This research project focuses on health seeking practices of the Ainu, the Indigenous peoples of northern Japan and eastern Russia. Specifically, I am interested in how the Ainu seek out mental health care in Japan. Due to the Ainu’s historical subjugation as a primitive people with a distinct biological and psychic constitution from the Japanese as well as their forceful and violent assimilation into Japanese society, the Ainu have a complex relationship with the Japanese healthcare system. Through ethnographic fieldwork and archival research, I ask: How does one receive or provide care in this milieu? How do people with Ainu heritage navigate a society marked by colonial violence, erasure, and racialization?

I came to this project through working with families who have Ainu heritage, as well as my own Korean background in Japan. My experience as a social worker in Japan also provided important insights into patterned run-ins with psychiatric institutions, as well as the how Japanese healthcare and welfare institutions racialized non-Japanese patients.

Having Ainu ancestry and/or identity is not immediately visible to Japanese medical and state institutions today. Ethnicity and race are not factored into medical practice or training, nor are they demographic categories for cataloguing Japanese citizenry (such as in the census or family register). Despite this seemingly structural blindness to non-Japanese histories and identities, many of my interlocutors came to identify themselves as Ainu while navigating these institutions and searching for care. They came to this understanding in several different ways: facing discrimination, seeing previously unknown documents about oneself and/or family, or an expert (such as an anthropologist) confirming a previously held suspicion about ethnic difference.

What caught my attention was how concretely such knowledge was tied to and changed my interlocutors’ relationship with their body, particularly their hair. The

Indigenous peoples north of Japan and northeast of China have been characterized by their hairiness. Beginning from the mid-19th century, hairiness became a physical trait distinct to the Ainu as Japan colonized what would come to be known as Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and parts of the Kurile Islands. Although I was aware of this history and the continued relevance hairiness has to the experience of those with Ainu heritage and identities, I was unaware of how being Ainu (or having Ainu heritage), hairiness, and care were so intimately intertwined. At times, hairiness was something that could potentially out a person as having Ainu heritage, such as in a medical interaction where one must expose their body to a practitioner. In another instance, hair mediated a relationship between a mother and daughter where they would share techniques and strategies to get rid of or hide one’s hair and Ainu identity. And yet in another instance, hair was a proud marker of one’s Ainu-ness and solidarity.

This project addresses multiple issues in science and medicine. One dimension not immediately visible in this short blog post is its attention to technology, particularly those related to aesthetics and beauty. Attending to quotidian tools such as razors raise questions on how gender and race are not only embodied, but mediated and expressed through objects, such as when women with Ainu heritage complain about needing to use men’s razors (that have 5~6 blades) as opposed to women’s razors (that have 3~4 blades) due to their thicker hair compared to non-Ainu women. Furthermore, the development of technology, such as laser or pulsed light hair removal machines, grow out of a particular understanding of hair and skin. That is, how much hair is acceptable and where that hair is located. Moving forward, I wish to further attend to how technologies emerge and are used in a particular social milieu of policies (e.g., how the Japanese Medical Care Act defines aesthetic vs. medical hair removal), education (e.g., beauty schools), and economy (e.g., insurance coverage) within the history of colonial Japan.