸」単位) that developed during early Meiji constitute the matrix for the ie‘ ’-type family that was institutionalized in the 1898 Civil Code (Toshitani 1991: 100–101). Thekoseki system and its ko unit came to profoundly influence the family law sections in the 1899 Civil Code