Tourists, Anthropologists and Visions of Indigenous Society in Japan

This chapter addresses how the seemingly disparate practices of tourism, anthropological research on Ainu bodies, and control over cultural representations were united through the telescoping effects of colonial power. During the rise of urban middle classes and the founding of the Japan Tourist Bureau in 1912, cultural diversity was transformed into an object of pleasure for mass consumption and urbanites became frequent travelers in the northern regions. Ainu who were subjected to the tourist gaze, however, placed their critique of this objectification (misemonoka) at the center of their movement for human rights and dignity. In almost identical language, their Ainu peers rejected researcher prerogatives in using Ainu bodies as “physical material for research”.