Organizer and Chair: Frank Dikötter, University of London
Discussant: Dru Gladney, University of Hawai'i
Genetic research has established that the physical or biological differences between population groups defined as 'races' are trivial. Nonetheless, differential and inequitable treatment has been justified on arbitrary grounds ever since the rise of biological determinism in the nineteenth century. Although a considerable body of scholarly work has highlighted the historical and contemporary dimensions of racial identities in the West, virtually nothing is known about the articulation and deployment of racial frames of reference in Asia. Myths of origins, ideologies of blood and narratives of biological descent have formed a central part in the cultural construction of identity in India, China, and Japan since the nationalist movements of the late nineteenth century. Naturalized as a homogeneous 'Yamato race' in Japan, as a pseudo-biological descent group from the 'Yellow Emperor' in China, or as a pure religion transmitted via blood by the Parsees, for example, political and cultural boundaries have been conflated with imaginary biological entities by a diversity of writers in Asia. The discursive invention of racial boundaries was initially based on the selective appropriation of evolutionary theories and medical sciences, but primordial senses of belonging based on blood remain salient in contemporary societies in Asia today. The different articulations and permutations of racialized identities in Asia will be addressed in their specific historical and cultural contexts by Frank Dikötter (China), Michael Weiner (Japan) and Patrick McGinn (India).
Racialized Identities in Japan
Michael Weiner, University of Sheffield
The treatment of Japan's minority populations remains circumscribed by 'racial' assumptions first articulated during the Meiji period, and subsequently reinforced by the construction of a Japanese national identity. The objectives of this paper are twofold: (1) to analyse the interrelationship between nationalist, 'racial' and imperial discourses during the period 1868-1945 which facilitated the construction of a 'racialized' national identity; and (2) to assess the continued relevance of racein postwar social scientific discourse.
Although 'racial' nationalism was but one of a number of nationalisms present during the period 1868-1945, the centrality of 'race' in determining membership in the national community grew over time. The essence of this 'racialized' national culture was dependent upon a kind of historical forgetfulness which recast the whole meaning of 'Japaneseness' in powerful images of the enduring purity and homogeneity (racial and cultural) of the nation, the family and the Japanese way of life. A corollary of the construction of a Japanese 'race' was the simultaneous categorization of subordinate populations (both within Japan-Ainu and burakumin -and within the empire generally-Koreans and Taiwanese) as members of equally distinct but inferior 'races.'
The approach taken here will be to analyze the conditions under which 'racial' categorization has taken place in Japan, and the implications this has had for the treatment of subordinate peoples within the empire. A comparative perspective will be employed to highlight parallels with 19th century Europe, particularly the continued relevance of social-darwinian notions of 'race' imported from Europe in the construction of the modern Japanese identity.
Racialized Identities in China
Frank Dikötter, University of London
This paper seeks to establish three points. Firstly, racialized identities are central, and not peripheral, to identity in China: precisely because of the extreme diversity of religious practices, family structures, spoken languages and regional cultures of population groups that all define themselves as 'Chinese,' ideologies of biological descent have emerged as very powerful and cohesive forms of identity. Racial discourse, of course, has undergone numerous permutations, reorientations and rearticulations since the end of the nineteenth century: its flexibility and variability is part of its enduring appeal, as it constantly adapts to different political and social contexts, from the racial ideology of an economically successful city-state like Singapore to the eugenic policies of the communist party in mainland China. Secondly, this chapter contends that racial discourse thrived largely thanks to, and not in spite of, folk models of identity, based on patrilineal descent and common stock. Instead of crude generalizations about the role of 'the state' in the deployment of racial categories which would have been disseminated from top to bottom, a degree of circularity between popular culture and officially sponsored discourses of race is posited. Thirdly, in contrast to current theories of 'derivation' and 'cultural hegemony,' it is emphasized how racialized identities have been actively reconstructed and endowed with indigenous meanings that can hardly be explained as 'Westernization.'
The Criminalization of 'Tribes' and the Legal Construction of 'Race' in British
India
Martin Lau, University of London
Cultural studies have consistently explained the construction of group identity and the creation of social boundaries in South Asia in terms of religion. The focus on the caste system in particular has obscured the existence of a racial frame of reference in India: from Parsee leaders, who have manipulated genetic science in eugenic discourses of religious purity and race improvement, to nationalist leaders like Gandhi, who indigenized European racial theories, a diversity of writers in India have deployed racial definitions of difference.
The racialization of identity was linked to the development of British India's legal system, in which subjects and 'tribes' were often defined by references to 'race.' The use of Western racial theories in British India, however, was not always met with resistance from colonial subjects. On the contrary, appeals to pseudo-scientific notions of 'race' were often selectively appropriated and integrated in an already existing body of racial ideas about identity and difference. This paper will examine the emergence of racialized concepts of identity in South Asia with particular reference to the development of criminal law in British India.
Eugenics and Ideas of "Race" in Colonial India
Patrick McGinn, University of Wales, Cardiff
In recent years we have seen the growth of a considerable body of scholarship on the history and impact of eugenics (the pseudo-science of 'race' improvement), not just in Europe, but as far away as China. To date, however, there has been no attempt to study the impact of eugenics and indigenous conceptions of 'race' in India. This is despite the existence of numerous writings, from the 1920s onwards, calling for the implementation of eugenics programmes to counteract 'the physical degeneration of the race.' Whether it is Parsis believing that they were 'threatened with extirpation' or Bengali Hindus concerned about the Hindu 'race,' writers from diverse sections of Indian society saw eugenics as a solution. Well before the reception of eugenics in India, leading intellectuals, social reformers and orthodox Hindus were already articulating concerns about 'race' degeneration. From the 1880s at least, writers called for the protection of the cow, which was seen as a primary source of nutrition and therefore intricately bound up with the future of the 'race.' Similarly, social activists such as M. G. Ranade expressed concerns for the 'mother of the race' in the child-marriage debates of the same period. In the 1920s, M. K. Gandhi was asserting that early marriage was leading to the birth of 'weak and rickety children.' Nationalist critiques of Western racialized attitudes are well known. Less so is the fact that for many nationalists conceptions of 'race' were fundamental to their discursive engagement with colonialism. Since these ideas were in circulation before the impact of Western racial science and were not confined to English-educated elites, they offer a unique opportunity to explore issues which have long preoccupied cultural and intellectual historians of India, in particular the degree to which social and cultural change in India was determined by processes of Westernization.