Critical Race Theory in Japan

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K02072
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: History of thought
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: LEE HYODUK 東京外国語大学, 大学院総合国際学研究院, 教授 (90292721)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 人種主義 / 差別 / ポスロコニアル / 国民国家 / 植民地主義

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study is an attempt to explore the intrinsic workability of the concept of racism in Japan through the genealogical examination and the analysis of its actualization in Western countries. The exploration reveals that it was originally created to criticize the Nazis’ racial tenet. After WWII “racism” became a critical key concept in international society to make an accusation of civil rights violation based on racial, ethnic or national differences by the expansion of the reference via not only a regret of a large scale genocide such as Shoah but the rise of decolonization movement in Asia and Africa and public problematization of social exclusion against non-European inhabitants and immigrants in Europe and the U.S. The racialist regime which was constructed in nation-building process in Japan still remains after losing in the WWII, which was constructed through official nationalism by mimicking the way they had built modern states.

Free Research Field

社会思想史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

反セム主義と反黒人主義という二つの主要な人種主義がなぜ独立して認識され、研究されてきたのかを歴史的に明らかにする一方、そこに共通する社会的排除の機序を理論的に解明した。そこから人種差別として認識されながらその根拠が必ずしも明示されていない日本をはじめとする今日の世界で多発しているヘイトクライム、ヘイトスピーチを人種主義として認識し、分析して批判する理論的アプローチを提示した。