Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology
Online ISSN : 2424-0516
Print ISSN : 1349-0648
ISSN-L : 1349-0648
Volume 79, Issue 1
Displaying 1-21 of 21 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages Cover1-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Cover
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages Cover2-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages App1-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Fumoto Sono
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 1-24
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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    This paper will clarify the nature of the bazaar economy system and its role in subsistence strategies, with a focus on the business of buying and selling carpets in northern Qashqadaryo Province in southeastern Uzbekistan. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 transformed the lives of the citizens of Uzbekistan. For 20 years, people, especially those living in rural areas, have suffered from unemployment, the bankruptcy of collective farms, the degradation of the social security system, and continual inflation that led to a decline in living standards. Recent studies have clarified the functions of informal networks mainly based on relatives and neighbors, as well as the actual state of affairs of people who have adapted to the market economy and succeeded economically in the post-Soviet era. This paper will propose another point of view concerning survival strategies in Uzbekistan after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It analyzes the bazaar economy, which is based on the differences between pastoral and agricultural (plant breeding) subsistence in an area in northern Qashqadaryo Province. Historically, the bazaars of Central Asia have been positioned as the center of oasis and nomadic societies. There, settled people sold crops while pastoral people sold livestock and dairy goods, buying daily necessities using the money made from selling crops, livestock, and dairy goods. Middlemen would buy livestock at the bazaars located in pastoral areas, and then sell it at bazaars located in agricultural areas. The bazaar economy is based on the different types of subsistence resulting from the differences in the respective natural environments. It has a different structure from that of both the informal economy based mainly among relatives and neighbors and that of the global market system. However, the state of economic affairs in bazaars and their role in subsistence strategies in the post-Soviet era have not been clarified. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the number of bazaars started to increase, especially in rural Uzbekistan. Bazaars play a vital role in the lives of the people living in rural areas. At bazaars, who sells and buys carpets? How do the sellers and buyers negotiate with each other? Also, how is the price of carpets decided upon? To answer those questions, this paper examines the characteristics of the bazaar economy in northern Qashqadaryo Province and subsistence strategies in the post-Soviet era. Chapter III clarifies who the sellers and buyers are. It was found that most carpet sellers are also producers, while the majority of the buyers are middlemen. Sellers bring carpets to the bazaar to cover the expenses of wedding and circumcision ceremonies when their primary income, such as wages or pensions, has been delayed, or when they have no suitable livestock to be sold. For that reason, their primary job is not selling carpets at the bazaars. On the other hand, the middlemen frequently buy carpets at the bazaars. They sell them where people do not weave their own carpets as they are mainly engaged in farming. It seems from the negotiations at the bazaars that the middlemen who are familiar with prices and negotiation strategies have an advantage over sellers. However, chapter IV makes it clear that the business of buying and selling carpets does not produce great profits for the buyers, because in the post-Soviet era, carpets made by machine have spread into the areas where middlemen try to sell their carpets. Middlemen have had to sell carpets cheaper than those made by machine. They consider the carpet business a source of extra income. The carpet business has the advantage that whenever the sellers need money, they can sell the carpets they had bought previously and kept with themselves. In contrast, selling livestock entails a great deal of trouble and requires a large amount of capital. The business of buying and selling carpets is conducted

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  • Masamichi Inoue
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 25-47
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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    Over the years, Japanese anthropologists have problematized Orientalism as an apparatus of discourse and representation through which Japan is described as an exotic "other" in ethnographic accounts of Western anthropologists. Japanese anthropologists have also criticized the "world system of knowledge," which tends to marginalize and exclude Japanese anthropologists in the production, circulation, and consumption of knowledge about Japan. This paper is an attempt to develop, yet eventually critique and overcome, preceding criticisms of Orientalism and the world system of knowledge that supports it, from a specific position of a Japanese anthropologist working in an American university. The point of departure for my analysis is that the university today is an integral part of Empire, a global network of sovereignty that directly controls our productive capacity for social life as the source of its wealth and power. In particular, on the basis of participant-observations and interviews of students and teachers of all genders and varied ethnic and class backgrounds, the multitude, who study and/or teach Japanese language and culture at a public university in the southeast United States, the University of Kentucky, this paper aims to accomplish the following two tasks. First, I will provide a thick description of the ways in which the multitude apply their mimetic