Opinion statement for the trial over the restitution of Ryukyuan human remains

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  • 琉球民族遺骨返還訴訟への意見書
  • リュウキュウ ミンゾク イコツ ヘンカン ソショウ エノ イケンショ

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Abstract

This is an opinion paper which I submitted to the Kyoto District Courts regarding a trial over a claim for the restitution of the Ryukyuan human remains held in Kyoto University. First, tracing a genealogy of modern anthropological studies of human bones, I argue that the anthropologists in Kyoto Imperial University were characterized by a strong concern for the extensive collection of human remains for advanced statistical analyses. Second, I demonstrate that the Ryukyuan human remains in Kyoto Imperial University were collected by two anthropologists, Kanaseki Takeo in the Anatomy Laboratory in 1929 and Miyake Soetsu in the Pathology Laboratory in 1933, and that only the bones collected by the latter have been kept in Kyoto University because the former ones were transferred to Taipei Imperial University before 1945. Lastly, contrasting the "ease" with which human remains were collected in the southern islands with the care taken in Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu, I describe their approach as a "colonial double standard" in which laws and ethics were not observed in the pursuit of "pure" scientific activity.

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  • 評論・社会科学

    評論・社会科学 (134), 141-177, 2020-09-30

    The Association of Social Studies, Doshisha University

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