Relation of Nation-States with Knowledge of Anthropology and Folklore: Nationalism and Intelligence in the Former Half of Twentieth Century

Keywords

History of anthropology, nationalism, intelligence

Objectives

Japanese anthropology was established through introduction of Western theories and transplantation of them into Japan as knowledge. However, Japanese anthropology has been deployed and developed under political conditions in and outside Japan surrounding anthropology, such as its application to colony management, the sudden rise of nationalism and the upsurge of racial consciousness, and intelligent works of the battlefield, similarly to the West. This study was conducted to elucidate the social contribution of anthropology by restructuring history covering adjacent domains in the view based on social conditions surrounding anthropology and folklore, as well as expounding acceptance of scholarly activities and theories. This study was conducted specifically as basic research in which anthropology and folklore, established as knowledge, are understood in a historical context, by comparison and contrast of anthropology and folklore in the West and Japan during the interwar period of the 1920s–40s and by exploration of the root of the effect of the Western theories on Japan.

Research Results

This workshop researched the history of anthropology during the interwar period between the 1920s and 1940s. The researchers held the common understanding that the issue was to develop a history of anthropology from the perspective of how anthropologists were historically impacted at the time by the social conditions they were in during the process of practicing fieldwork and creating ethnographies, rather than the depicting the changes in the history of theory. Considering this, it may be more appropriate to call it the social history of anthropologists than the history of anthropology.
At present, the titles of the final reports are as follows: Jinruigakushi to interijensu wo meguru kenkyu gaikyo (Overview of research surrounding the history of anthropology and intelligence) by Katsumi Nakao, Senzen no uchi Moko ni okeru Doitsu to Nihon no tokumu kikan—Mongoru gakusha Haishihhi to Oka Masao (German and Japanese special forces in inner Mongolia before WWII—Mongol scholars Walther Heissig and Masao Oka) by Katsumi Nakao, 1930–1950 nendai, Indo-Biruma kokkyo chitai no jinruigaku: Richi, Hyura-haimendoruhu, Eruwin ( Anthropology of the India-Burma border region from the 1930s to the 1950s: Leach, Fürer-Haimendorf, and Erwin) by Masakazu Tanaka, Beitoson no senji kenkyu—NARA oyobi UCSC shiryo no bunseki kara (Bateson’s wartime research—Based on analysis of NARA and UCSC materials) by Shuji Iijama, Ryo taisenkanki no Nihon minzokugaku—Furansu to no kankei wo chushin ni (Japanese ethnology in the interwar period—With a focus on its relationship with France) by Taku Iida, Minzokugaku to shukyosha—Kindai bukkyosha wo rei toshite (Folklore studies and religious studies—Using modern Buddhists as an example) by Soichiro Sunami, Noson chosa ga interijensu ni naru toki— Emburi no Sue Mura to oyo jinruigaku (When rural village surveys become intelligence—Embree’s Suye Mura and applied anthropology) by Hidekazu Sensui, Torii Ryuzo no seinan Chugoku chosa ni okeru minzoku wo meguru katto—Chugoku minzokugakkai e no eikyo (Ethnic conflict in Ryuzo Torii’s southwestern China research—Its impact on the world of Chinese ethnology) by Wakana Sato, Mussorini seikenka no shukyoshigaku to jinruigaku (History of religion and anthropology under Mussolini’s rule) by Junichi Egawa, Basu contororu wo meguru GHQ no doko: Ohaio shuritsu daigaku Benetto fairu yori (GHQ trends surrounding birth control: From the Ohio State University Bennett files) by Mari Kagaya, Nachisu Doitsu jidai ni okeru jinshu eiseigaku no iso (Topology of racial hygiene in Nazi Germany) by Mitsuho Ikeda, and Ebanzu-Purichado no Sudan-Echiopia sensen (Evans-Pritchard’s Sudan-Ethiopia battle lines) by Eisei Kurimoto.