Social Science Japan Journal - Advance Access

Physical Anthropology and the Reconstruction of Japanese Identity in Postcolonial Japan

NANTA, A. — 2008-05-04

This article will attempt to show how Japanese identity was conceptualised within the theories and models of Japanese physical anthropology after the fall of the colonial empire in 1945 as part of the broader debate about the ‘origins of the Japanese’. Whereas at the time of the colonial empire, researchers considered that the ‘Japanese people’ had arrived on the archipelago during the proto-history of the archipelago, after the late 1940s, major researchers such as Hasebe Kotondo, president of the Tokyo Anthropological Society, stated that the Japanese had never known any interbreeding and form an uninterrupted line of descent since the Palaeolithic period. This theory was transformed into a model during the 1950s and 1960s by Suzuki Hisashi of the University of Tokyo, using the concept of microevolution and the craniometrical analysis of thousands of skeletons discovered after the war. It then became the dominant paradigm from the 1950s to the 1970s. However, at the same time, researchers from old colonial universities in Taipei and Seoul formulated an opposing model, based on the work of Kanaseki Takeo, who thought the Japanese people were the product of interbreeding, as the excavations he led in western Japan tended to show. This idea was further developed by Hanihara Kazuro in his Dual Structure Model and then by several geneticists from the 1980s–1990s onwards. This, therefore, permitted an alternative to the ‘homogeneous people’ paradigm, but at the same time showed a persistence towards the concept of ‘race’ within the research on ethnogenesis, as well as what must be called an obsession with identity that goes beyond variations between models in physical anthropology.

Announcing the Winner of the 2007 ISS/OUP Prize

Ishida, H. — 2008-04-15

Erratum

2008-04-01

Deciphering Maruyama Masao: The Challenge of Originality

KERSTEN, R. — 2008-04-01

Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army

SATO, F. — 2008-04-01

Two Paths towards Understanding the Importance of Civil Government

SEKIYA, N. — 2008-04-01

Kita Chosen e no Ekusodasu: 'Kikoku Jigyo' no Kage o Tadoru (Exodus to North Korea: Tracing the Shadows of the 'Returnee' Project) * Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War

WADA, H. — 2008-04-01

Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

ALLEN, M. — 2008-03-28

Japan's Contested Memories: The 'Memory Rifts' in Historical Consciousness of World War II

BEN-ARI, E. — 2008-03-18

Fairness versus Freedom: Constitutional Implications of Internet Electioneering for Japan

Takaaki, O. — 2008-03-18

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend for legal scholars in Japan to question and reconsider the extreme strictness of electioneering regulations, which has been maintained since the prewar period. Under these circumstances, what is termed Internet electioneering started to garner attention because of its possibility of realizing the two conflicting ideas of the freedom and fairness of elections. On the other hand, Internet electioneering does not necessarily receive an unqualified endorsement from constitutional scholars. In particular, some republican standpoints have inquired whether the Internet diminishes the constitutional guarantees of the democratic process. With regard to such concerns, this article examines the constitutional validity of the development of Internet electioneering in Japanese politics.

A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan: Placing the People

Koichiro, M. — 2008-03-18

Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan

Naoko, K. — 2008-03-18

Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan

KIKUCHI, Y. — 2008-03-18

Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Colonialism, Regionalism, and Borders

MARK, E. — 2008-03-11

Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization

HOSOKAWA, S. — 2008-03-05

Shoshi Korei Shakai no Mienai Kakusa (Invisible Inequalities in an Aging, Low Fertility Society)

SCHOPPA, L. J. — 2008-02-25

The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility

KONO, S. — 2008-02-25

War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005

SAALER, S. — 2008-02-25

Making Pilgrimage: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku

ASAKAWA, Y. — 2008-02-25

Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan

TANAKA, M. — 2007-10-09