Asian and African Area Studies
Online ISSN : 2188-9104
Print ISSN : 1346-2466
ISSN-L : 1346-2466
Volume 8, Issue 2
Displaying 1-6 of 6 articles from this issue
Articles
  • Kana YAMAMOTO
    2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 125-146
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper describes rapid expansion of agricultural land into seasonal swamps in Tanzania. In the Mbozi district of Mbeya, seasonal swamps have been mainly used for cattle grazing and for farming by indigenous cultivation methods. The recent expansion of agricultural land into the swamps, however, has narrowed the area available for grazing.

    The Mbozi district is one of the most significant coffee-producing areas in Tanzania. Since the liberalization of the economy, many coffee farmers have become eager to expand their farms in order to earn more money. As many farmers have switched from growing maize to coffee, the areas available for food crop cultivation have been reduced. Even farmers with sufficient land, as well as those without, began cultivating maize in seasonal swamps that had not been previously used for cultivation.

    In the face of such agricultural expansion, a new system of swamp use, partly based on indigenous agricultural systems, was created to enable maize to be cultivated in the middle of swamp areas. Although farmers have long been dependent on ox-drawn plows for cultivation, the decrease in cattle-grazing land has caused few problems, because the number of cattle has also decreased. The cattle necessary for plowing are now being recruited from adjacent mountainous areas, where the cultivated fields are located on slopes so steep that farmers do not depend on ox-drawn plows.

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  • Seiichi IGARASHI
    2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 147-176
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Electoral governance that secures the implementation of free and fair elections has been largely sustained by nonpartisan civic organizations in the Philippines. However, in recent years, the electoral integrity that they have eagerly protected has been increasingly questioned, which has jeopardized democratic consolidation. In this situation, their activities need to be examined in detail in terms of democratic consolidation. By analyzing their major activities related to electoral governance, this article will prove that they have powerfully supported electoral governance and contributed to maintaining a certain level of electoral integrity. However, given the unfilled gap between democratic institutions and practices, the excessive dependence of electoral governance on civic organizations contains the potential risk of jeopardizing the integrity of elections due to the hegemonic interests of the dominant bloc supporting the organizations, and can thereby damage democratic consolidation. Nonetheless, the activities of these organizations will probably continue to be indispensable, because the Commission on Elections alone cannot protect free and fair elections, and their disappearance would therefore threaten democratic consolidation. This is a dilemma of democratic consolidation faced by the Philippines.

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  • Riho ISAKA
    2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 177-194
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper analyzes M.K. Gandhi's ideas on Gujarati language and literature. It aims to understand what kind of language and literature he tried to create and what influence his attempts had on Gujarati society, both in his own time and in later periods. Gandhi stressed the importance of developing a language and literature which all people, regardless of educational background and religious affiliation, could share in common. Thus he repeatedly advocated ‘simple' Gujarati and encouraged writers to develop literature for the ‘people'. Yet, at the same time, his ideas on ‘correct' Gujarati and ‘useful' literature often reflected those of high-caste Hindu literati. Furthermore, in his ‘experiment', Gandhi assigned these literati a leading role, and thus contributed to the enhancement of their leadership. This, in turn, often resulted in the imposition of their conceptions of language and literature on those who did not share them. Although Gandhi's influence can be still observed in post-colonial Gujarat, it is also important to take note of more recent attempts among the Adivasis and the Kachchhis to educate their children through their own languages, and those among the Dalits to promote their own literature.

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  • Shuhei KIMURA
    2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 195-214
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper is an attempt to provide an anthropological (in Bruno Latour's sense) description and analysis of policies to control future earthquake damage in Istanbul, Turkey, conducted by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IMM) after a big earthquake hit the northwestern part of Turkey in 1999.

    Reflecting the recent move in the social science literature to take not only the Humanosphere but also the Biosphere and the Geosphere and their interrelationship into account, earthquake damage is considered as an outcome of interaction between the Humanosphere and the Geosphere. Thus anti-seismic policies can be viewed as efforts to predict behavior of the Geosphere and to regulate the undesirable consequence of that interaction.

    This paper discusses three projects. The first is a study called “micro-zoning” conducted by JICA and IMM, which aims to visualize risk of future earthquake spatially. The second is the Istanbul Earthquake Master Plan prepared by IMM and Turkish four leading universities. The third is a pilot project of the Master Plan conducted in Zeytinburnu district. I will describe these projects as hybrid networks of organizations, scientific procedures, objects, law, and abstract ideas such as local community and participation, and analyze how the issue of damage caused by future earthquakes was introduced into those policies and transformed in the tense relationships among the multiple actors in these networks.

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Book Reviews
  • 2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 215-223
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Sagawa Toru

    Kennedy Agade Mkutu. Guns and Governance in the Rift Valley: Pastoralist Conflict and Small Arms.Oxford: James Currey, 2008, xii+178p.

     

    Shoji Hiroshi

    Masako Ito. Politics of Ethnicity : The History and the Present of Vietnamese Ethnic Classification. Tokyo: Sangensha, 2008, 306p.

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Fieldwork News
  • 2009 Volume 8 Issue 2 Pages 224-242
    Published: March 31, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: December 05, 2018
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Naito Naoki

    The Emergence of New Ethnic Identities: The Impact of the 2007 Election among Ariaal Pastoralists of Northern Kenya

     

    Nishimoto Noa

    A Report from the Young Offenders Institution in Madagascar

     

    Ebihara Ippei

    Cultural Exchange Concerning Wild Boars Hunting between the Ryukyu Islands: A Report of the 2nd Wild Boars Summit in Iriomote Island

     

    Yasuda Shin

    Al-Ahly and al-Zamarek: The Gloomy Egyptian Society and CAF Champions League

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