‘Class and “Race”. . . the two antinomic poles of a permanent dialectic’: Racialization, racism and resistance in Japan

Abstract

Despite the pervasive social constructivist turn, regardless of some exceptions, discussions of race, racialization and racism continue to focus on the relatively essentialist White/non-White binary. In this article, I move from the White/non-White binary to consider the dynamics and practices of racialization, racism and racial conflicts in Japan where there are no phenotypical distinctions between the dominant and the main racialized minority groups – the Burakumin, the Ainu, the Okinawans, the Zainichi Koreans and the Chinese. The main argument made in this article is that in Japan, class and power inequalities generated by colonialism, the division of labour, adoption and the deployment of the dominant Western 19th-century discourse of ‘scientific racism’ contributed to ‘racial formations’, ‘racial projects’ and the construction of the racialized boundaries that fuelled and continue to compete over material and non-material resources. A historical sociology of the permanent dialectic between class and race in Japan is offered in this article.