近代日本における「人種」観念の変容 : 坪井正五郎の「人類学」との関わりを中心に

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Talking about anthropological knowledge in modern Japan, the most notable fact is that ethnology was imported earlier in the Meiji period than anthropology. For example, Hyakka Zensyo, a translation of the fourth edition of Chambers's Information for the People, included the chapter not named "Anthropology" but "Physical History of Man-Ethnology". As a result, whereas ethnology was widely regarded as an established science Jinsyu-gaku, anthropology was still so unfamiliar that it was translated as Jinrui-ron, just one branch of Hakubutsu-gaku (natural history.) However, in those days, the meaning of the Japanese word Jinshu was not equal to that of English "race" like today. Jinshu was used to mean not only race but also nation, ethnic group, class or inhabitant. In other words, despite the high interest in Jinshu, like Social Darwinism (for example, Kato Hiroyuki adapted the paradigm of Jinshu for the explanation of world history), the concept of Jinshu was still confusing and not clearly supported by anthropological knowledge. Thus Tsuboi Shogoro, "the father of Japanese anthropology", at first regarded Jinshu as a scientifically meaningless concept because of its ambiguity. Tsuboi, who chose not ethnology but anthropology, wanted to deal with human society as a whole and paid little attention to sub-categories of humans (races, nations, etc.). Against Tsuboi's vision, however, the popularity of the Social Darwinistic Jinshu paradigm became greater and greater during Japanese imperialism. Under the infuence of that paradigm, the international relationships in conflict, especially between Japan and Russia, were considered Jinshu-Senso - a war between races. Through the works of Asianists (Tarui Tokichi and Konoe Atsumaro, for example), the word Jinshu spread and influenced Japanese intellectuals more than ever. Besides this, the continued progress of Japanese colonialism meant that the conflicts between the varied groups of humans came to be part of everyday news. These new types of social problems were also called Jinshu-Mondai or racial problems. After the Sino-Japanese War, Tsuboi began to use the word that he had once regarded as meaningless and started to consider how to divide humans into categories. This change in his behavior, however, never meant that Tsuboi had given way to the fashion of the times. He now proposed that Jinshu should be used strictly as the translation of "race" - this meant that what Tsuboi really wanted was not a justification of racial divisions, but to eliminate the multiple meanings of the word Jinshu. Through this "racialization of Jinshu" process, he tried to show that race was nothing but a problem of consanguinity. Far from the Social Darwinism thoughts that attached great importance to race, Tsuboi regarded the differences between races as just small gaps among one human family tree. Thus even after he started to use the word, Tsuboi never recognized Jinshu as an essential or absolute concept. He repeatedly claimed that the differences between the races were merely relative problems, and that they should not be exaggerated. He never applied his anthropological knowledge to the paradigm of Social Darwinism or racism.
日本文化人類学会の論文
2003-06-30

近代日本における「人種」観念の変容 : 坪井正五郎の「人類学」との関わりを中心に

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