Reconsidering "Modernity" from an Ethnological Point of View : An Analysis of Ethnographic Photo-Archives

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This international joint research aims to trace the historical transformation of the life of peoples of the world and to describe the changes of images other cultures held by the West and the Japanese during the last 150 years by means of ethnographic photo-archives of the British museum and the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka. A compatible image detabase was constructed and shared by the two institutes. The results of the joint research based on the data base can be summarized as follows.First, processes of transformation of the life of various ethnic groups, especially of Africa and Oceania, have been reconstructed ; the British Museum's photo-archives have the strongest collection of images as for these two regions.Second, as a result of comparative studies of photographs of diferent regions and ages, detail aspects of global modernization have been clarified. We could even identified several common cultural elements which have been accepted coincidentally throughout the world as symbols of modernization. These findings urge us to reconsider the conventional divisions between the West and the Non-West, the modern and the traditional, and the changing and the changeless.Third, the changes of ethnological recognition of 'other cultures' since the middle of 19th century have also been explicated. It was quite a revelation that the changes of the expressive way of ethnographic photographs parallel the development of ethnological/anthropological theories.As a whole, the major purpose of the joint research project, that is to historicize ethnology/anthropology has fully been accomplished. Some of the results of the project have already been publicized in the form of the special exhibition 'Images of Other Cultures' which marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of the National Museum of Ethnology, as well as in the catalog of the same title.