Korea Europe Review: an interdisciplinary journal of politics, society, and economics

This issue examines the complex interplay between Japanese colonialism, the Vienna School of Ethnology, and the development of East Asian ethnology. KER presents a series of original articles exploring how Japanese scholars, influenced by the Vienna School’s methodologies, navigated the political landscape to shape discourse on Japanese-Korean ethnic relations. Through the works of figures like Wilhelm Schmidt, Oka Masao, and Alexander Slawik, the issue highlights how academic frameworks were adapted, sometimes to justify colonial ideologies and at other times to foster new understandings of cultural origins and ethnic identity.