Deracialised Race, Obscured Racism: Japaneseness, Western and Japanese Concepts of Race, and Modalities of Racism

Abstract

This paper examines the interrelationships among Japaneseness, the Western and Japanese concepts of race, and the obfuscation of racism in contemporary Japanese society. The concept of race, which was conceived in the West in the modern era, has influenced the Japanese concepts of race, jinshu and minzoku. These two concepts played a key role in constructing modern Japan’s identity by distinguishing it from its significant discursive Others: Asia and the West. Today the Japanese simply call themselves nihonjin, or Japanese people, rarely using the terms jinshu and minzoku, and racism is generally viewed as a ‘foreign issue’ that has little relevance to Japanese society. The purpose of this study is threefold. First, it discusses how the Japanese concepts of race, jinshu and minzoku, were constructed and shaped the dominant meaning of the Japanese in different historical contexts, intertwining with Western notions of race, nation, Volk, and ethnicity. Second, it suggests that obscured racism in contemporary Japan is linked with the conceptual presence and nominal absence of jinshu and minzoku in defining Japaneseness. Third, it explores how the contemporary modality of racism in Japan overlaps with and differs from racisms in the West.