ITANAGAR, 1 Dec: The 13th lecture of the international lecture series on ‘Historical Development of Anthropology as a Discipline in Asia’ was held in the online mode at Dera Natung Government College (DNGC) here on Monday.
The academic lecture was jointly organised by the DNGC anthropology department, Mrinalini Datta Mahavidyapith, Kolkata, and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Nugegoda, Sri Lanka.
The lecture was chaired by DNGC Anthropology Department Heads Dr Suman Chakraborty and Dr Ratna Tayeng.
Invited speaker, Prof Takami Kuwayama, professor emeritus, Hokkaido University, Japan began his lecture by underscoring the history of anthropology in Japan, with relevance to geopolitics in modern times. He stressed that anthropological interest began with founding of the ‘Friends of Anthropology’ in late 19th century in reaction against the western writings on Japan. It advocated academic nationalism to bring discourse on Japan by Japanese scholars. The early studies began with public interest in the genealogical relationship between Japanese and Ainu – the indigenous people of northern Japan; exploitation and discrimination of Ainu; and loss of Ainu culture and language due to assimilation policy.
Reflecting on the interwar period, Prof Kuwayama stressed that mainstream anthropology was formed under the influence of Great Britain, the United States and France that originally emerged in their colonies. “Accordingly, the landmark development began during the occupation of Taiwan in 1895 and establishment of the department of race and ethnic studies at Imperial University of Taipei; publication of ‘A Study of Genealogy and Classification of Taiwanese Aborigines’ by T Mabuschi in 1935, and the founding of Institute of Religion and Sociology at Imperial University of Keijo (Seoul National University),” he said.
Prof Kuwayama dwelt on introduction of “structuralism” and British “social anthropology” to Japan. In fact, early Japanese anthropologists like Akiba adopted functionalist approach and analysed the Korean shamanism and S Izumi, professor at post-war University of Tokyo was an expert in Latin American studies, he said. The speaker also referred to three dominants research trends, ie, 1935-1940 (review of major anthropological books and featuring diverse regions), 1941-1955 (decrease in overseas research and increase in domestic research) and 1935-1955 (featuring of Ainu and featuring Okinawa after WW II).
In light of some major feature of Japanese anthropology today, Prof Kuwayama affirmed that anthropological research is ethnographically strong but theoretically weak, with impacts limited to the area specialists. Most of the writings are published in Japanese and therefore are inaccessible to the global readers. Further, they emphasise on ‘others’ (studied communities) as mirror for self reflexivity. The coexistence of different traditions has led to incorporation of local theories and concepts.
The lecture was followed by an interaction between the speaker and the participants.
