There is a view that defines Buraku and Burakumin based on “occupation and descent.” This view is based on Article 1 of the 1965 United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD):
1. In this Convention, the term “racial discrimination” shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent (seikei:世系), or national or ethnic origin which has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life.
Descent is used in only this one place in the Convention as a manifestation of racism based on a constructivist understanding.
Furthermore, there is the first item under “Examples of Measures” in ICERD’s General Recommendation No. 29 on “Discrimination Based on Descent.” This recommendation calls on states parties to take measures to identify groups (descent-based communities) that suffer “discrimination based on the caste system or similar systems of hereditary status.” This is guidance on the interpretation and application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. In the UN context, “descent” is commonly translated into Japanese as seikei or monchi (門地:family origin or birthplace depending on the context).
(a) Steps to identify those descent-based communities under their jurisdiction who suffer from discrimination, especially on the basis of caste and analogous systems of inherited status, and whose existence may be recognized on the basis of various factors including some or all of the following: inability or restricted ability to alter inherited status; socially enforced restrictions on marriage outside the community; private and public segregation, including in housing and education, access to public spaces, places of worship and public sources of food and water; limitation of freedom to renounce inherited occupations or degrading or hazardous work; subjection to debt bondage; subjection to dehumanizing discourses referring to pollution or untouchability; and generalized lack of respect for their human dignity and equality;
In Japan, there are broadly two major trends in the interpretation of “descent.” One interpretation, using “occupation and seikei (世系) as key concepts, holds that the UN’s notion of descent refers to the communities Burakumin construct. The other interpretation is the position articulated by the Japanese government (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) in its submission to the United Nations entitled “Opinions of the Government of Japan on the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the Review of the Report of the Government of Japan.” It states as follows:
‘Descent’ refers to a concept that focuses on race or skin color in past generations, or on national or ethnic origin in past generations, and should not be interpreted as a concept that focuses on social origin.
With regard to the Dowa1） issue, the Government of Japan, in accordance with the Dowa Measures Council Report (11 August 1965), considers that ‘the residents of Dowa areas are not of a different race or ethnicity, but are unquestionably members of the Japanese people and citizens of Japan.’
Based on this position, the government reaches the following conclusion:
Owing to the long-standing efforts of the national and local governments to resolve the Dowa issue, disparities that existed in various areas have been significantly reduced. Improvements to living conditions in Dowa areas and other physical infrastructure have largely been completed. In addition, education and awareness-raising initiatives aimed at eliminating discriminatory attitudes have been promoted through various measures, and discriminatory attitudes among the public are considered to be steadily diminishing.
To put it differently, this view maintains that although Buraku discrimination is being eliminated, it does not constitute descent-based discrimination in the context of racism as defined by the United Nations. The basis for this claim lies in the definition found in the Dowa Measures Council Report, which states that “the residents of Dowa areas are not of a different race or ethnicity, but are unquestionably members of the Japanese people and citizens of Japan.” This understanding was shared by both major strands of the Buraku Liberation Movements that historically have acted. Needless to say, the term “Dowa areas” refers not only to historically discriminated residents and their communities but also to surrounding populations; it thus means that all residents of these areas are “not of a different race or ethnicity, but unquestionably members of the Japanese people and citizens of Japan.” This recognition is legitimate and should continue to be upheld.
The Japanese government has consistently defined “descent” in a narrow sense, limiting it to lineage associated with race, ethnicity, or skin color, and treating it as conceptually distinct from social origin, such as that associated with Buraku. By adopting this interpretation, the Buraku issue is placed outside the scope of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). This logic creates a clear gap between the government’s position and the international understanding of descent, and this gap constitutes the core of the criticism. In light of developments in international human rights law, such a restrictive interpretation of “descent” lacks persuasiveness. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has repeatedly indicated, particularly since the 2000s, that “descent” may encompass social discrimination that is fixed and reproduced through caste, hereditary status, or origin (for example, General Recommendation XXIX). Under this interpretation, the decisive issue is not whether a group is biologically racialized, but whether discrimination is reproduced on the basis of lineage or origin as an attribute that cannot be altered by individual choice.
