Content area
Full Text
EMBODYING DIFFERENCE: The Making of Burakumin in Modern Japan. By Timothy D. Amos. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2011. xii, 302 pp. (Graphs, maps.) US$33.00, paper. ISBN 978-0-8248-35798.
Timothy Amos has written a long-needed examination in English surrounding the complexity of the origins of the burakumin, Japan's largest minority group. Rejecting the standard narrative of an unbroken connection between the numerous outcaste groups in premodern Japan and the burakumin today, Amos points us to a history that was far more complex. In introducing the historical path on which he takes the reader, he notes that "burakumin do not simply represent a fixed, clearly delineable outcaste minority group, which has existed in a relatively constant form through Japanese history" (22).
The work traces historical ideas and categories surrounding the burakumin over time. While the text itself progresses chronologically, the conceptual understanding of the modern burakumin is unpacked, reconsidered and reevaluated at various points in time. Amos demonstrates that the historical predecessors of the burakumin are not based on contemporary understandings of the term, and should be considered through the experiences and histories of various outcaste groups. As he rightly alerts us, "Burakumin is essentially a twentieth century Japanese term which has come to categrorize a number of diverse socially distinct populations into one common group" (22).
The monograph begins with an overall theoretical discussion of buraku issues, including a comparison with Dalit in India. In chapter 2, the author challenges the master narrative that there is a straight line between specific groups and the...