Korea, Japan, and the Vienna School: Political Impacts on Scholarship at the Dawn of East Asian Ethnology

This issue of Korea Europe Review examines the complex interplay between Japanese colonialism, the Vienna School of Ethnology, and the development of East Asian ethnology. The guest editors present a series of original articles exploring how Japanese scholars, influenced by the Vienna School’s methodologies, navigated the political landscape to shape discourse on Japanese-Korean ethnic relations. Through the works of figures like Wilhelm Schmidt, Oka Masao, and Alexander Slawik, the issue highlights how academic frameworks were adapted, sometimes to justify colonial ideologies and at other times to foster new understandings of cultural origins and ethnic identity.