The upheavals experienced by the modern world have direct effects on the "field" in which anthropologists conduct their research and the people who live there. Problems such as civil wars and massacres, development and environmental destruction, immigration and exclusion, and poverty and the spread of infectious disease are not simply "local" in nature, but manifest themselves as well in the context of global relations of dependence. Moreover, it is now an everyday occurrence for anthropologists in the field to become themselves embroiled in violent confrontations and civil wars, or become involved in such activities as environmental destruction and large-scale development, or social movements to protect the environment or oppose development projects. Under such circumstances, anthropology has moved from a position that emphasizes neutrality and objectivity in the field to one that actively acknowledges the participation and value judgments of its object. In fact, from the 1990's to the present day, anthropological efforts have dramatically increased that acknowledge an active relationship with social reality, in terms of both quality and quantity. In place of the former themes of symbolism, politics and poetics, 21st-century anthropology treats engagement, commitment, intervention, involvement, attachment, and (particularly) activism as its keywords. The object of the anthropologist' s engagement and commitment includes all the issues-disputes, wars, environmental destruction, climate change, health, disasters, human rights, and so forth-that have been problematized in the contemporary world, and which are having serious impacts on people's lives. But what logic justifies engagement and intervention in foreign cultures? In the intellectual and practical struggle to respond to that question, we can glimpse the future direction of anthropology in the 21st century. When modern anthropology appeared in the early part of the 20th century, it rejected the naturalistic universalism that took intervention in the field ("primitive society") as the "duty of civilization" (that is, "the white man's burden"), and instead advocated a groundbreaking cultural relativism. It was that very relativistic way of thinking that formed the essence of modern anthropology, and which continued to be the standard-bearer of progress that criticized Western modern civilization and guaranteed the rights of non-Western peoples and cultures. Yet, based on the universal "legitimacy" of protecting human rights, the appearance of the idea since the 1990's-with the advance of globalization-of intervening against the human rights abuses occurring in front of anthropologists led to the disposal of relativism as an anthropological relic. The justification for that intervention is the strong social trend toward "re-universalization" that is occurring in the anthropology of the global age. With respect to environmental protection, the guarantee of universal human rights, and the promotion of democratic governance, it is an acknowledgment of universal "correct values" that transcend region or culture. In accordance with that standard, it has become possible for anthropology to intervene against injustices occurring in the field worldwide. In its attempt to clarify the sudden rise of that universalism, the present essay examines its inevitability and dangers, and tries to consider how anthropology can henceforth articulate or negotiate a relativistic epistemology with the reappearance of a universalistic worldview. However, that attempt is neither a simple rejection of universalistic thought to revive old-fashioned cultural relativism, nor is it, on the contrary, a dismissal of relativistic thought to place a universal standard of values at the heart of scholarship. The goal of the present essay is instead to

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In this paper, I describe how people without a writing tradition preserve and construct their own history, based on my research of the oral chronicles of the Boorana in southern Ethiopia. There are two trends in the studies of oral history in sub-Saharan Africa. Traditionally, historians rejected the use of oral histories. On the other hand, ethnographers have tried to use oral tradition to reconstruct history through oral traditions, with more or less success. There is, however, another perspective: one that is interested in the historical worldview of local people in relation to their cultural context. This paper follows the latter tradition. In my research, I focused on the structure used to construct and preserve the historical memory of the Boorana as documented in their historical narrative. In the second chapter, I show that the oral chronicle of the Boorana is deeply interrelated with the generation system called gadaa. That system has eight generation sets, the sixth of which, called gadaa, provides the leader of the Boorana. That person, known as abba-gadaa, bears the main responsibility for politics and ceremonies during the eight years in which he belongs to the gadaa generation set. There have been 70 abba-gadaa so far, according to the oral chronicle. The Boorana have memorized all the names of previous abba-gadaa, and can narrate events that are said to have happened during each of their eight-year terms. Secondly, I describe where and why people narrate and listen to the oral chronicle, as well as who is involved. I point out the great gaps in historical and cultural knowledge between different people. Members of lineages that have produced the gadaa or clan councilors in the past usually have more