Why, then, does the Japanese government reject the ICERD concept of descent? There are several underlying reasons. A few examples may be cited. First, the government seeks to frame the Buraku issue as a “domestic problem that is historically moving toward resolution.” Second, linking it to “racial discrimination” under international treaties would subject Japan to ongoing international monitoring. Third, there is concern for the national image encapsulated in the claim that “Japan has no caste system.” However, these considerations are primarily political and diplomatic in nature, and they cannot withstand academic or human rights–based criticism.
What is missing from the government’s understanding—most decisively—is the problem of reproduction of Buraku and Burakumin. At first glance, the statement that “residents of Dowa areas are not of a different race or ethnicity, but are unquestionably members of the Japanese people and citizens of Japan” appears to offer a correct and non-discriminatory assessment. Yet the serious flaw in this recognition lies in its failure to address the mechanisms through which discrimination is reproduced. Even if everyone were to affirm that Dowa residents are “not of a different race or ethnicity, but unquestionably Japanese,” this alone does not explain why the reality of discrimination would fail to be alleviated, or even mitigated. That question cannot be answered within the framework of this understanding.
At this point, it is necessary to reorganize the discussion. This requires maintaining an understanding of the vision of the world toward which UN bodies strive, even while recognizing the significant limitations of their actual effectiveness.
However, some of those who had previously agreed with this definition of Burakumin have come to argue that the UN concept of “descent” refers precisely to Burakumin. From the author’s perspective, they appear to remain silent about the definition presented in the Dowa Measures Council Report, neither explicitly rejecting nor affirming it, effectively ignoring it. The International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR,) which has actively advocated the issue of “discrimination based on occupation and descent,” shows little interest in the Dowa Measures Council Report even in the Special Rapporteur’s Final Report. Likewise, Kenzo Tomonaga, in his writings on occupation and descent, does not engage with the views expressed by the Dowa Measures Council Report. Put simply, without any clear or explicit logical explanation, the understanding of discrimination as occurring within the same ethnic group has been transformed into an understanding of such discrimination as falling within the category of racial discrimination.
In this context, the former “occupation” is translated in Japanese as seshu no shokugyo (世襲の職業:hereditary occupation), which is then interpreted as referring to engagement in slaughtering livestock, leather production, and related industries. In reality, however, there is no such thing as a generic category of occupations that are inherently hereditary among people, whether Burakumin or non-Burakumin. The occupations invoked in this discourse of descent are, in concrete terms, “meat,” “leather,” and “shoes.” People who worked in these fields certainly existed and continue to exist. Yet historically and at present, a far greater number of non-Burakumin has been engaged in these occupations.
There is a narrative that these occupations were imposed upon Burakumin through a status system in which social status and occupation coincided, particularly from the early modern period onward. However, “meat,” “leather,” and “shoes” became established as industries only in the modern period, making it difficult to assume that such occupations were uniformly imposed in a coercive manner. Of course, once individuals entered these occupations, it is easy to imagine how difficult it would have been to leave them. Poverty and discrimination made it hard to change jobs, and structural conditions may have compelled people to remain in these fields. Annual incomes from those occupations were comparatively stable among the Burakumin. Nevertheless, this issue is analytically distinct from the question of whether individuals were denied the freedom to abandon work in “meat,” “leather,” or “shoes.”
What, then, is meant by “occupation and descent?” It is a discursively constructed framework through which the image of Burakumin has been imagined. This discourse functions as a violent apparatus. To consider Burakumin ontologically is to recognize that they exist as entities constituted within people’s perceptions and imaginations.
Incidentally, Midori Kurokawa has demonstrated that modern Burakumin were constructed through the mobilization of racist thought—primarily by anthropologists—on the basis of weak or insufficient data. However, Kurokawa herself does not claim that Burakumin constitute a race or ethnic group distinct from Japanese people. Rather, racism, the ideology of the imperial system, and related forces shaped the structural formation of modern Japan. The theory of “occupation and descent” ignores the accumulated findings of Buraku studies represented by scholars such as Kurokawa.
When applying the concept of “descent” as seikei, it is first necessary to distinguish between two conceptual levels. These levels must never be conflated. Level A concerns legal-normative and remedial application. It asks which treaty should be applied, and how remedies should be provided. It addresses how national governments, including through legislation, should respond to minorities within their own societies. Level B, by contrast, concerns sociological and ontological analysis. It asks what the Buraku problem is, and what Buraku and Burakumin are as social and ontological entities.
