Timothy D Amos
Biographic Data
| ID | 1265178 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy D Amos |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy D |
| FAMILY NAME | Amos |
| SIGNATURE | AMOS T D |
| AFFILIATIONS | National University of Singapore |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8484-2963 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Confrontation and Freedom
This paper analyzes the evolution of kyūdan (denunciation campaigns) in Japan’s Buraku liberation movement from the 1920s to the present. Initially a grassroots tactic of moral confrontation in the absence of legal remedies, kyūdan enabled Burakumin to challenge discriminatory acts, combat institutional complicity, and assert dignity. Over time, the practice shifted from targeting individuals to confronting state agencies and institutions, becomi…
Doing Violence to Buraku History
We are researchers with strong concerns about J. Mark Ramseyer's (hereafter JMR) article "On the Invention of Identity Politics: The Buraku Outcastes in Japan." We are active in various disciplines and have published work on aspects of Buraku history and literature, as well as the history of slums, deviance, and marginality. The article comprises one part of a larger body of writing by JMR in recent years that has been critiqued and refuted for i…
Contested liberation
10.1080/09555803.2019.1594339
Caste in Early Modern Japan
"Caste", a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and military…
Caste in Early Modern Japan
"'Caste', a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and militar…
The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies
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 s…
Voice, Silence, and Self
Reviewed by: Voice, Silence, and Self: Negotiations of Buraku Identity in Contemporary Japan by Christopher Bondy Timothy David Amos (bio) Voice, Silence, and Self: Negotiations of Buraku Identity in Contemporary Japan. By Christopher Bondy. Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge MA, 2015. xvi, 184 pages. $39.95. Are burakumin a Japanese minority group? The standard answer to this problem is of course “yes,” the proof being that there are many…
Fighting the Taboo Cycle
This article explores the historical significance of an incident reported in the international media in 2009 when Burakumin groups raised concerns about privacy and possible human rights abuses in relation to a new map service offered by Google. Reportage at the time indicated that historical maps containing references to outcaste settlements could be laid over contemporary maps to disclose the exact location of contemporary Buraku districts. A t…
Asakusa ‘Newtown
This paper examines the historical transformation of urban outcaste areas into commoner neighbourhoods in early modern/modern Japan. Focusing on Tokyo's largest early modern outcaste community, an Asakusa area referred to as Shinchō (literally ‘Newtown’), the paper argues that a combination of factors, namely the historical processes of urbanization, status group consolidation, labour specialization, capital accumulation, and inter-status group n…
Household registration and the dismantling of Edo outcaste cultures
This chapter discusses early Meiji attempts to reform registration practices and the establishment and enactment of the 1871 Household Registration Law. It explores how this law hastened the dismantling of the Edo outcaste order, prompting the creation of other related pieces of legislation, and disempowering outcastes in seemingly intractable ways. Population registration in Japan based on the 'ko' or 'household' that is rooted in an older East …
Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan
10.1080/10371397.2013.816239
The Buraku Issue and Modern Japan
Liberty Osaka
10.1080/15350771003741972
Binding Burakumin
This article examines the way Japanese historians arrived at an increasingly uniform understanding of Buraku history over the course of the twentieth century. It analyses in detail the continuities and changes in pre-war perspectives on Burakumin and the roles renowned historians like Inoue Kiyoshi played in the development of a particular understanding of Buraku history in the early post-war period. This paper argues that Inoue's intervention in…
Outcaste or Internal Exile? Ambiguous Bodies in the Making of Modern Japan
Based on more orthodox interpretations of ‘exile’ such as those put forward by Edward Said, many similarities can be drawn between the ideas of exile- particularly the notion of internal exile - and the outcaste that we see in the form of the Dalit in India. In this paper, we will firstly analyse the conceptual linkages between ‘exile’, ‘outcast’, and ‘outcaste’, highlighting both points of interchangeableness and departure for these notions as t…
Fighting the Taboo Cycle
This article explores the historical significance of an incident reported in the international media in 2009 when Burakumin groups raised concerns about privacy and possible human rights abuses in relation to a new map service offered by Google. Reportage at the time indicated that historical maps containing references to outcaste settlements could be laid over contemporary maps to disclose the exact location of contemporary Buraku districts. A t…
Binding Burakumin
