ISBN:
978-3-86205-956-0
Language:
German
Pages:
27 Seiten
Titel der Quelle:
Japan 2019
Publ. der Quelle:
2019
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2019), Seite 203-229
Angaben zur Quelle:
year:2019
Angaben zur Quelle:
pages:203-229
DDC:
305
Keywords:
Upopoy - National Ainu Museum
;
Japan
;
Ainu
;
Vereinte Nationen Generalversammlung Declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples
;
Menschlicher Überrest
;
Restitution
Abstract:
Questioning Japan’s Recognition of the Ainu People as Indigenous: »New Ainu Law«, »Symbolic Space«, and the Quarrel over 1600 Human Remains In April 2020, just ahead of the Olympic/Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the Japanese government will open the »Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony« in Shiraoi (Hokkaido). The official reading says that in Shiraoi the Ainu indigenous rights legislation will be implemented step by step, and the process will be supported by the new Ainu law, which was adopted in April 2019. The symbolic space will consist of a national Ainu museum, a national ethnic harmony park where Ainu culture can be practiced, and a central depot for Ainu remains that are currently stored in Japanese and overseas institutions. From the perspective of many members of the Ainu community it is equally appalling that the remains of their ancestors will be stored in a concrete mausoleum, and that these remains will continue to be subjected to scientific research. They demand repatriation to local communities, and lawsuits filed against Hokkaido University have been quite successful so far. The first part of this article deals with the question: why did Japanese anatomists collect the remains of the Ainu? Racial theories of the eighteenth century were connected to social Darwinian ideas in the late nineteenth century and consequently, indigenous groups were perceived as doomed races. It was within this ideological framework that scholars worldwide collected the human remains of indigenous people. This also applies to Japan where since the Meiji period young academics were educated in Europe (for example, Yoshikiyo Koganei in Berlin). Another aspect of this paper is the treatment of the Ainu in Japanese legal history. It may come as a surprise that policies of forced assimilation began a century prior to the modern Meiji state with its well-known law of 1899, which addressed the Ainu as former Aborigines. For the first time in Japanese legislation the new Ainu law of April 2019 addresses the Ainu as indigenous. As recently as 2007, Japan supported the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This article discusses in some detail whether Japan is fulfilling its commitments to UNDRIP or, in other words: is the recognition of the Ainu in accordance with an international understanding of the term indigenous? In this regard the treatment of Ainu remains is one relevant matter among others.
DOI:
10.48796/20230704-009
URN:
urn:nbn:de:0308-20230704-009-3
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