The present article is a development of the author's memorial lecture of the same title delivered on the occasion of his acceptance of the first prize of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, at the University of Tokyo on 3 June 2006. First, based on the author's personal experiences as one of the first students in Japan trained at the University of Tokyo following the curriculum of general anthropology, including physical anthropology, prehistory and linguistics, he discusses how a cultural anthropologist should be formed. Through reflection on the author's strong interest in physical anthropology and biology, and his experiences as a doctoral student in Paris, where anthropology and ethnology were conceived as a part of natural history, he stresses the importance of placing the science of the human being and its culture as a whole in the process of natural history. Upon these bases and his long experience of field research in Japan, West Africa and France, the author points out the following four characteristics as particular to cultural anthropology: (a) a meta-science, rather than a science specialized in a discipline; (b) amalgamation of maximum knowledge of the latest paradigm in anthropology on the one hand, and of personal knowledge obtained through the anthropologist's experiences in his or her field research, on the other; (c) attachment to a minor object, and a profound qualitative analysis of it; (d) a viewpoint to conceive the human being and its culture as a process of natural history. As the derivative aspects of cultural anthropology thus defined, the author enumerates the following: (1) a non-practical science which is not directly useful to the actual society, although through its broad view on the human being, it might correct the actual orientations of the present society in the long range, and thus it can be useful to the society in spite of its immediate lack of usefulness; (2) in that sense, cultural anthropology inherits the spirit of "humanisme" from the European Renaissance; (3) consequently, a cultura1 anthropologist should have a vivid interest in what actually happens in the society; (4) but different from the previous European "humanisme", based on anthropocentrism, the "humanisme" in our present world should be oriented to seek the way to place the human being in natural history, in search of a new inter-specific ethics. As examples of the author's practices in commitment to the actual society, he enumerates and describes: (i) annual "field work" on 15 August for many years, accompanied by his friends and some students including those from China, Korea or the U.S., to Yasukuni Shrine, its war museum Yushukan, and two other memorial places in Tokyo for the deceased of the last war, one non-religious (Chidorigafuchi-boen) and the other Buddhist (Tokyoto-ireido),followed by free discussions with beer; (ii) a long participation in UNESCO activities such as projects on material and non-material cultural heritage in the world, especially those in Africa; work as a member of the editorial staff of World Culture Report 2000; participation in the six-year project to restore the abandoned roya1 palace of the ancient kingdom of Dahomey (Benin); (iii) investigations on some vanishing Japanese traditional techniques, such as ship-building, weaving of some special vegetal fibers, the fabrication of Japanese paper washi and the preparation of cat's skin and special silk strings for Shamisen, an important Japanese string instrument; (iv) commitment to international "development" issues including experience as an agent in the OTCA (presently JICA) working in Burkina Faso for two and a half years; serving as an executive board member of the Japanese Society for the International Development, for many years organizing study meetings on "development and culture";

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

View full abstract

This paper attempts to provide a description and analysis of a community living under the constant threat of an earthquake disaster. Based on my field research, I present a case report on activities concerned with disaster risk that are being conducted in the "C" neighborhood of the "Z" district in Istanbul. In the introduction, based on a review of the literature, I look at the several phases of disaster prevention. Disaster anthropologists have developed the so-called "vulnerability" approach to disasters, which assumes that in a given society, the more vulnerable people (e.g., the poor, the elderly, the handicapped, ethnic minorities, etc.) suffer more greatly from disasters. That approach calls for a look at disaster mitigation and prevention practices in the light of "sustainable development." I accept vulnerability as a concept and attempt to elaborate on its hypothesis of the static simple reproduction of disaster damage further by emphasizing two points. The first point at issue is people's perception of future disasters. Disasters are LPHC (low-probability, high-consequence) risks, so people in a given society may perceive them in various ways. In this paper, I pay attention to the specific contexts (such as the structure of buildings, the improvement of search and rescue teams, education, and so on) in which people problematize and take measures to prepare for future disasters. Second, I argue that the practices of a certain community in the area of disaster prevention can improve the level of its vulnerability management. Here, I illustrate the emergence of a "community of practice" from the local community using field data. In the second section, I explain the history of the "Z" district in Istanbul. The district is situated on the European side of Istanbul (i.e., west of the Bosporus), and most of the population came from outside the city for employment purposes starting in the 1950s. Some are from the Black Sea region of Turkey, while others are from Eastern Europe or the Balkan States. Upon their arrival in Istanbul, these people built small huts named gecekondu from brick and stone. Having established a place to live, they then called their family and friends in from the countryside, thus giving rise to communities. Those shantytown communities later created representative community associations to negotiate with local municipalities, appealing to them not to demolish their illegal homes and to obtain access to such infrastructure-related necessities as electricity and wastewater. Starting in the 1980s, the populist parties of the local municipalities gave them title deed for their land in exchange for their vote. Once obtaining those deeds, people contracted with building constructors to transform their 1- or 2-story houses into 5- or 6-story apartments for financial gain. As a consequence, both the size of the population and the number of inferior buildings increased rapidly in the "Z" district. Initially people had no problems with their non-earthquake-resistant homes, but the Izmit Earthquake, which hit the province next to Istanbul on August 17, 1999, changed their perception. After that earthquake, experts said that Istanbul could expect a similar massive earthquake because Turkey's most prosperous city stands on the North Anatolian Fault. Some people saw such risk-related information as a sign of the potential destruction of their lives in the future. Using any knowledge, information and memory they could get, they tried to calculate their probability of dying in such an earthquake. Consequently, narratives were propagated about disaster risk in the "Z" district, but no effective measures were taken. In the winter of 2004, the Neighborhood Disaster Support Project of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) started work in the "Z"