This study note begins with Level A: the issue of legal-normative and remedial application. Burakumin are not a race. Nevertheless, they have been discriminated against through “racialized” vocabularies such as origin, bloodline, lineage, birthplace, and family origin. What is at stake here is whether governments can be required to establish and apply remedial norms to eliminate such discrimination and to provide at least minimal protection to those who have been subjected to it. The operative logic is not “protecting people because they are a race,” but rather “prohibiting discrimination that treats people as if they were a race.”
Although the Buraku issue is not itself “racial discrimination,” if the goal is to correct discriminatory structures, it is more tactically adequate to understand it as “discrimination based on origin that may fall under the concept of descent in ICERD.” If discrimination is to be remedied, its targets must be rendered visible. The question is not whether those who are discriminated against are “truly of a different race,” but whether those who discriminate treat them as if they were defined by race, origin, or lineage. Condensed into a single proposition: while Buraku discrimination is not racism, it operates through a discriminatory pattern homologous to racism, and for that reason ICERD may be invoked as a prohibitive norm.
This is analogous to the fact that the essence of a disease need not coincide perfectly with the scope of a drug’s application. The concept of “descent” is not a term that asks “who you are,” but rather one that states “what the State must not do.” To this extent, ICERD is an appropriate instrument. In CERD/C/58/Misc.17/Rev.3, the Committee calls on the Japanese government, pursuant to Article 98 of the Constitution, to recognize the Convention as part of domestic law and to enact special legislation in line with Article 14, paragraph 2 of the Constitution.
However, when invoking ICERD, particular care must be taken not to conflate “application” with “identification.” The issue is not to identify people by declaring “you are a race,” but to regulate state conduct by asserting that “the State must not tolerate this mode of discrimination.” Identification carries the risk of exceeding its original intent and turning into the violent imposition of identity. If ICERD were to fix new identities, reify origin, and begin to declare “you are a descent group,” it would at that very moment become a form of violence imposed in the name of relief.
Let us now step into this pitfall: namely, the intrusion of ontological considerations into Level B.
Buraku as communities certainly exist as an entity. However, they exist as an imagined community. People associated with Buraku are residents of such an imagined community and are “made into Burakumin” through discourses of difference. Discrimination is activated through others’ imaginations—specifically, through the belief that these individuals possess a particular origin or descent. Many of those affected do not self-identify as such, and some actively reject such identification. As will be discussed in more detail later, this process is one of différance.
In contemporary Japan, at least, no group exists that can be empirically identified on the basis of lineage. In other words, the substance of discrimination against Buraku lies not in attributes themselves, but in the very act of naming. In this sense, once the term “descent” is introduced, ontological questions such as “Who are Burakumin?” or “What kind of group are they?” inevitably arise. This carries the risk of reifying a category that ought instead to be dismantled.
The proposition that “the Dowa (Buraku) issue is not racial discrimination” is therefore crucial. Burakumin do not constitute a biological race, nor an ethnic group, nor a group defined by a distinct culture, religion, or language. Nor does an essentialized substance of origin or bloodline actually exist. Rather, Buraku constitute an imagined community produced through différance—through the slippages and instabilities of the social order itself. Consequently, describing the Dowa issue as “discrimination between racial groups” produces a false essentialization.
For this reason, critique becomes necessary. At the very moment when the United Nations seeks to implement relief as a universalized institutional framework, structural violence inevitably emerges. What is rendered visible becomes governable. At this point, the object of critique is not the UN as a singular actor, but rather the assemblage of the modern nation-state, international organizations, law, and common knowledge.
In official and semi-official UN documents and resolutions, human rights bodies—particularly the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and its related resolutions and reports—have employed the expression “discrimination based on occupation and descent” or “discrimination based on work and descent” (E/CN.4/Sub.2/Res.2000/4) when addressing certain forms of discrimination. This formulation presents a model of inequality in which descent is combined with “occupation,” understood as fixed or hereditary social roles or statuses.
The term “occupation” in the phrase “occupation and descent” does not appear in Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, where only “descent” is specified. Rather, this expression was developed in resolutions of the Sub-Commission to address forms of discrimination such as “social and occupational status or exclusion based on birth,” exemplified by systems such as caste in India. It may be interpreted as an expansion, reinforcement, and concretization of the Convention’s purpose in light of actual configurations of discrimination. Activist organizations and researchers alike have adopted this interpretation and called upon the Japanese government to apply it to the Buraku issue in order to address discrimination within Japan.
