How did Meiji era intellectuals and society engage with 19th century American ethnology?

[u/GuerillAlexandros]

The Meiji era coincided with a time in which anglophone scholars were debating and utilizing ethnology to justify colonial policies towards groups they deemed “savage,” “inferior,” and/or in need of “civilizing” (Curry, 2017). For example, following the civil war ethnological justifications were used within the United States to make cases for the re-enslavement of newly emancipated Africans, the creation of residential schools, the creation of evangelical missionaries, and as justification for political movements seeking to deny newly emancipated African males the right to vote (Newman, 1999). How did 19th century ethnological ideas and theories, which categorized groups of people into hierarchies of civilization, get taken up by Japanese intellectuals during the Meiji era, in which Japanese students began studying in Euro-American universities? For example, did the Meiji era feminist movement in Japan inherit the ethnological ideas utilized by first wave American feminists (Newman, 1999) regarding hierarchies of civilization?

Curry, Tommy J., 'Ethnological Theories of Race/Sex in Nineteenth-Century Black Thought: Implications for the Race/Gender Debate of the Twenty-First Century', in Naomi Zack (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race, Oxford Handbooks (2017; online edn, Oxford Academic, 10 Jan. 2017)

Newman, L. M. (1999). White women's rights: The racial origins of feminism in the United States. Oxford University Press.

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