Yanagita Kunio

Traduction
Fujii Takashi. Une modernité inachevée : pourquoi les Contes de Tōno de Yanagita Kunio sont lus aujourd’hui. In: Ebisu,
n°44, 2010. La modernisation du Japon revisitée. Que reste-t-il de l’approche moderniste ? [Sous la responsabilité
éditoriale de Christine Lévy] pp. 137-156;

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The complete Second Revised Edition of Yanagita Kunio and Japanese Folkore Studies in the 21st Century is available at https://repository.crossasia.org/receive/crossasia_mods_00000015

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The complete Second Revised Edition of Yanagita Kunio and Japanese Folkore Studies in the 21st Century is available at https://repository.crossasia.org/receive/crossasia_mods_00000015

In the nationalism’s toolbox, mythology is one of the most useful and productive tools for the construction of national identity. Mythic tales provide a sense of “essence” for the nation; in a way, they symbolize the “roots” for the members of nation. Because of this valuable meaning, pre-nationalist /nationalist thinkers revive and reproduce these narratives according to their agenda. By the revival of mythic stories, a
discoursal link which works as cement between the nation and the selected ethnic group is created. Among these, especially the myths on genesis are functional for building a family-nation concept which enhances solidarity and unity between the members of the nation. Being a country with a rich culture and strong historical roots, Japan has a great variety of mythic stories in its literature. In an attempt to discover
the links between the myths and the discoursal construction of  Japanese nation and Japanese national identity, this study focuses on the Tale of Izanagi and Izanami, Amaterasu-ōmikami, Ukemochi-no-kami, and Jimmu Tennō. These myths were revived first by Motoori, who is a pre-nationalist thinker, and then by Yanagito Kunio, who is a Meiji period nationalist; therefore, it is also important to analyze the relations between these myths and the discourses of these nationalist thinkers.
Considering that the details of the mythic stories contain many hints about Japanese minzoku (“nation”) and kazoku kokka (“family-nation”) concepts, a review of these tales from the viewpoint of political science can also depict the “nature” of nationalism with more vibrant colors.

In this paper, I offers an unconventional interpretation of the thought of Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962), an influential Japanese intellectual popularly known as the founder of the discipline of folklore (minzokugaku). I argue that,notwithstanding the popular conception of Yanagita as a chief advocate of Japanese exceptionalism, he can be characterized as an intellectual heir to the European Enlightenment tradition and that the  influence  of  Enlightenment thought on his intellectual project is substantial and consequential to the extent that, without taking the former into consideration the nature of the latter cannot be fully grasped. Then, I suggest that the intellectual lineage has been neglected because of partial--in both partial reading of his texts.

Article analysant les raisons épistémologiques pour lesquelles la réappropriation (traduit ici par 自主的利用) par les populations locales reste une pratique difficile, bien que souhaitée, dans le champ de l'ethno-folklore japonais 民俗学, et par extension pour toute approche émique en ethnologie.
Cet article ouvre un ouvrage collectif publié en l'honneur de mon ancien directeur de thèse japonais, le Pr. SANO Kenji, parti en retraite de l'Université de Kanagawa au printemps 2021.

Working paper poursuivant ma réflexion sur la possibilité d'une approche comparative sur l'épistémologie du sujet en ethnologie, à partir de l'expérience de la minzokugaku de Yanagita.
Source : 比較民俗研究 : Asian folklore studies, 2012, nᵒ 27, p. 162‑165.

In the 1930s, Kunio Yanagita, founder of Japanese folklore, proposed an ambitious project called  "global folkloristics" in order to create a space for dialogue open to all scholars throughout the world so that different kinds of knowledge produced in different parts of the world could be exchanged on an equal basis. Yanagita's ideal is beginning to be realized today in such projects as "world anthropology" and the creation of an international organization of foklore societies.

