Chapter Seventeen Anatomically Speaking: The Kubo Incident and the Paradox of Race in Colonial Korea

Abstract

In this chapter, the author argues that this seemingly innocuous academic brouhaha, which came to be known as the Kubo Incident, holds the key to the understanding of the paradox of race in colonial Korea under Japanese rule. In the process of discrediting ill-founded academic racism that, with the help of the scientific outlook of physical anthropology provided a justification for discrimination against Koreans within the Japanese empire, Korean students and intellectuals unwittingly internalized racial ideas and subsequently strengthened the flip-side of the Japanese racial discourse that emphasized the racial affinity between the Koreans and the Japanese. In analyzing the Kubo Incident, which poignantly reveals the pervasiveness of racial discourse in colonial Korea, the chapter fills a gap left by the recent surge in research on Japanese anthropology and its role in Japan's colonial endeavor. Keywords:anthropologists; colonial Korea; Japanese empire; Kubo incident