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Social Science Japan Journal Advance Access published online on November 7, 2007
Social Science Japan Journal, doi:10.1093/ssjj/jym057
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press in conjunction with the University of Tokyo. All rights reserved.

Shared Abodes, Disparate Visions: Japanese Anthropology during the Allied Occupation

NAKAO Katsumi*

NAKAO Katsumi is a Professor at Toyo Eiwa University, specializing in the history of anthropology and ethnology in East Asia. He is the editor of Shokuminchi Jinruigaku Tenbo (A Survey of Colonial Anthropology) (Tokyo: Fukyosha, 2000) and the author of numerous articles. He can be contacted by e-mail at nko66{at}jcom.home.ne.jp

During World War II, the US enlisted behavioral scientists to provide intelligence on combatant nations. In 1945–1951, when Japan was put under Allied occupation in the wake of military defeat, American anthropologists were dispatched to work for the Civil Information and Education Section under General Headquarters in Tokyo, under whose orders they carried out a number of social science surveys throughout rural Japan. The first of these anthropologists, Herbert Passin, hired a number of young Japanese survey assistants trained in the fields of anthropology, sociology, folklore studies and law. They conducted field surveys in farming and fishing villages. On the foundations of these surveys, the US established Japan studies, while Japan imported American-style cultural anthropology. In this article, I chronicle the specific contents of these surveys, while at the same time clarifying the process through which cultural anthropology was established at Tokyo University.

* Translated from the Japanese by Paul Barclay.


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