This note, at this point, engages in an ontological discussion of what the Buraku issue is and of the nature of the existence of Buraku communities and Burakumin. Let me reiterate: the UN’s “occupation and descent” approach is not mistaken, but it is inadequate as an ontological theory. It reveals the danger of extrapolating the “UN definition” and “Western concepts of race” onto the people concerned. This note emphasizes three central claims. First, the experiences of Burakumin cannot be explained in terms of race, lineage, or fixed ethnicity. Second, one does not become Burakumin merely by being born in a Buraku to Burakumin parents. Third, applying a Western framework of “race” may constitute a form of violence against the people concerned.
The UN’s classification of “descent-based discrimination” was created to broadly categorize global cases, such as slavery and the “caste” system reconstructed and named by colonialists. It does not correspond to the historical, social, and cultural context of Buraku in Japan. Therefore, it goes without saying that the UN classification does not correspond to the experiences and reality of the people involved. Even if we were to base our decision on Level A legal and remedial application based on the UN classification, this would immediately erase or falsify the people’s narratives, self-perceptions, and historical experiences, and would instead reproduce colonialist perceptions. While Burakumin themselves may find this arbitrary definition extremely inconvenient, it stems from the experiences of Burakumin and is therefore entirely valid from both academic and ethical perspectives. It contains important insights that deserve careful consideration.
The concept of race is a modern Western power apparatus, not a universal category. Race was invented in the context of Western imperialism, a concept used to justify biological hierarchy and reinforce colonial rule. Therefore, the concept of race is not a universally valid “scientific” classification, but rather a “Western intellectual system” dependent on specific historical circumstances. Japan imported Western modes, relations, and means of production during the imperialist era, along with social Darwinism and racist ideas. However, the notion that Burakumin are a different race has not taken root. This point is crucial because applying Western concepts to Burakumin, who are discriminated against in Japan despite their different historical, cultural, linguistic, and institutional contexts, as “such and such an entity” could be a extensuion of Edward Said’s Orientalism.
Why is the concept of “descent-based discrimination” perilous? The UN’s intent is to provide “the lowest common denominator category to prevent discrimination.” As a result, classifications are often crude, severing the unique history, culture, and interrelationships of each region, and risk reducing Buraku to “blood ties” or “descent.” The reality of Buraku is one in which daily practices, community reorganization, and involvement are constantly fluid, and this cannot be explained by fixed blood ties. The UN model of viewing them as “lineage groups” diminishes the subjectivity and historical complexity of the individuals involved.
There are no cultural differences (language, customs, views of nature, etc.) between Burakumin and non-Burakumin. Nor are there any industries or occupations that exist only within Buraku industries and not outside them. So-called “Buraku industries” are nothing more than mental images produced through discourse.
If we examine each supposed difference individually in this way, what ultimately remains between Burakumin and non-Burakumin is simply the fact of opposition itself. If we nonetheless employ the term “descent,” the two sides—whose differences are recognized—appear as entities in conflict despite sharing the same descent as members of the nation. Moreover, because Burakumin communities exist along a spectrum, it becomes all the more contradictory to understand them in terms of descent. In short, Burakumin are nothing more than a différance within the nation.
The ontological recognition that “Buraku are a différance of the nation” means understanding Buraku discrimination as a historical and social “fluctuation” or “dislocation” that has arisen within national society. If the only fact that remains between the two (Buraku and others) is their opposition, then both belong to the same biological and genealogical descent, yet stand in conflict due to structures of social division and discrimination. Although the concept of descent will be discussed in more detail later, what becomes foregrounded here is not the commonality of blood ties or lineage, but rather the severance of social relations. @)
Another ontological perspective is that Buraku, formed through movements of reciprocal mobility, exist as a spectrum. Or, one might say that Burakumin live like people walking along a Möbius strip2）.
In other words, the origins, scope, and cultural and social identities associated with Buraku are not monolithic. In this sense as well, it is unrealistic to understand them in a unified manner through the framework of a single, shared descent.
