| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
YOSHIDA Kenji Museum Anthropology Department Professor, 博物館民族学研究部, 教授 (10192808)
KONDO Masaki Research Development Professor, 民族学研究開発センター, 教授 (40225628)
HATA Nobuyuki Museum Anthropology Department Professor, 博物館民族学研究部, 教授 (90044742)
KISHIGAMI Nobuhiro Advanced Studies in Anthropology Associate Professor, 先端民族学研究部, 助教授 (60214772)
KINOSHITA Naoyuki University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology Associate Professor, 人文社会系研究科, 助教授 (30292858)
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| Research Abstract |
Three years research project was carried on in order to understand how Japan has been represented in museums abroad. In the first year, museums in Europe, North America, East Asia, and Oceania have extensively been investigated. In the second and the last years, our investigation focussed mostly on Asian countries. In total, 26 countries, 67 cities and 163 museums have been examined in this study.
Our investigation revealed that there are three types of representation of Japan. In many European and American museums, we encountered a "stereotyped" representation of Japanese culture, with traditional art and crafts. In other words, they re-produce the image that most people have on Japan, In Asia, on the other hand, cultural aspects of Japan are neglected. The heart of the representation is Japan within the context of conflicts, especially in connection with the World War II.The last type is to represent Japanese people as minority, such as American Japanese or Canadian Japanese.
It is needless to say that there are many varieties within these three classifications, and each member of this research project is publicizing knowledge and information acquired during the field investigations. Some made articles on museums or on exhibitions, while the others discuss cultural representation in general. Besides these individual publications, a final report gathering the results of the field surveys has just been published.
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