Paper short abstract:

This paper examines recent trends of social anthropology of Korea in Japan in the following terms: educational / academic / socio-cultural backgrounds; academic / personal relations with Korean societies and individuals; reflexive approaches to academic traditions.

Paper long abstract:

Postwar Korean studies in Japanese anthropology have their direct origin in the full-scale field-based researches on South Korean rural society carried out in 1970's, which demarcated the restart of anthropology of Korea in Japan after the breaking-off for about two and a half decades following the liberation of Korea from the Japanese imperial rule. Anthropologists who started their academic career after 1980's were inspired by these pioneering works and were personally instructed by their authors.

It is true, however, that Japanese anthropology has drastically changed since 1980's, and it is accelerating multifold progress these days. Anthropology of Korea has also faced with changing domestic and global socio-economical environments and started groping for alternative subjects, themes and methods. Some examine impact of the industrialization on rural society and try to historicize their field experiences; some explore folk and modern religions in the rural and urban settings; some are engaged in overseas Koreans including Koreans in Japan and Korean Americans; some are interested in migrations or human flows in / out of / to South Korea as well as multiculturalism and transnationalism in the process of recent globalization; some are pursuing pre-modern and modern historiography from anthropological perspectives.

In this paper, we examine these recent trends of social anthropology (or social anthropologies) of Korea in Japan in the following terms: a) educational, academic and socio-cultural backgrounds; b) academic and personal relations with Korean societies and individuals; c) reflexive approaches to academic traditions of Korean studies in Japan.