Thus, the contradiction involved in interpreting “descent” in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination as genealogical lineage arises from the fact that biological descent (common ancestry or genealogy) and social structures of discrimination and conflict belong to different conceptual levels, yet are discussed as if they were the same. This problem also tends to arise when race, ethnicity, or class are explained in terms of “bloodline” or “genealogy,” since social identities and structures of discrimination cannot be grasped through the simple continuity of biological descent.
We may further consider this problem from a Derridean perspective. Derrida’s notion of différance carries the dual meaning of “difference” and “deferral,” indicating that meaning and identity are always marked by displacement, never fully fixed, and continually in the process of formation. The relationship between Burakumin and non-Burakumin citizens shares, in biological terms, a common origin described as “descent.” Yet, through différance, identity continually slips, shifts, and remains indeterminate. Strictly speaking, the nation itself is also constituted by a plurality of differences.
Therefore, the conflict that appears to exist between the two should not be understood as a fixed binary opposition. Rather, it is a relationship in which both share a common origin yet are continuously differentiated and displaced. My observation that Buraku exist as a “spectrum” suggests, in Derridean terms, that difference precedes identity and that identity is always deferred, appearing in diverse and shifting forms. From this perspective, the apparent contradiction of “being in conflict despite sharing the same descent” is itself an expression of the movement of différance and, in a Derridean sense, a natural consequence.
At this point, the discussion returns to the meaning of the word seikei. According to Shirakawa Shizuka, the kanji sei (世) originally depicted a tree branch from which a new shoot emerges. Closely related to the character for “life,” it came to carry the sense of renewal and eventually to signify that which is connected in succession. In this sense, seikei literally refers to the succession of generations based on biological kinship. It denotes the continuity of a lineage across generations. Kei (系) means that everything is connected. This is the basic meaning of the Japanese word seikei, and it has been used to describe biological lineage and the succession of all generations in the origins of races and ethnic groups. In its earliest sense, the word refers to biological development and its genealogical continuity. This can be summarized as follows:
1. Basic Meaning
Seikei literally refers to “the succession of generations,” indicating the lineage or genealogy of a person or family.
In Japanese, it is often used in contexts such as history, family trees, and dynastic succession, and is frequently explained through terms such as ketto (bloodline) or keifu (genealogy).
2. Extension to Biological Meaning
In the fields of biology and evolution, a concept close to seikei is used to describe how biological traits and species change over generations and how lineages are formed.
In this sense, it overlaps with terms such as phylogeny, lineage, and ancestry, and refers to the evolutionary relationships among species and groups of organisms.
3. Relationship with Development
Development is the field that examines how an individual organism grows and takes form, while seikei emphasizes genealogical continuity across generations.
However, fields such as evolutionary developmental biology (evo-devo) link development and lineage, showing how closely the two can be connected.
In short, seikei does not simply refer to blood ties; it can also describe the evolutionary lineage of organisms and the historical succession of species.
From this perspective, the Japanese concept of seikei does not apply only to minorities; even the majority is constituted through particular lines of succession. It is certain that everyone exists within a chain of generations based on biological kinship.
So, how should “descent” be understood? The word “descent” originates from the Latin descensus, meaning “a downward movement.” From this developed the metaphorical sense of “the downward succession of generations,” that is, genealogy. The logic is simple: lineage is imagined as something that flows from ancestors to descendants, from top to bottom.
In medieval Europe, this genealogical worldview became decisive. Family lines were depicted as vertical lines, and class and status were understood within a top-down order of rule: “God → King → Nobility → Commoners.” Especially in England after the Norman Conquest, the language of legal and feudal institutions—land inheritance, succession to titles, and proof of bloodline—entered English through French (Old French descente).
The verb “descend” began to appear in English texts around 1300, and by the late fourteenth century it had come to mean “to be descended from.” The noun descent, meaning “fall,” “lineage,” or “inheritance,” was established in the early fourteenth century, and the forms descendant and descendent were recorded by the mid-fifteenth century. Through this linguistic evolution, descent became established as an institutional term referring to land, rights, and blood being passed down from ancestors.
Interestingly, the opposite term, “ascent,” did not undergo a similar expansion. People tended to define themselves less by where they rose to and more by what they descended from. Inheritance, rights, and lineage were understood as something transmitted from higher to lower positions, and legal-institutional language was structured from the perspective of the descendant. As a result, descent/descendant and line of descent became fixed expressions, while ascent remained mostly limited to physical or metaphorical “rising.”
