Imagining a Remote Homeland: Japanese Quasi-academic Ethnography of Upland Southeast Asia (2015) (original) (raw)
Related papers
Re-thinking the origin of agriculture through the 'beginnings' in the Japanese archipelago
Japanese Journal of Archaeology 6(2), 2019
The way in which we investigate the origin of something is largely determined by the way we intend to understand it. In the case of the origin of agriculture, the situation is further complicated by the tone of the investigation, which is not only determined by how we define and understand the set of human activities characterised and described as agriculture but also influenced by the way in which we define and understand those other beginnings we believe were causally linked to the development of agriculture, that are, the development of complexity, the beginning and spread of language and ethnic groups, and so on. The investigation of the beginning of agriculture in Japan offers us some good cases which show that the uncritical coupling of agriculture with those beginnings not only are erroneous but also hinder the development of nuanced approaches to human-plant/animal interactions and their impact on human society. This paper illustrates those problems by studying Jomon food procurement activities and proposes a way to overcome the problems by introducing the concept of the spatio-temporal organisation of social life and by linking hunting, gathering and farming practices to the spatio-temporal organisations of Jomon and Yayoi social life.
Pure Land Buddhism in Modern Japanese Culture, Leiden, Boston: Brill. 2008
Despite being one of the most influential forms of Japanese Buddhism, the Pure Land tradition, and notably its impact on the development of Japanese cultural history, has often been overlooked outside Japan. Taking into account recent scholarship on orientalism and occidentalism, this book, written from the perspective of the Study of Religions, provides an analysis of the impact that the Pure Land tradition, in particular Shin Buddhism, has exerted on mainstream forms of artistic expression (especially visual arts, literature and the tea ceremony) in modern and contemporary Japan.
Japanese review of cultural anthropology, 2001
YoKo HAyAMJ boundaries, In the final section, I discuss recent strategies to deal with cross-border situations, as well as to make the frontiers themselves the subject of inquiry Throughout the last halfcentur}s the questions brought to the field by Japanese scholars in this area, together with their research results, have been influenced and stimulated by the works of western scholars. As I shall explain below, the shifts in the basic paradigms in anthropological thought, as well as particular frameworks that have arisen from this specific area over the past four decades, are also reflected in Japanese scholarship, although there are also some trends that are peculiarly Japanese. The list of works discussed here is in fact a third of the size of that which I initially prepared, In the case of Thailand in particular I have cut down the list considerablM not so much due to the sheer amount of research produced, but because there are already fairly comprehensive bibliographies available.' On the other hand, I have also tried to include research by scholars currently providing fresh and very much needed information on fields that are newly opening up. While most of the studies are by anthropologists and based on field research, I will also rnention studies from other disciplines which have influencecl work by anthropologists, as well as studies based on fieldwork by scholars in other disciplines which are comparable to those of anthropologists, Despite this, there remain many important works that have not been mentioned due to limitations of space and the enormity of the task. Pioneers: The 1950s and Early 1960s Pest-war research in this area began in the late 1950s. In this period, anthropological work in Japan was influenced either by the kulturhreis school of ethnology or by the studies of social structure in social anthropology Both of these schools had an interest in comparisons with Japanese culture and society Obayashi has written on a wide range of topics, including mythologyl kinship organization (Obayashi 1978), and beliefs, and rituals, from an ethnological perspective based mainly on documentary sources, but also on field surveys (e,g, Obayashi 1964). In 1957, the Japanese Society of Ethnology sent a team of scholars led by Matsumoto on an expedition to Thailand to study the culture of the rice-cultivating peoples of Southeast Asia. The team consisted of an agronomist, a }inguist, an archeologist, a material culture specialist, and three ethnologists, and their reports appeared in special issues of the Japanese cJburnal of Ethnolagy,L' Matsumoto depicted the pre-Hindu-Buddhist cultures of Indochina as a complex of rice-cultivating hi}1 and plain cultures (1959). Iwata, Ayabe, and i Shigeharu Tanabe introduces research on Tai societies in Japanese Anthrepological Research on Tai Ethnic Groups in 7Viai Research 7}"ends in tJdpan (ed. Hashimoto Takashi). State of 71hai Studies in tldpan, (1996). Kitahara and Akagi (eds),includes a section on anthropology which is a bibliographieal survey. A forthcoming issue of Tai Culture is a compilation of works by Japanese scholars, and includes an introduction by Ryoko Nishii which is an overview ofJapanese anthropologieal scholarship on Thai-Tai cultures.