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

View full abstract

In this article, the author examines the influence of the British colonial policy of using chiefs as local agents for colonial administration, and the people's reaction to that policy. Using the Igbo society of Southeastern Nigeria as a case study, the author describes the role that African people played in the process in which the status of the "chief" was introduced and established in a decentralized society. Through that analysis, the author tries to review the colonial experience on the status known as "chief" on the part of the African societies, especially those that had never had central authority before the colonial period. In the beginning of the 20th century, as the British penetrated into Igboland, the colonial government chose several indigenous people whom it considered as chiefs, and gave them warrants. That warrant was a paper appointing a person to the Native Court (as a court member) and giving him various administrative powers. Since the individuals who got warrants were those whom the colonial administrator regarded as chiefs, it gave rise to the concept of "chief" in Igbo society. Scholars refer to those with warrants as "warrant chiefs." Before the colonial era, Igboland was a mere aggregation of small subgroups, the majority of which had no central authority. Many problems arose with the introduction of the warrant chiefs, with their existence being particularly one of the major reasons behind a big riot that broke out in 1929. That is also why many people criticize early British colonial policy concerning the chiefs. However, in spite of that bitter criticism, the status of "chief" survived through the colonial period, and remains in force even today, some four decades or more since decolonization. That phenomenon is not peculiar to Nigeria. In various African states, similar "chiefs" who were once regarded as collaborators with colonialism still maintain their positions as local representatives, and are even recognized by their governments. Considering the resiliency of the position of chiefs, we must rethink the colonial experience of the African people as it pertains to the invention of that status. Many scholars share the opinion that the colonial rulers "appointed the chiefs." However, in a strict sense, they did not appoint the chiefs themselves but rather the members of the Native Court or Native Authority. Being a "chief" was a precondition set down by the colonial government for the appointment, and the word thereafter became wrongly used as a term of reference for those members. In the case of the Igbo society, the authorities known as chiefs were thus created through the confirmation of the warrant. However, that was because of the lack of understanding and ignorance on the part of the British colonial administrators, who believed that chiefs existed in all African societies. They did not intend to create the chiefs themselves. We must recall that famous slogan about early British colonial policy: not "making chiefs," but "finding chiefs." That is why the British colonial government decided to pursue administrative reform, and stopped referring to court members as "chiefs" once the failure of the early court member system became so apparent. However, although the colonial government had changed its mind on the matter, the Igbo people continued to call court members "chiefs." Moreover, they even began to use that term for other kinds of people, such as ex-court members and local councilors, whom the government had never regarded as chiefs. That is why the status of "chief" never disappeared during the colonial era, even after the aforementioned riot, and continues to exist in Igbo society today. In fact, though it was the colonial rulers who created the concept of "chief," it was the Igbo people

(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

View full abstract

The Tolai people in the province of East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, have long used a form of shell money called tabu. They use that indigenous currency for various purposes: as "bride price," as a valuable shown and distributed in rituals, and as a medium of commercial exchange. These days, the provincial government is planning to recognize the tabu as the second legal tender in the province alongside the kina, which is the legal tender for all of Papua New Guinea. In this article, I will consider how these two currencies coexist and relate to each other, especially as media of exchange. Analyzing several practical cases of transactions, I will show that the relation between the two currencies falls into three patterns, as follows: (1) The two currencies are used for discrete transactions that differ in terms of the goods exchanged, as well as the situation, and so on. For example, only the tabu can be used as payment for initiation ceremonies into a secret society, and only the kina can be used in stores in town. They form different spheres of exchange that are exclusive to each other and have their own intrinsic value. (2) Either of the two currencies may be used for transactions that deal with the same goods in the same situation. In such transaction, both the tabu and the kina form a common standard of value via a fixed exchange rate. For example, in small village stores, various goods are valued under this single standard and are sold in both currencies. And these days, one can pay taxes, court fines and other fees at the government office using either of the currencies. (3) Besides pattern (2), this pattern involves the use of both currencies for the same kind of transactions, without necessarily maintaining a common value standard between the two. The use of both currencies takes place in an incoherent fashion for the exchange of exactly the same goods in the same situation. Transactions of this kind are typically seen by small vendors who deal in snacks and small goods used after a funeral. Patterns (1) and (2) can be understood as a single model, in which the tabu and kina keep their own separate spheres of exchange while maintaining an overlapping common area in each of their peripheries. In that common area, the two currencies are used together for various transactions under a fixed standard of value. But, at the same time, transactions according to those patterns keep the clear distinction between the two spheres of exchange. Meanwhile, this single model does not include the other pattern, pattern (3), in which the tabu and kina are used for similar transactions without having a common standard of value. That means that the two currencies can coexist and be used together, albeit incoherently, without adjusting the value through an exchange rate. As described above, the model that integrates patterns (1) and (2) is not consistent with pattern (3). But that is never an either-or situation. The relation between the tabu and kina in Tolai society is what allows these three inconsistent patterns to exist simultaneously.

View full abstract