Kyuzo Kato
N. A. NEVSKY AND V. V. RADLOV:
THEIR RESEARCH METHODS IN ETHNIC CULTURES
It is known that it was from his teacher, Leo Sternberg, that
N. Nevsky absorbed the so-called ‘ethnolinguistic’ research
method which was popular in the Russian academic world in
the late 19th–early 20th centuries. The paper argues that the
‘Sternbergian’ research method was in fact introduced to Russia
by Vasily V. Radlov, Sternberg’s teacher. Thus Nevsky
inherited that research method from V. V. Radlov through Sternberg.
(Перевод с японского языка Е. Бакшеева //
Като Кюдзо (加藤九祚)
О МЕТОДАХ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ
НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫХ КУЛЬТУР
У Н. А. НЕВСКОГО И В. В. РАДЛОВА)

Comparaison épistémologique des approches de Yanagita Kunio et de Fukuta Ajio dans le traitement du "sujet"
2 premières pages de l'article. Texte complet paru en juin 2019 dans le collectif "Recherches sur Yanagita Kunio, Volume 8" 『柳田国男研究8  柳田国男以後・民俗学の再生に向けて』【特集１＝福田アジオの民俗学をめぐって】
https://www.shinsensha.com/books/2548/

Traduction du titre : "La révolution cognitive de Yanagita Kunio à travers l’irrationnel : une réflexion épistémologique sur le sujet et le savoir".
in 『柳田国男の学問は変革の思想たりうるか』柳田国男研究７、2014.3.
ｐ・166−179
（冒頭の４ページ）
http://www.shinsensha.com/detail_html/01zinbun/6329-2.html

This paper explores the role of language in the works of Japanese Native Ethnology (minzokugaku) pioneer Yanagita Kunio (1875–1962) and its ramifications for the discipline he founded.
In Yanagita’s model, a set of shared emotions and experiences makes up the inner core of a given group’s culture. Language serves as a means to com- municate and negotiate this inner core. But since the emotions and experiences shift and evolve constantly, group members must engage in ‘language-making’, an ongoing subconscious process of collective creativity that necessarily lags behind this development. Attempts undertaken by the central government to enforce common linguistic standards in order to promote national unity at the expense of local linguistic autonomy are, according to Yanagita, inherently counterproductive, for it is the rural dialects and the non-verbal traditional habits where ethnic identity has its proper and authentic place. Therefore, the ethnologist’s task is more to develop empathy with the inner core of the studied culture than to analyze and to sketch theories.
This paper argues that Yanagita’s idea that the inner workings of the culture of a given group – in this case the members of rural village communities – could not be fully described verbally and therefore were not entirely accessible to outsiders – including researchers educated in urban centres like Tokyo – may have contributed to the discipline’s tendency to prefer collecting and cataloguing data over critical analysis and theorization. The unreflected accumulation of folk terms in particular might have hampered the development of clear definitions and a scientific meta-language, thus limiting the discipline’s ability to engage in interdisciplinary, let alone intercultural dialogue.

JRCA (Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology) is the official English journal of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology. Beginning with Volume 16 (March 2016), JRCA carries a new series called "Anthropology and Folklore in Japan." In this introduction is explained the historical relationship between the two disciplines.

Traduction et présentation.
Iketani Takumi. Musashino et les débats autour de la recherche sur les terroirs. In: Ebisu, n°34, 2005. pp. 125-146;

This article is about the antagonism between Yanagita Kunio and Torii Ryûzô, two leading scholars in the field of Japanese ethnology in the beginning of the 20th Century. Yanagita Kunio and Torii opposed on the Musashino Society, founded by Torii in 1917 and enrolling up to hundreds of members at a time. This study provides a unique overview on the evolution of Yanagita's research orientation shift at the end the 1910's. Whereas until that time, Yanagita's research focused on groups situated at the cultural limbs of the Japanese archipelago, from that time on, he felt the necessity to define his scientific approach for a better understanding of the local traditional culture.