This lengthy and dense book will take any reader, myself included, a long, long time to assimilate: it is a masterful assemblage of data and interpretations, many never before expressed in English. I welcome it not only for its revelations but because it was written by a Japanese scholar: it is time they spoke for themselves without having their works passed through a foreign scholar's mind. However, Mizoguchi offers this work as an "intervention" for "illustrating to the international audience the potential and excitement of the study of the Yayoi and Kofun periods" because he thinks "the periods have not attracted as much international interest as the Jomon period" (p. xviii). With this sweeping statement he dismisses much good work by foreign scholars (Barnes, Chard, Edwards, Farris, Hudson, Kidder, Pearson, Piggott, Seyock…) as well as many Japanese writing in English. Far better to have said he was taking this opportunity to apply Niklas Luhmann's social system theory to Japanese prehistory.
Jean Michaud. 2010. Editorial: Zomia and Beyond. Journal of Global History 5(2):187-214.
2010
This editorial develops two themes. First, it discusses how historical and anthropological approaches can relate to each other, in the field of the highland margins of Asia and beyond. Second, it explores how we might further our understandings of the uplands of Asia by applying different terms such as 'Haute-Asie', the 'Southeast Asian Massif', the 'Hindu Kush-Hima-layan region', the 'Himalayan Massif', and in particular 'Zomia', a neologism gaining popularity with the publication of James C. Scott's latest book, The art of not being governed: an anarchist history of upland Southeast Asia. 1 Through a discussion of the notion of Zomia, I will reconsider certain 'truths' regarding highland Asian studies. In the process, I seek to contribute to disembedding minority studies from the national straitjackets that have been imposed by academic research bounded by the historical, ideological, and political limits of the nation-state.
BACKGROUND, OBJECTIVES, AND METHODOLOGY The 'age of hunter-gatherers' has purportedly accounted for more than 97% of the approximately 300,000-year history of our species (Homo sapiens). We have developed agriculture, livestock farming, and civilisations on a global scale. Nevertheless, the prehistoric culture of hunter-gatherers has not completely disappeared. The current hunter-gatherers mostly survive as small groups of indigenous people in their own nations while maintaining relationships with livestock farmers and city dwellers (Ikeya et al. eds. 2009; Ikeya and Hitchcock eds. 2016; Ikeya ed. 2017b). Among past anthropological studies of hunter-gatherers, academic theoretical contributions related to Asia have been rare compared to those related to huntergatherers in Africa and North America (e.g., Lee and DeVore eds. 1968; Binford 2001). This lack of emphasis, notwithstanding, there is no indication that data from Asia are useless in these attempts. As a matter of fact, research on hunter-gatherers in Asia can make a unique contribution due to their adaptations to greatly varied environments unseen in other continents, from the far north to tropical zones, and from terrestrial ecosystems including tundra and forests to water ecosystems including seas and lakes, and rivers (Northeast Asia by Irimoto ed. 1994 and tropical Asia by Roberts 2019 and Wedage et al. 2020). Historical perspectives also point to the unique nature of Asian evidence. Palaeolithic modern human hunter-gatherers coexisted-and even interacted with-Neanderthals and Denisovans (Reich 2018). After farming was invented and ancient civilisations were developed, small groups of hunter-gatherer communities maintained various relationships with farmers and/or city dwellers during the historical periods of West, South, and East Asia, which have continued to date (Ikeya et al. eds. 2009; Ikeya and Hitchcock eds. 2016; Ono, Chapter 6 of the present volume). Good examples can be seen in Southeast and South Asia, which are, the only regions where nomadic and semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers exist Kazunobu Ikeya and Yoshihiro Nishiaki 2 today. In this volume, hunter-gatherers are defined not only as being engaged in hunting, gathering, and fishing, but also as having maintained a system in which they share