Autoethnography of ‘Silence’: The Story of the Pain of Silent Ainu and Their Care
（Hokkaido University Press,2020）
Mai Ishihara
（Associate Professor in the Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University）
Like many indigenous peoples’ lands around the globe, Hokkaido was once considered ” Terra nullius” or “virgin land,” and the Ainu people, who had lived a sustainable lifestyle, were forced to suffer hardship due to invasion of their land and dispossession of their culture and other resources. While this memory is absent or forgotten by many Japanese citizens, it is also important to note that the descendants of the Ainu people themselves have been unable to pass it on. If “150 years of Hokkaido” was the time when we could not even mourn the dead, the publication of my book, ” Autoethnography of ‘Silence’: The Story of the Pain of Silent Ainu and Their Care ” was a ritual to mourn the dead and to re-position the dead and their memories in the lives of the living. In Japan, which seems to exist between the “West” and the “non-West,” there must be many dead people waiting to be mourned.
In “Grandfather Masayoshi Ohira,” published by Ohira’s granddaughter, Mitsuko Watanabe, we can learn about the warmth of Ohira’s eyes toward those living in the margins and his view of human beings through his encounter with St. Thomas Aquinas, a being who was helped by others and shared his wealth with others. It was a very happy experience for me to encounter Mr. Ohira’s life and philosophy as described in his book. For a generation such as mine, which was formed by a lack of interest in and distrust of politics, Mr. Ohira’s noble and warm political and humanistic convictions are important for cultivating the sensibilities of the next generation toward the realization of “caring society”. The Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize has also given me a direction for my future university education.
Indigenous peoples are those who have built ” Society Against the State”. They are also people who have their own specific pain, faces, and stories from their colonized experiences. We, myself and the dead, would like to express our sincere appreciation that the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize has been awarded to such an “absent” narrative of Japanese history.

Profile
Born in Sapporo City, Hokkaido. Ainu-Wajin (Kotoni-colonial troops/ Aizu) plus multiracial individual. After graduating from university, worked at high school and professional college before entering the Graduate School of Letters at Hokkaido University and completing the doctoral program at the same university. Ph.D. in Literature. She has been conducting research with various indigenous peoples overseas and various minority groups in Japan with the keywords of “silence” and “invisible people”. She specializes in cultural anthropology, indigenous studies, and indigenous feminism. She is the editor of “Hokkaido 150 years from the Ainu perspective” (Hokkaido University Press, 2021).