The Japanese and Dutch anthropology of insular South-East Asia in the colonial period 1879-1949

The name South-East Asia has come into use in the second half of the 20th century. During the British and Dutch colonial era the area was called the ‘East Indies’ or the ‘Malay archipelago’. This chapter examines the Japanese and Dutch anthropology of insular Asia, mostly South-East Asia. It is fixed on the colonial period, which in the case of these countries may be said to fall between 1879, the year of the incorporation of Okinawa by Japan and 1949, the year in which the Netherlands ceded rule over the Dutch East Indies to the Republic of Indonesia.