historical knowledge. On the other hand, those who are not members of an important lineage do not usually know such things. There is a tendency for historical memories to be preserved within politically important lineages. Therefore, I suggest that the knowledge gap caused by the sociopolitical system leads those with relatively many more historical memories to become politicians. People have thus preserved their historical memories in order to keep and defend their political positions. Thirdly, I mention the influence of modern techniques on the traditions of the oral chronicle. Those include education in history as provided by the state's modern schooling system, intervention by anthropologists, and the popularization of recording technology since the 1990s. Those factors have allowed the creation of a "Boorana history" out of the oral traditions. Through that modernization process, the Boorana have reconstructed their history reusing structures that subsisted in their historical memories. The third part of the paper analyzes the categories and patterns of the historical narrations of 14 informants living in different regions. The Boorana tend to focus on several specific events in their narrations, including conflicts with neighboring ethnic groups, internal political conflicts, disasters such as excessive rain, droughts and epidemics, and the life histories of abba-gadaa. I observed four different patterns of narration used by the informants, as follows: 1) those that refer to cultural concepts for interpreting the cause of the events, such as maqa-baasa, dhaacii, and raaga, 2) those that refer to fixed patterns of expressions, phrases, poems and proverbs, 3) those that refer to stories of succession and the origin of the abba-gadaa, 4) those that refer to stories with a fixed plot. focus on the concept of maqa-baasa in pattern (1) , which is frequently used by narrators. I describe the Boorana view of history, which can be illustrated by the discourse of the maqa-baasa. The maqa-baasa represents the given names of the abba-gadaa. There are seven given names, each one of which, in the Boorana imagination, is linked with a specific destiny, such

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This paper examines the post-tsunami reconstruction process, from March 2011 to June 2012, in a district of Ofunato City called Maehama, and analyzes how the key groups interact and take their roles there. My argument is that the use of the word "community" is not always appropriate, as it may overlook the plurality among groups in and beyond the district. The word "community" (komyuniti) matters in three contexts. The first is the investment of Japanese anthropologists in the concept. They have revised its definition as an intimate but open relationship, distinct from a closed, conventional one. The second is that it has become popular among disaster researchers and practitioners in Japan. After the devastation of the tsunami in 2011, the prevailing discourses emphasized that the restoration or rebirth of "community" was vital for reconstruction, without considering the meaning of the word. The third is that the official operation of collective relocation presupposes a consensus of a group of neighbors who want to move to a safer place and keep living together. Although that group-legally called a 'shudan' -is numerically defined, its content seems to mirror an ideal type of local community. Thus it is necessary for anthropologists to delineate disaster reconstruction without confusing between such "communities." Based on a review of the literature, I describe the developments at Maehama, focusing on the difference among the groups that emerged and took part in the reconstruction. I recount at least six groups in time. The first was a collectivity of about 100 persons who evacuated to a community center (kouminkan), who attempted to organize their temporary life there by establishing rules. Interestingly, the leader was not from Maehama, as some said that strong relationships (shigarami) make it difficult for one person to be a leader. The second group was the Department of Reconstruction (DR), operated by the local municipality. Just two weeks after the tsunami, the DR was established to draft a public reconstruction plan for the city and advance public projects for reconstruction. However, after the DR held a town meeting in June 2011, the people of Maehama understood that individual opinions were unlikely to be included in the official plan, even though the meeting was open to public participation, Thus, the local 'big men' of Maehama organized a reconstruction committee (RC), consisting of about 50 members, as a kind of lobbying group, and which constitutes the third group. However, inexplicably, few of the RC members were living in the temporary housing. Therefore, two months after the establishment of the RC, a temporary housing association (jichikai) of the residents was organized separately, constituting the fourth group. It was not until November 2011 when the association started serious discussions of the issue of collective relocation. It invited municipal officers from the DR and held meetings with them. But the law was so complicated that it was almost impossible for the local elders to understand what was going on after only a brief explanation. Moreover, there were many things they had to consider before deciding such matters as how much the municipality would pay for their land, when they could move into their new housing, where it was located, how far it was from the port, and whether better options existed, such as using rental public housing. The best choice, however, depended on each family's specific circumstances, so it was hard for them to reach a consensus. Perhaps unaware of their difficult position, the DR requested that the association submit the list of households who wanted to apply to the program. Thus, the association started handing out questionnaires to all households in January 2012. It found out that some families that had lost their houses in the tsunami were not living