natural resources. Cultural continuity and social change among huntergatherers in Asia, from the Upper Palaeolithic up to the present, will be considered using the latest evidence from Northern, Central, Eastern, Southeast, and South Asia. Moreover, to bridge gaps in ethnographic and archaeological records, we highlight the relationship between subsistence technologies and symbolic behaviours including burials and ornaments visible in both records as material evidence. Through this attempt to compare the various characteristics and distinct features of the techniques, economies, and societies among hunter-gatherers in Asia, we aim to provide a more balanced view of their adaptations to diverse natural and social environments. At this point, we shall review the methodology of reconstructing the history of hunter-gatherers in Asia. Building a human history requires taking into account the achievements of prehistory, archaeology, literature, history, and ethnography, while considering temporal and regional variability. It is noteworthy that the geographic regions studied in the fields of ethnography and the realm of prehistory and archaeology often differ. Ethnographic research mainly focuses on hunter-gatherers in torrid or frigid zones; very few studies have specifically examined cases in temperate climates. Even among the studies of the torrid zone inhabitants, most involve inland regions, with a few notable exceptions like those of the Andaman and Nicobal Islands. This geographic bias in research emphasis is likely attributable to the fact that in human history, agriculture, livestock farming, and cities were developed in the middle latitudes, pushing hunter-gatherers out to marginal areas. The wave of industrial growth that spread from coastlines in the age of imperialism also contributed to the distribution of hunter-gatherers' communities today. This means that when using ethnographic data to build a global image of hunter-gatherers, attention must always be paid to the biases resulting from these historical factors. Studies conducted in the domains of prehistory and archaeology, by contrast, cover much wider regions. However, investigations on the wet tropics of Southeast and South Asia may have been less intensive, likely due to the poor preservation of archaeological sites. Nevertheless, research into the exploitation of animals and other practices during the Palaeolithic period has been increasing in recent years, particularly in Java and Sri Lanka (Amano et al. 2016; Roberts 2019; Wedage et al. 2019). Among studies carried out on historical periods, written documents on hunter-gatherers are available. However, they were drawn up by the civilized, thereby requiring caution in their interpretation (Irimoto 1987; Ikeya and Hasegawa eds. 2005). Approaches in ecological anthropology, sufficiently considering the contextual evidence, would also make a great contribution to the understanding of the past subsistence technologies and economies of hunter-gatherers in Asia. One example is a hypothesis of the Upper Palaeolithic hunting being assisted by dogs Figure 1 Dispersal routes of modern humans in Eurasia during the late Pleistocene suggested by genetic studies (modified from Takahata in press). Stars and black squares indicate locations of interbreeding of different human groups and the numbers show estimated dates (kya). Sites and dates suggested by archaeological information Sites and dates suggested by genetic information
Zomia, in the sense exulted by James C. Scott (2009) as an abode of purposeful political anarchy and anti-stateism, is not an emic conceptualization, not a particular place or an incantation of a collective identity referred to or professed by particular populations of humans. As a spatial and social reality, or as a word-concept, Zomia, then appears an exercise in scholarly magical realism (evidence is ‘thin’, ‘limited’, and ‘ambiguous’, as Victor Lieberman (2010: 339) puts it more discreetly). It is a form of geographical and historical imagination that nevertheless has begun to ‘escape’ the narrow corridors of the academy and into public discourse where it now lives a life of its own. It is an original imagination no doubt – an optic that stimulates fresh scholarship – but one simultaneously cannot escape that Zomia-disciples are letting their imagination run away with them.