Constructing a Martial Tradition: Rethinking a Popular History of Karate-Dou

Abstract

This article seeks to explore and to rethink popular narratives that commonly surround the martial art known as karate. Adopting a dynamic and less exclusive definition of terms such as culture or tradition, I intend to provide a more critical and historically grounded understanding of karate’s technical evolution and ideological foundations. In doing so, this will reveal that contemporary and popular perceptions of karate as a “martial tradition” are more historically complex and politically contingent than what has often been widely accepted.