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Anthropology and Japanese Modernity

Kaori Sugishita
Theory Culture Society 2006; 23; 474
DOI: 10.1177/026327640602300289

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474 Theory, Culture & Society 23(23)
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New York: Harcourt Brace.
Anthropology and Japanese Modernity
Kaori Sugishita
Keywords imperialism, modernity, postmod-
ernism, westernization
A
lthough the discipline of anthropology is
embedded in different socio-cultural
entities, the West remains the primary
we/here that produces knowledge about others/
there, thanks to its political, economic and
academic dominance. Hence it is worth investigat-
ing the development of anthropology in the non-
West with regard to different manifestations of
modernity, which was originally a self-image of
the West, a state of rationality and civilization that
the dominant entity attributed to itself. Japan, a
non-Western nation, has engaged with modernity
as such in relentless pursuit of Western power,
wealth and knowledge. The operation of anthro-
pology in this process is twofold; on the one hand,
Japan as others/there has been scrutinized by the
dominant West, while, on the other, it has joined
the West, as we/here, in subjecting others/there
to the same scrutiny. In fact, Japan has become a
locus of anthropology comparable to the West in
terms of ethnographic and theoretical range.
However, Japanese anthropology lacks critical
perspectives on itself, as illustrated by its constant
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2006 Theory, Culture & Society Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Page 474
Sennett, S. (1994) Flesh and Stone: The Body and
the City in Western Civilization. New York
and London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Tang, X. (1996) Global Space and the Nationalist
Discourse of Modernity: The Historical
Thinking of Liang Qichao. Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press.
Turner, B.S. (1996) The Body and Society,
Explorations in Social Theory, 2nd edn.
London: Sage.
Yeh, W. (1990) Alienated Academy: Culture and
Politics in Republican China, 19191937.
Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard
University Asia Centre.
Li Shiqiao is Associate Professor in the Depart-
ment of Architecture, Chinese University of Hong
Kong. He has published on architecture and
modernity in China and England, and has won
architectural design awards.
failure to objectify Japanese modernity, the
particular conditions under which it has
developed.
Japans engagement with modernity traces
back to the restoration of imperial rule (1868);
with the feudalistic regime of shogunate and its
policy of national isolation abolished, Japan set out
to catch up with the West in the name of
enlightenment. Anthropology was introduced to
Japan in this course for modernization, mediated
by Western investigation into the origins of the
Japanese. Brought to a shocking realization that
they were observed by Westerners (Shimizu,
1998: 115), the Japanese vigorously produced
knowledge about their origins, differentiating
we/here from others/there in the North and the
South. Such scholarship contributed to the
modern attempt of Japan to forge its unity as a
nation-state, which unfolded against a backdrop
of the emergent world order centred on the West
(Askew, 2003: 138). In search of a national
identity with which to arm itself, Japan desired to
join the West as dominant entity, thereby keeping
distance from Asia, the subordinate entity of
which it hitherto formed a part. This led on to the
development of imperialism in Japan, affecting
anthropology therein; we/here increasingly
considered itself superior to others/there, even
25_modernity_064829 10/5/06 10:25 am
with regard to the West, let alone vis vis Asia
(Askew, 2003: 1367).
Japan embarked on imperialist ventures with
the Sino-Japanese war (189495), which resulted
in the annexation of Taiwan. Following the Russo-
Japanese war (190405), Korea and Micronesia
were also added to the Empire. Correspondingly,
Japanese anthropologists started to conduct
research abroad, like their Western counterparts,
assuming the power-based prerogative to observe
others/there (Shimizu, 1998: 117). Given its
concern with the origins of we/here, anthropol-
ogy served, in effect, to justify the Empire by
establishing a prehistoric relationship between the
colonizer and the colonized (Askew, 2003: 143).
As it became more oriented towards contempor-
ary others/there, the discipline meshed with
imperialism at its height. In the 1930s and
throughout the Second World War, the govern-
ment was eager for the information that could be
utilized in colonial administration and military
operation (Nakao, 2000: 32). While imperialism
did not entirely co-opt anthropology, the former
facilitated the latter by not only securing access to
others/there but also providing a rationale for
overseas research. As a matter of record, the
Empire envisaged itself as a Great Asian Co-
Prosperity Sphere, based on a self-righteous cause
that Japan shall release Asia-Pacific regions from
Western colonial rule.
Japan thus attempted to dominate the Asia-
Pacific region under the guise of an egalitarian
crusade against Western dominion over the world.
Importantly, this attempt was connected with the
nations aspiration to go beyond the modernity
that had been achieved through westernization.
Under such circumstances, many Japanese intel-
lectuals endorsed the war, seeing it as a watershed
in the national struggle to overcome the
modern/the Western. It is fair to say that they
were obliged to make a compromise between
imperial consciousness and critical conscious-
ness in reflecting on Japans modern experience,
as social scientists in particular were (Barshay,
1996: 222). However, it is not evident that anthro-
pologists had a critical perspective on Japanese
modernity; they were disengaged from the
discussions over the issue, while involving them-
selves in the war effort throughout the Empire.
