‘Anthropology-ness’ and the Generative Space of ‘Learning’:

An Exploratory Essay on the “Anthroscape”

Abstract

  The purpose of this paper is to delve into the dynamic image of ‘anthropology-ness’ as an “Anthro-scape" that has come to be expressed with a sense of expectation and deep interest in various areas outside academia. In this paper, we take up several organizations that have been carrying out particularly progressive educational practices and present an overview of them, as well as their contact with anthropology and its image through life histories and interviews with those who have been involved in their activities. We will then present an auto-ethnographic essay by Negishi (another author of this paper), whose life was shaken by his engagement with the several educational communities and underwent a self-transformation, and describe what aspects of the Anthro-scape emerged in this process. After that, through interviews with a few person who have been involved in somehow alternative educational movement, we will extract the differences and similarities in the possibilities each of them sees in anthropology.