5　他人ごとからわがことへ　フィールドに育てられる

抄録

Recent globalization has both degraded and scattered local cultural and biological diversity. Most scholars, however, have kept their silence regarding that this issue is none of their business. My question, then, is whether fieldworkers should participate in active problem-solving. If the answer is positive, then methods of their participation will be the next question to address. Based on four decades of fieldwork in southern Japan, equatorial Africa, and in Western Europe conducted jointly with my wife, Ankei Takako, I will narrate our experience of involvement in the field as an ecologist and anthropologist.

On Iriomote Island near Taiwan, my wife and I founded a movement for the production of organic rice, which was against the central government’s policy of urging local farmers to use insecticide; however, this was a sanctuary where people had practically no experience of using chemicals in their fields. We invested what money we had and were accepted as relatives by some farmers. Also, in Yamaguchi, we have protested against a nuclear power plant that is to be built on a hotspot of biodiversity of the Seto Inland Sea. We have learned through these experiences the limits of what fieldworkers should do when trying to be of help to local communities. At the news of the genocide in Rwanda and Africa War I in the Democratic Republic of Congo, my wife and I tried to change our lifestyle in Japan by making our ecological footprint smaller. We began cultivating rice for our own family’s consumption, and built a house by traditional methods using local materials, in which firewood is used for heating and baths. Since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, we bought our second and third houses in rural areas with enough farming land to sustain several families. Our philosophy is that people living in the western part of Japan should share whatever they can with the victims, and should welcome families evacuating from Fukushima and elsewhere.