Apparently, anthropologists were so absorbed in
others/there that they failed to problematize
we/here, particularly its modernization/western-
ization, of which their scholarship was a byprod-
uct (Yamaguchi, 1966: 234). As it turned out,
this largely remained a feature of anthropology in
postwar Japan.
Defeated in the war over the Asia-Pacific
against the West, Japan immediately transformed
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2006 Theory, Culture & Society Ltd.. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized distribution.
Page 475
Problematizing Global Knowledge Modernity 475
itself into a democratic and pacifist nation under
American supervision (194552). Accordingly,
Japanese intellectuals questioned the wartime
proposition of overcoming the modern/the
Western; the majority considered that Japan was
yet to achieve modernity as a positive Western
ideal, failing to produce, for instance, the kind
of individuals that democratization requires
(McCormack and Sugimoto, 1988: 2). Meanwhile,
anthropologists continued to ignore the question
of Japanese modernity, despite focusing on
we/here, having lost access to others/there.
Refreshing their old interest in the origins of the
Japanese, anthropologists overlooked modern
determinants of Japanese society, such as abso-
lutism, capitalism and land ownership (Yamaguchi,
1966: 267). Hence their scholarship was not as
relevant to the postwar reconceptualization of
Japan as it could have been. More importantly,
anthropology failed to engage in self-criticism with
regard to its wartime operation; the discipline was
implicated in imperialism, the most repugnant
problem of Japanese modernity.
With a renewed impetus for modernization/
westernization, Japan pushed forward with the
postwar reconstruction. By the end of the 1970s,
the nation turned out to be a non-Western
economic superpower, outperforming most
Western nations. Hence the national agenda of
overcoming the modern/the Western resurfaced,
coinciding with the emergence of postmodernism,
the Wests self-doubt in modernity. The new
current inclined Japanese intellectuals to argue that
Japan had gone or was going beyond modernity,
surpassing the West, with an emphasis placed on
the socio-cultural uniqueness of the nation. This
kind of argument inevitably brought back the
fateful decision of Japan to transform itself in the
image of the West (Miyoshi and Harootunian,
1988: 397), thereby inviting further probing into
Japanese modernity. Anthropologists, on the other
hand, barely participated in such debates; yet again
they were busy exploring others/there, with
we/here reduced to a relatively minor field of
interest. While postmodernism started to impinge
on Japanese anthropologists in the 1990s, it did not
necessarily lead them to reflection on Japan and its
(post?)modernity.
Postmodern anthropology centred on the
Wests attempt to redress the imbalance between
subject and object of representation, which arose
in part from the official end of colonialism.
Modern/colonial anthropology indeed took the
form of epistemological dictatorship (Fabian,
1983: 140), drawing on the power inequality
between we/here and others/there. Japan,
albeit a non-Western nation, was not only the
object but also the subject in this dictatorship,
25_modernity_064829 10/5/06 10:25 am
476 Theory, Culture & Society 23(23)
given its attempt to dominate the Asia-Pacific in
place of the West. Hence postmodern/postcolonial
currents encouraged Japanese anthropologists to
investigate their past implication in imperialism, as
well as to challenge the Western academic
hegemony (Kuwayama, 2004). However, earlier
than this, they entertained postmodernism from a
purely epistemological perspective, overlooking its
political implications for the postcolonial world
and specifically Japan as the periphery of the West
(Ota, 1998: 175246). Even now, Japanese
anthropologists rarely make an issue of Japan as a
particular locus of knowledge production, which
not only adds to the Western hegemony but also
hinders self-criticism on Japanese modernity.
Japan is possibly the sole instance of a non-
Western nation wherein anthropology developed
alongside imperialism and colonialism. At the core
of this development is Japans desire for the West,
the main characteristic of Japanese modernity. It
is difficult to say if contemporary Japan has
overcome modernity; the nation seems to have
been modernized/westernized to such an extent
that it almost identifies itself with the West,
neither coveting nor contesting the modern/the
Western. Japan has indeed become an honorary
member of the West, thanks to its success in inter-
national politics and its economy, including a huge
investment in the Third World. This has enabled
Japanese anthropologists to explore others/there
in almost every corner of the world, a privilege
that was originally limited to their Western
counterparts. Given that, they ought to reflect on
Japan as we/here, instead of uncritically identify-
ing it with the West, the dominant we/here.
Japanese modernity is the starting point for such
reflections.
References
Askew, David (2003) Empire and the
Anthropologist: Torii Ryuzo and Early
Japanese Anthropology, Japanese Review of
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Page 476
Barshay, Andrew E. (1996) Toward a History of
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Fabian, Johannes (1983) Time and the Other:
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Kaori Sugishita studied anthropology in Japan and
England. After completing her PhD in England,
she spent two years in South Africa as a postdoc-
toral fellow. She is currently based in Japan as a
part-time lecturer.