Abstract
This paper aims to present the complex issue of the social construction of the "Japanese", the "Korean" and "the Others". This issue is put into perspective of the anthropology of post-colonialism alongside the idea of "national cultural heritage".
First, I will examine the relationship dynamics between the Japanese and the Koreans during the colonial and the post-colonial era: we should remember that the Meiji Japan scholarship was heavily influenced by the Western currents in anthropology and therefore Koreans are at the same time "brothers" and "the natives next door" (van Bremen and Shimizu, 1999). Second, I will deal with changing triangular dynamics "the Japanese - the Koreans - the Others" in relation to the foreign travelers, Western idea of modernity or the non-native anthropologist, following the reasoning of Kuřík (2013).
By exploring these facets, I would be able to relate the anthropological study of Japanese post-colonialism to the colonial urban development model by Anthony King (1976), based on the "man-environment" principle. I will show how the conceptualization of the "japaneseness", the "koreaness", "the Other" and "national cultural heritage" shapes the anthropological study of the Japanese post-colonialism on the example of my PhD thesis on colonial urban heritage and city branding in contemporary Incheon and Kobe.