Now, let us consider the problem involved in translating “descent” as seikei. This is not simply a matter of etymological correspondence, but a difference in the very way the world is framed. In brief, there is indeed a discrepancy in meaning between the original term and the Japanese translation. Moreover, this discrepancy is not accidental; it derives from differences in how the direction of time is positioned and from whose perspective genealogy is understood. Returning once again to Shirakawa Shizuka’s interpretation, we can begin to analyze the nature of this gap.
The Japanese term seikei is centered on generation. Based on Shirakawa’s interpretation, se suggests branching, sprouting, and the renewal of life, while kei indicates continuity emerging from an entangled series of relations. In this sense, seikei expresses the way life proliferates and continues across time. It does not inherently emphasize directional structures such as up/down, origin/endpoint, or the transfer of rights. Rather, its core lies in the fact that life lived here and now is connected to the past.
By contrast, the semantic history of descent centers on distribution — something “coming down” from higher to lower. What descends are blood, name, land, rights, and legitimacy. Thus, descent is concerned less with the continuity of life itself than with the question of what has been legitimately passed on, and to whom. Here, lineage appears not as a biological fact but as a social fact that must be recognized, proven, and administered.
The Discrepancy Between Descent and SeikeiNext, I will summarize the discrepancies between descent and seikei in three points.
| Perspective | Sekei | Descent |
| Time | Flows internally and continuously. | Structured as something distributed from top to bottom. |
| Generation | Units in which life renews itself. | Stages of succession. |
| Ancestor | Past lives | Source of authority |
The first discrepancy concerns the direction of time.Thus, seikei signifies the fact of continuity itself, whereas descent signifies the question of origin — where one comes from.
The second discrepancy concerns perspective.
The perspective of seikei lies within the chain of life itself; the present point of living is implicitly the center. In contrast, descent places the viewpoint on the origin or ancestor, from which legitimacy drips downward. For this reason, expressions such as of “noble descent” or “prove one’s descent” sound natural in English, whereas kokina seikei (noble seikei高貴な世系) in Japanese feels somewhat forced and retrospective.
The third discrepancy lies in the prototype of the metaphor.
The prototype of seikei in Japanese kanji is organic growth, symbolizing the branching and budding of plants. In contrast, the Indo-European term descent evokes stairs, differences in elevation, vertical movement, and more explicitly, social hierarchy. Although both refer to a kind of “continuity,” seikei spreads in all directions as it continues, whereas descent suggests a vertical movement from top to bottom. Therefore, a subtle discrepancy arises when translating descent as “lineage.” For example, when a person of mixed descent is rendered as “a person of mixed lineage,” the Japanese sense tends to emphasize “the way life is connected in a chain,” while the English expression highlights “which lineages have come down.” The difference in focus becomes apparent.
This discrepancy does not arise from the fact of ketsuen (血縁blood ties) itself, but from whether one views it as a continuous process of generation, or as a matter of distribution and legitimacy. While seikei refers to the division, connection, and renewal of life over time, descent refers to the path along which values, status, or qualifications are transmitted from an origin downward. Although both point to the same notion of “lineage,” the way the question is framed is fundamentally different.
Seikei did not become the standard translation of descent
(1) During the Meiji period, foreign terms began to circulate widely, and Japanese equivalents were devised. Descent was one such term. In the natural sciences (including military and geographical contexts), descent was translated as kakō (下降), kōka (降下), or kakō (下行), meaning “descent” or “downward movement.” These translations were adopted without difficulty, and there was little discrepancy with existing Japanese usage.
(2) Law, politics, and status theory (most important):
This is the core of the issue. Early translation candidates included kettō (血統, bloodline), kakei (家系, family lineage), keitō (系統, lineage/system), shutsuji (出自, origin), shussei (出生, birth), and yuisho (由緒, pedigree or history).
(3) In anthropology and ethnology (late nineteenth century), suitable translations included jinshu-teki kigen (人種的起源, racial origin), keitō (系統, lineage), and ketsuzoku (血族, blood kin). Of Aryan descent was translated as “a person of Aryan lineage.” Thus, although several Japanese equivalents of descent became established in their respective fields, seikei never became the standard translation in any domain. I would explain the reason as follows.
