Abstract

Japan has an unusual and complicated history of engaging with concepts of race. In the past, many Japanese people asserted the concept of
Japanese racial superiority and justified colonialism by positioning indigenous people as racially inferior. In Western society, Japanese
people have historically been targets of racism, and racist ideologies within Japan persist today and, in many ways, have been made invisible.
In this lecture, I would like to discuss the discrimination experienced by Ainu women in marriage, and consider the racial symbols of “red,” “
white,” and “yellow” that have infiltrated the history and present of Japanese society.

日本における人種状況は大変奇妙で興味深い。かつて日本人は自己の人種的優位性を主張し、colonialismにおいては先住民などを劣った人種と位置付けることでその行為が正当化され、西欧社会においてはレイシズムの対象となり、現在根強く存在する日本型レイシズムは極めて巧妙に不可視化されている。本講義では、アイヌ女性が経験する結婚差別について述べ、日本社会の歴史と現在にはびこる赤／白／黄の人種的記号について考えたい。

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Mai Ishihara is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Ainu and
Indigenous Studies at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan. She
specializes in Cultural Anthropology and Ainu and Indigenous Research.
She is the author of Autoethnography of ‘Silence’: The Story of the Pain
of Silent Ainu and Their Care (Sapporo: Hokkaido University Press, Dec.
2020 [in Japanese]).