Building National Identity through Ethnicity: Ethnology in Japan Wartime and after
Author(s)
Doak, Kevin M.
Abstract
This article exposes the role played by professional ethnologists associated with the Ethnic Research Institute in justifying Japanese intervention in Asia during World War II. Major ethnologists worked closely with key government and military officials to guide imperial Japan’s efforts at nation building throughout Asia. By “liberating” people throughout Asia to their ethnic identities instead of citizenship in their own political states, Japanese ethnologists provided active support for Japan’s military and imperialist activities. After defeat and the loss of Japan’s empire, this ethnological tradition was refitted for domestic consumption and provided a cultural theory for Japanese identity that continued the wartime discourse on nationality as an ethnic form of identity distinct from citizenship in a democratic state.