As interpreted by Shirakawa, seikei is too strongly a word of generation. As noted earlier, it strongly implies continuity of life, renewal, and branching. In Meiji Japan, however, the contexts in which the word descent was needed concerned inheritance rights, royal legitimacy, aristocracy, and legal status. In other words, the focus was not on “life continuing,” but on “who received what from whom.” The term seikei could not adequately express legal severance or exclusion.
The Meiji government imported a constitutional monarchy, kazoku-seido （華族制度a peerage system）, the ie (a family system), and theories of teno-shuken (天皇主権imperial sovereignty). All of these were foreign in origin. The idea that the family system was uniquely Japanese is fundamentally challenged by the failure of the Jinshin koseki and the subsequent transformation of the household registration system. Regional variations were one reason for its abolition, but more importantly, the Jinshin koseki registered even cohabiting servants and thus had a seikei-like character, which did not align well with the institutional unit of the “family.” Moreover, the Civil Code referred to the French Napoleonic Code. The placing of the emperor within the framework of an unbroken imperial line was also a modern construction. All of these models assumed that legitimacy descends from higher to lower levels, and the Meiji state required a model of order structured by authority descending from above.
Accordingly, the translations chosen for descent—kettō (bloodline, a tangible substance of blood), kakei (family lineage, an institutional unit), and shutsuji (origin, a clearly defined point of departure)—met this conceptual need. Seikei, by contrast, spread too broadly and horizontally to serve the logic of this power model. In actual usage, political and historical documents translated royal descent as “royal bloodline,” and of noble descent as “of noble origin.” In legal translations, legitimate descent was not rendered literally; it simply became “legitimate birth.” In anthropological writings, descent group was translated as “lineage group” or “kinship group,” and was almost never rendered as “seikei group.”
What should be noted here is that Meiji Japan did not fail to translate descent; rather, it “dismantled” the term by distributing its meanings across different translations. It was not a case of untranslatability. Instead, there was an intentional separation of meanings: downward movement became “descent” in the sense of physical decline, bloodline became kettō, genealogy became kakei or keitō, and legitimacy became shutsuji or yuisho. In other words, the semantic unity of descent was deliberately broken apart.
To summarize, the discrepancy between descent and seikei lies in the fact that Meiji Japan consciously separated and fixed two different conceptual domains: the “continuity of life” (seikei) and the “descent of legitimacy” (descent). It is true that the word seikei already existed in Sino-Japanese vocabulary. However, as part of the modern institutional lexicon, it did not fit the model of governance that the Meiji state sought to construct. As a result, the meanings contained in descent were strategically redistributed and translated into institutional terms through a deliberate semantic operation. This was not the result of ignorance, but of a rational and strategic manipulation of meaning. The fact that “genealogy” (keifu-gaku) became established while “seikei-gaku” never did can also be explained in this way.
However, when the United Nations later adopted seikei as the Japanese translation of descent, the term was used not in the generative sense suggested by Shirakawa, but in a genealogical sense. This produced a sense of incongruity.
From this perspective, applying the term descent to Buraku is problematic, because it presupposes a model of descending lineage that does not adequately describe their historical reality. Likewise, applying the translation seikei to Buraku is also inappropriate, insofar as it does not correspond to the specific semantic structure of descent. In eother case, the conceptual mismatch makes the term ill-suited to the phenomenon it is meant to describe.
Note:
1) In this case, it is possible to understand a term of Dowa means Buraku.
2) In the lived reality of Buraku, there are people who have moved in from outside, as well as individuals connected to both Buraku and non-Buraku. Moving back and forth between inside and outside, they mediate between the two, much like walking along a Möbius strip, inside and outside are continuous and indistinguishable. The presence of such mediating individuals illustrates the blurring of boundaries and the reversibility of relationships. Although the Möbius strip implies continuity, it also contains twists and inversions, suggesting the need to reconsider Burakumin as constituted through such twisted and continuous relationality.
From this perspective, the limitation of binary thinking becomes clear. The oppositional framework of “Buraku vs. the nation” may be useful for illustrating historically formed structures of discrimination. However, in reality there are people who cross boundaries, and individuals with multiple identities, and what exists is a complex network that cannot be adequately captured by a simple binary opposition.