Despite the voluminous research conducted on race, the majority of studies have been framed within paradigms that stem from Atlantic colonial and post-colonial experiences. These paradigms prioritize the significance of skin color and other phenotypical differences, as well as the historical concept of the "one-drop rule." In this lecture, the speaker aims to examine the modalities of racialization in Asia, particularly in Japan, where the majority of marginalized and racialized groups are phenotypically indistinguishable. She will also discuss her experiences of leading a large-scale collaboration projet she has led: through a series of international joint research projects conducted over the past two decades, the speaker will explore the similarities and differences in the modalities of racialization between groups with distinct phenotypical differences and those without. The goal of this research is to intervene in the global discourse on race and broaden our understanding of race beyond the Atlantic paradigm.

Yasuko TAKEZAWA is Emeritus Professor at Kyoto University, and Professor at Kansai University of Foreign Languages, Japan. She has been working for more than thirty years on issues concerning racialization processes and racism, which she first studied in the case of the United States. For almost two decades she has led a transdisciplinary Japanese national research project Kaken on this topic, with an international team, about Japan and other East Asian countries, in a comparative perspective with Europe and the United States.