ABSTRACT
It has been a fashion in recent discourses of anthropology to define it as a
Western discipline based on a hegemonic representation of colonial others,
especially in the non-West. Such a definition, however, precludes any possi-
bility of discussing the undeniable fact that anthropology, whatever forms it
may take, has existed in the non-West or has come to exist in many post-
colonial societies since World War II. Indeed, while it intends to be a cri-
tique of conventional anthropological practice, by lending Western
anthropology singular authority, it may end up endorsing and thereby perpetuating the existing power relations between the West and the rest. By
looking closely at how anthropology is practised and how the relationship
between the observer and the observed has been constructed in the case of
Korean anthropology of Japan, I would like to consider the possibility of an
alternative perspective, and a way of enriching the anthropology of Japan.
