Rethinking ‘race’ from Asian perspectives

A Critical Assessment of Comparative Sociology of Race and Ethnicity

“…The critique of Occidentalism is salient in other research. Arguing that Western scholarship defines race too narrowly, Yasuko Takezawa (2005Takezawa ( , 2015a identifies three dimensions that she proffers are particularly relevant for race studies in East Asia: race (r), Race (R), and Race as Resistance (RR). Race in lowercase refers to indigenous social, economic, and political stratifications based on notions of inherited and largely static physical characteristics.…”

“…While Takezawa (2015aTakezawa ( , 2015b acknowledges that Western notions of race, particularly conceptions of civilizational hierarchy and aesthetic values based on race, heavily influenced East Asian societies beginning in the late nineteenth century, a running theme of her work is the way that East Asian intellectuals and leaders adapted Western notions to their nation-building purposes. In a fascinating study of geography textbooks from the first half of the Meiji period, many of which were translations from Western sources, she argues that Japanese translators and textbook writers adopted elements of Western concepts of race but often strategically omitted and altered these concepts to suit Japanese geopolitical and nation-building agendas, particularly in the third decade of the Meiji period.…”