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The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies

Indianisation and Racialisation of the Japanese Outcaste

Bibliographic Data

ID12349278
AuthorsTimothy D Amos (0000-0002-8484-2963, National University of Singapore, corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume41
Issue4
Pages577-593
Publication date2017-09-11
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAsian Studies Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1035-7823 • E-ISSN: 1467-8403
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10357823.2017.1365816
OpenAlexW2755494477
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited37

Premodern Japanese and Western writers both pointed out the similitude between Indian so-called untouchables (poleas, candala, pariah) and Japan’s largest outcaste group (eta, kawata, kawaramono). These bodies of discourse also reveal another striking interpretative similarity: a move towards “racialising” whereby early modern Japanese outcaste difference came to be framed as originating in an alleged foreign-ness. Given the relative absence of sustained intellectual exchange between Western and Japanese writers during this period concerning questions of pollution, untouchability, and the origins of taxonomical divisions, these coetaneous strands of discourse are best interpreted as emerging out of distinct intellectual trajectories devised for varying political ends. What is more, prior to the emergence of these racialising discourses, outcaste groups themselves also fashioned “origin stories” that sometimes linked their ancestors to India through mytho-historical connections. These stories, initially designed as religious justification for one’s right to engage in certain activities within nearby temples and shrines, generated a range of material and conceptual markers that later came to serve as evidence of the racially distinct origins of these communities, a belief widely held into the twentieth century

Aesthetics · Pariah group · Period (music · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subaltern · Subject (documents · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Colonial History and Postcolonial Studies · Gender Studies · History · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy

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Unique citing works3
Citations per year0,6
Citation span2021 - 2025 (5)
Citation velocityrecent
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 3
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