Façade Fictions: False Statistics and Spheres of Autonomy in Meiji Japan

Around 1900, at least 97 percent of homicide victims in Japan were newborn children. Official statistics obscured this fact by reporting only a handful of infanticides each year, but they also preserved it in the guise of impossibly frequent stillbirths. We argue that this striking failure of law enforcement did not reflect insufficient state capacity. The statistics are best understood as the result of a performance, jointly delivered by subjects and officials to reconcile two conflicting values—the omote (façade) of the state's legal protection of newborns and the naishō (tacit arrangement) of household autonomy over family planning and reproduction. Political performances are often seen as deployed by those in power to deceive, discipline, or dominate the population. We observe instead a more collaborative dynamic that allows states to extend their reach into society while also respecting the autonomy of the population through compromise and indeterminacy.