In this episode, Dr. Katsuya Hirano (UCLA) recounts Japanese settler colonization of Hokkaidō during the Meiji Period, underlining the racialization and dispossession of indigenous Ainu inhabitants.  We discuss the role of capitalism and infrastructural development in Japanese imperial expansion, the impacts of the Meiji Restoration on the Ainu population, conditions for Ainu today, and the challenges of cultural commodification. (Transcript here).