Change of Ainu images in Japan: A reflexive study of pre‐war and post‐war photo‐images of Ainu

The depiction of the Ainu in photography, as created and circulated in Japanese (Wajin) society, provides us with a channel to investigate cultural change in Japan from the Meiji era on. Ethnographic data about the Ainu can be extracted from these photographs; however, my interest lies less in what these photographs show about the Ainu than what they show about the Japanese. In this paper, I emphasize the possibility of investigating the photographer's view of the “other,” and the viewers’ construction of self‐other relations from photo‐images. I attempt to trace the disparity in Ainu's depictions with respect to the changes in Japanese society before and after World War II, in order to explain the polemic nihonjinron (discussions of Japaneseness) in relation to the “otherness” of the Ainu.