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Paper short abstract

Analyzing Torii Ryūzō’s anthropological survey in colonial Korea, this paper examines how he “measured the living” using photography. It argues that photography was crucial to construct the racial origins of both the colonized and the colonizer, revealing the imperial appropriation of science.

Paper long abstract

Shortly after Japan’s annexation of Korea, the Japanese anthropologist, Torii Ryūzō (1870-1953) was commissioned by the Government General to investigate the new colony and its people. Throughout the 1910s, he traveled across the entire Korean peninsula to conduct an extensive study that ranged from ethnology, history, and archaeology to physical anthropology. All these were integral parts of his synthesized research concept, “jinshugaku.” As he stated in 1912, he considered physical anthropology, or, study of “Rassenanatomie” to be the most important element, both for his research on Koreans and for his overall study of jinshu. To this end, he left behind not only extensive research data but also a vast corpus of photographs – largely corresponding to the so-called anthropometric photography of his time.

Situating the photographs from Torii’s fieldworks within the context of the global history of science and scientific imagery, this paper examines the dynamics between visuality and anthropological knowledge production. I argue that the photographs were the result of the global circulation of European racial science and its methodologies that were deeply connected to a Eurocentric racist view. Furthermore, the analysis sheds light on the global process of appropriation and divergence of racial science and photography that were mobilized to define the racial origins of not only the colonized but also of the colonizer.