A Study On Kunio Yanagita's Nihonjinron

Nihonjinron (Theories about the Japanese) is the theory that regards Japanese as the object of study, grasps Japanese culture holistically, and focuses on issues of cultural identity of the Japanese Nation. Therefore, it has important academic value and realistic significance for us to study Nihonjinron in order to delve and explain the nature and characters of the Japanese nation, country and even its overall culture. By applying the theories and methodologies of history, sociology, cultural anthropology and folklore, the thesis deals with the study of Kunio Yanagita's Nihonjinron which is based on Japanese folklore from the view of history of ideas and under the instruction of Marxist historical materialism and dialectical materialism to probe into the contents, nature and characters of Kunio Yanagita's Nihonjinron systematically.The thesis researches Yanagita's Nihonjinron that contains lifestyle and customs, social organization, folk-custom and religious beliefs, and his"new national studies"-based Japanese national statism. It analyzes the intercommunity of traditional life pattern in Yanagita's Nihonjinron from three aspects: basic necessities of life, festivals all the year round, and ceremonies of life. Meanwhile, it explores the community consciousness in Yanagita's Nihonjinron from three levels: family community, village community, and nation community, and shows the differences between the community consciousness and Japanese neoteric familial state theory. Then the thesis probes into the inner world of Japanese in Yanagita's Nihonjinron from clan god beliefs which are Japanese ancestor's beliefs, and presents the differences between Japanese folk Shinto and Japanese neoteric state Shinto. Furthermore, it anatomizes the essence of Yanagita's nation-state theory from three levels: Yanagita's ethnogeny, relationship between New National Studies and National Studies, and New National Studies as ideology, unfolds its nature as rational cultural nationalism, and also points out its limitations, such as Mikado worship, class conciliationism, and political nationalism.Kunio Yanagita's Nihonjinron is"self"construction of rational cultural nationalism, which differs from the"self"construction of occidentalism, nationalism, fascism and postwar democratism, and the"other"construction of cultural anthropology. It is a new pattern of constructing the new-era Japanese national cultural identity. Through the studies on Kunio Yanagita's folklore-based Nihonjinron, the thesis expands and deepens the research field of Nihonjinron, which provides not only a new perspective for the researches on Nihonjinron and Japanese culture characters, but also useful revelations for relieving the clash of different civilizations against the current background of economic globalization and promoting the co-existence of heterogeneous cultures.