This article examines the way Japanese historians arrived at an increasingly uniform understanding of Buraku history over the course of the twentieth century. It analyses in detail the continuities and changes in pre-war perspectives on Burakumin and the roles renowned historians like Inoue Kiyoshi played in the development of a particular understanding of Buraku history in the early post-war period. This paper argues that Inoue's intervention in…
Outcaste or Internal Exile? Ambiguous Bodies in the Making of Modern Japan
Based on more orthodox interpretations of ‘exile’ such as those put forward by Edward Said, many similarities can be drawn between the ideas of exile- particularly the notion of internal exile - and the outcaste that we see in the form of the Dalit in India. In this paper, we will firstly analyse the conceptual linkages between ‘exile’, ‘outcast’, and ‘outcaste’, highlighting both points of interchangeableness and departure for these notions as t…
Binding Burakumin
This article examines the way Japanese historians arrived at an increasingly uniform understanding of Buraku history over the course of the twentieth century. It analyses in detail the continuities and changes in pre-war perspectives on Burakumin and the roles renowned historians like Inoue Kiyoshi played in the development of a particular understanding of Buraku history in the early post-war period. This paper argues that Inoue's intervention in…
Liberty Osaka
10.1080/15350771003741972
The Buraku Issue and Modern Japan
Genealogy and Marginal Status in Early Modern Japan
10.1080/10371397.2013.816239
Household registration and the dismantling of Edo outcaste cultures
This chapter discusses early Meiji attempts to reform registration practices and the establishment and enactment of the 1871 Household Registration Law. It explores how this law hastened the dismantling of the Edo outcaste order, prompting the creation of other related pieces of legislation, and disempowering outcastes in seemingly intractable ways. Population registration in Japan based on the 'ko' or 'household' that is rooted in an older East …
Fighting the Taboo Cycle
This article explores the historical significance of an incident reported in the international media in 2009 when Burakumin groups raised concerns about privacy and possible human rights abuses in relation to a new map service offered by Google. Reportage at the time indicated that historical maps containing references to outcaste settlements could be laid over contemporary maps to disclose the exact location of contemporary Buraku districts. A t…
Asakusa ‘Newtown
This paper examines the historical transformation of urban outcaste areas into commoner neighbourhoods in early modern/modern Japan. Focusing on Tokyo's largest early modern outcaste community, an Asakusa area referred to as Shinchō (literally ‘Newtown’), the paper argues that a combination of factors, namely the historical processes of urbanization, status group consolidation, labour specialization, capital accumulation, and inter-status group n…
The Subaltern Subject and Early Modern Taxonomies
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 s…
Voice, Silence, and Self
Reviewed by: Voice, Silence, and Self: Negotiations of Buraku Identity in Contemporary Japan by Christopher Bondy Timothy David Amos (bio) Voice, Silence, and Self: Negotiations of Buraku Identity in Contemporary Japan. By Christopher Bondy. Harvard University Asia Center, Cambridge MA, 2015. xvi, 184 pages. $39.95. Are burakumin a Japanese minority group? The standard answer to this problem is of course “yes,” the proof being that there are many…
Caste in Early Modern Japan
"Caste", a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and military…
Caste in Early Modern Japan
"'Caste', a word normally used in relation to the Indian subcontinent, is rarely associated with Japan in contemporary scholarship. This has not always been the case, and the term was often used among earlier generations of scholars, who introduced the Buraku problem to Western audiences. Amos argues that time for reappraisal is well overdue and that a combination of ideas, beliefs, and practices rooted in Confucian, Buddhist, Shinto, and militar…
Contested liberation
10.1080/09555803.2019.1594339
Doing Violence to Buraku History
We are researchers with strong concerns about J. Mark Ramseyer's (hereafter JMR) article "On the Invention of Identity Politics: The Buraku Outcastes in Japan." We are active in various disciplines and have published work on aspects of Buraku history and literature, as well as the history of slums, deviance, and marginality. The article comprises one part of a larger body of writing by JMR in recent years that has been critiqued and refuted for i…
Confrontation and Freedom
This paper analyzes the evolution of kyūdan (denunciation campaigns) in Japan’s Buraku liberation movement from the 1920s to the present. Initially a grassroots tactic of moral confrontation in the absence of legal remedies, kyūdan enabled Burakumin to challenge discriminatory acts, combat institutional complicity, and assert dignity. Over time, the practice shifted from targeting individuals to confronting state agencies and institutions, becomi…
Japanese History and Culture (13 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · History (8 works) · Chinese history and philosophy (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · Geography (4 works)