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On March 11, 2011, the four units of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station (NPS) of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) were severely damaged by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent tsunami. All the generators failed, cutting power to the critical pumps that must continuously circulate coolant water through the nuclear reactors, resulting in a meltdown. The diffusion of radioactive materials following the meltdown led to widespread contamination of the air, soil, freshwater, and seawater. After the accident, people became strongly aware of the risks of radiation exposure and the dangers of consuming irradiated products. The nature of radiation, which is silent, invisible, and untouchable, prevents people's clear understanding of its reality, resulting in divided opinions and attitudes toward their lives. TEPCO and the Japanese government, being responsible for the accident, lost public confidence by disclosing incorrect scientific information. Even among scientists, there is no consensus concerning the health risks and permissible doses of radiation. Therefore, serious differences in ways of thinking arose, even among family members, about self-motivated evacuation and the choice of "safe" products. Reality is always in danger of being disrupted by the world whenever actual events diverge too much from established categories, along with the institutions themselves. In the nuclear accident of March 2011, people speaking on behalf of the state and science failed to perform their expected roles of convincing the population. Institutions vanished as illusions. The conventions holding people together around a sense of reality broke down, leading people to start combining the fragments of knowledge they had at hand in order to live in an uncertain world. My field research began in a community farm located in Saitama Prefecture, about 200km from the Fukushima Daiichi NPS. At the farm, able-bodied persons work together with those with disabilities. After the accident, the farmers worked under the shadow of radioactivity. They had no way of knowing whether the vegetables they were growing would be safe for consumption, nor did they know how to deal with the contamination. At that point, one of the volunteers, Hideki Ishii, began investigating the situation. Ishii, a researcher who majored in geology during his undergraduate years, knew something about radioactivity. After studying geology, he also majored in landscape architecture and researched the therapeutic value of green spaces using the farm as his research field. On March 20, 2011, a meeting was held in the farm's office, at which Ishii described about radioactivity and gave a simple explanation about how the risk of radiation exposure could be reduced. At the meeting, his scientific explanation showed the farmers how to cope with the radiation, which had been previously perceived as "uncontrollable" pollution. From late April to early May in 2011, some researchers reported that there were hot spots around Tokyo where radiation levels were slightly high. Ishii then measured radiation levels around the farm using a Geiger counter. On the basis of the collected data, he made assumptions concerning the mechanism of pollution. Ishii then made a presentation based on those results at a monthly meeting of the farmers. Some of them refused his explanation for emotional reasons because of their growing sense of distrust toward scientific explanations after the Fukushima Daiichi NPS accident. That provoked dissension among the farmers regarding how to deal with uncertainty in the face of a nuclear hazard. After reviewing the literature about soil science published following the Chernobyl disaster, Ishii has been developing his own ideas with the cooperation of other researchers in Tokyo and farmers in Fukushima. During the fall and winter of 2011, Ishii and his research group

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The widespread destruction of coastal areas by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, forced many people to relocate to temporary housing. The Human Security Forum (HSF), a nonprofit organization created by scholars and students belonging to the Human Security Program of the University of Tokyo, has carried out long-term support activities for people affected by the disaster in the Sanriku area of Miyagi Prefecture. The author of this paper is also involved in the disaster recovery process, both as the secretary general of HSF and as an anthropological field worker. The main purpose of this study is to design an effective use of anthropological knowledge for disaster-relief activities from a standpoint of public anthropology, with the aim of engaging issues and audiences beyond the traditional disciplinary boundaries of anthropology. For that purpose, it pays attention to the fact that the massive support for the disaster-hit areas has imposed a moral and emotional debt on some of the disaster victims. In its analysis of the problem, the study recognizes humanitarian