Table of Contents Ina HEIN and Isabelle PROCHASKA-MEYER Introduction: Negotiating the Okinawan Difference in Japan Today 9 History and Politics Stanisław MEYER “Ryūkyū shobun”: A Difficult Chapter in Okinawan History 29 Gabriele VOGT Setting Out to Imagine a New Community: Okinawa’s Reversion to Japan 44 Beata BOCHORODYZ Social Movements in Okinawa since 1945: Was the Reversion a Threshold in the Development of Civil Society? 71 Message from Okinawa I: ASATO Eiko 96 Language Patrick HEINRICH Language or Dialect? The Place of the Ryukyuan Varieties in the Japonic Language Family 102 KAWASAKI Sayaka Japanese As a Foreign Language? The Introduction of the Japanese Language in Okinawan Primary Schools 119 Aleksandra JAROSZ and Alfred F. MAJEWICZ Retrieving a Moribund Language: Nikolay A. Nevskiy and His Miyakoan Dictionary in Ryukyuan Lexicology and in Scholarship 134 Representations and Images Sepp LINHART Deigo and Shureimon: The Visual Representation of Ryukyu on Ryukyuan Stamps (1948-1972) Compared to That of Okinawa on Japanese Stamps (1972-2012) and Japanese Regional Stamps (1989-2012) 165 Ina HEIN Writing Back: Literature from Okinawa – a Postcolonial Perspective 192 SHIOTSUKI Ryoko Shamanism As a Symbol for Okinawan-ness: Identity Politics in Japanese Films and Literature Depicting Okinawa 219 Message from Okinawa II: ISHIKAWA Mao 240 Changes and Transformations AKAMINE Masanobu Development and Evolution of Ancestor Worship in Okinawa: Taking Account of the State System in Folk Culture Studies 247 TADA Osamu From Hawaii to Okinawa: The Expansion of the Paradise Image and Tourism beyond Time and Place 261 Contributors 275