Trends in Native North American Studies in Japan since the 1990s

抄録

This paper reviews and discusses recent trends in Native North American Studies by Japanese anthropologists. I organize my review in terms of four regions: (a) Alaska, (b) Canadian Arctic, (c) Sub-Arctic and Northwest Coast, and (d) Southern Canada and the US mainland. Until the late 1980s, the majority of studies about Native North Americans were archaeological, but since the 1990s, cultural anthropological and linguistic studies have exceeded archaeological studies in number. Most of those studies have come about as the result of research projects financially supported by the scientific research grant-in-aid program of the Japanese Ministry of Education and, later, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and also by several international symposia organized at the National Museum of Ethnology and the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples. In conclusion, I will argue that historical and contemporary native studies have the potential to encourage the study of native peoples in other regions, as Native North Americans have experienced a variety of social and material changes that indigenous peoples elsewhere in the world have yet to experience.