aid as "gift-giving," a familiar notion in anthropology. In classical anthropological literature, such as the research of Marcel Mauss, a gift is never considered "free," as it creates an obligation among the receiver to reciprocate in a way that demonstrates his or her social integrity to the giver of the gift. The huge amount of relief donations and supplies from citizens all over Japan after the March 2011 disaster was distributed in the disaster-stricken areas through the intermediaries of local governments and socially-reliable organizations. Because of the massiveness of the donations and their anonymous nature, the receivers were unable to return in kind to each giver. That unilateral act of donations has continued for a long time, imposing a so-called "burden of compassion" on some of the disaster victims. Against such a background, the current study offers recommendations about the practice of disaster-relief activities from the standpoint of public anthropology, aiming at solving the problem of unilateral donations as discussed earlier. As one hint for a solution, the study introduces the episode of "counter-gifts" extended by temporary housing residents from Minami-Sanriku town in Tome city, the location of HSF's Tohoku branch. In return for the continued support they received, the residents' association started to give back the excess amount of relief supplies, such as canned food, to the HSF staff members. When presenting their counter-gifts, the disaster victims often used the word "osusowake (sharing)." That episode of reciprocity shows that the asymmetric power relation between the supporters and the affected people can be reinterpreted. One piece of advice from a public anthropologist to the people working in disaster-stricken areas would be to emphasize the importance of serving as recipients of return gifts from disaster victims, who so far have only been on the receiving end of unilateral donations. The study concludes that it is meaningful for those engaged in long-term support activities to transform unilateral donations for disaster victims into a more equal relationship of exchanging gifts, thereby reducing their moral and emotional debt and deepening mutual trust.

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This paper reports on the fieldwork conducted by undergraduate students at disaster sites after the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011, and how their teacher instructed them. The experience of conducting the "Ethnographic Research Course" at Tohoku University will be introduced as a case study. An ethnographic description of the fieldwork class will be presented, followed by two reports as case studies, written by students who conducted fieldwork over the course of one year. Minako Seki, one of the students taking the course, conducted fieldwork when participating in study tour walking through Ishinomaki City. The tour was organized by a university student group called "START," whose members engage in reconstruction assistance. The tour, aimed at people who did not experienced tsunamis directly, was divided into three parts: visiting disaster-stricken areas, walking around Ishinomaki City together with residents of the Ishinomaki Kotobukicho Shopping Street, and exchanging feelings and impressions with other participants in a group discussion held after the walking tour. The results of her fieldwork suggest three points about tourism in relation to the Great East Japan Earthquake: first, a relationship of "seeing" and "being-seen" has suddenly emerged in the disaster-stricken areas; second, the visitors joined the tour to see the affected sites, thereby confirming the images they had earlier seen in the media, and third, the coordinator servers as a critical bridge between the visitors and local people. Meanwhile, the other student, Terute Ito, conducted fieldwork with a group called "Wakamenokai," a civic association that aims to protect the sea in Sanriku (the coastal area of Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori prefecture) from radioactivity. While the members of the group had dealt with the nuclear issues before the Great East Japan Earthquake, the nuclear accident affected them greatly, both directly and indirectly. Above all, motivated by the increased risk of radiation contamination, those who had previously had little interest in civic activity became actively involved in the group. Therefore, the group's members, who have a wealth of experience and knowledge about the radiation issue, began to play an intermediary role between new citizen groups and such people. After the 3/11 disaster, the Wakamenokai have come to organize and coordinate workshops, films screenings, and demonstrations more frequently. However, their beliefs cannot be easily communicated to others. There seems to be a wide divergence between the group and ordinary people, and it is difficult to say whether they are sharing their information sufficiently. As a result, communication is not thoroughly established with ordinary people, at least at present. Finally, the paper reflects on the meaning of the disaster-related fieldwork conducted by the students as part of their anthropology class. They enhanced their awareness of the 3/11 earthquake through one year of fieldwork, and reflected on their experiences by writing ethnographic reports. It should be pointed out that the students' findings, giving new meaning to the disaster, might provide significant insights into anthropological education and the study of disasters.

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