faculty-the faculty of becoming and behaving like the Other-to produce similarities, thereby transforming and dissolving the essentialized Self-Other dichotomy that Orientalism has produced and reproduced. To that end, I will ethnographically capture the multitude's engagement and immersion in various forms of Japanese culture, from kyudo (Japanese archery), Japanese anime, and Okinawa, to vocaloid, costume play, and the Japanese language. Second, I will theorize that mimetic deconstruction of Orientalism within a broader historical context of the formation of Empire. Specifically, I note that Orientalism, reconstituted today as a postmodern cultural apparatus of Empire, is now mobilized not to oppress and exclude Others (as Said described in reference to modern European colonialism) , so much as to integrate them and then orchestrate their differences in the system of control and management at the level of everyday social life. Situated within and positioned against that postmodern form of power, the multitude, I suggest, have begun to appropriate and rewrite Orientalism, by mimetically producing "Japan" as a biopolitical time-space of communication, fantasy, skills, and intimacy in a manner that challenges "employability," "success," "personal responsibility," and other creeds of global neoliberal regime Empire effects. I define that biopolitical time-space, constructed at the interface of Empire (power over life) and the multitude (power of life), as the sanctuary. What will emerge from my description and theorization are four characteristics of "Japan" as a global sanctuary. First, postmodern Orientalism, mobilized in Empire, tends to reproduce the stereotypical images of Japan through the ideas of tradition, mystery, and sensuality, and the multitude in the sanctuary critically diversify such images. Second, while postmodern Orientalism tends to essentialize the subject of Japanese culture as Japanese and nothing else, Japan as a global sanctuary is radically open to anybody with regards to race, gender, and class. In so doing, the sanctuary constitutes itself as a time-space of hybridity, where the multitude freely collaborate and negotiate across national boundaries so as to produce new morals and norms of life within and against Empire. Third, while postmodern Orientalism mobilized in Empire tends to reproduce a rigid binary between Self and Other, the West and the rest, the multitude in the sanctuary dynamically nullifies it by

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  • Shiaki Kondo
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 48-60
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper is an attempt to figure out why elders used to take care of migratory songbirds left behind in a small Alaskan Athabascan community. The practice of keeping wild birds has been reported in some Athabascan groups, but the prior studies did not elucidate the mystery of the seemingly contradictory beliefs and practices surrounding the care of "leftover" migratory birds. On one hand, most wild animals are not supposed to be kept in Athabascan cultures because treating them as pets may jeopardize the proper behavioral codes towards non-humans, which can bring misfortunes to the violators. On the other hand, however, some Alaskan Athabascan groups used to keep wild birds in order to receive benefits from the birds in custody, or just to protect them. The review of prior studies and my data suggest that three research questions need to be investigated: (1) Why were those migratory songbirds that were left behind allowed to be kept, while those black bear cubs unexpectedly awakened from hibernation were killed? (2) Why was the practice of keeping songbirds allowed only during the fall and winter? (3) The keeping of birds from the Strigadae, Corvidae, or Anatidae families was believed to bring benefits to the keepers, while such an idea does not seem to apply to birds from the Emberizidae family. If so, why do they keep those small songbirds, knowing that they do not bring any benefits? It is important to note that stranded black bears and migratory songbirds that were left behind share the trait of not being able to survive the winter in Interior Alaska. However, black bears are game animals whose relationship to humans is dictated by the cycle of "spotting-killing-using-disposing." On the other hand, migratory songbirds are a non-game animal; some occasionally build reciprocal relations with humans. The different treatment of black bear cubs and migratory songbirds can be explained by the existence of different principles governing the human-game relationship, on the one hand, and the relationship between humans and non-game animals, on the other. In order to answer the second research question, human interpersonal relationships can give us a clue. In Athabascan communities, it is considered impolite to force one's idea on others. However, when someone is apparently in need of help, people do offer it. In 1899, when Chief Sesui rescued U.S. Army Lieutenant Heron's expedition party after it was stranded in the middle of a boreal forest, he offered an extremely generous service to it. Considering that the relation between humans and non-game animals is similar to human interpersonal relations in the community under study, I argue that keeping migratory birds can be justified during the season of the year when they need help, while it cannot be justified in those seasons when they are self-sufficient. Lastly, in contrast to other birds, migratory songbirds are not necessarily believed to pay back the debt that they incur through the rescue. My point is that the elders probably did not expect to be compensated by the songbirds that they saved, just as Chief Sesui worked for Lieutenant Heron without a definite promise to be fully compensated.
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 61-63
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 63-66
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 66-70
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 70-73
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 73-76
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 77-87
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 89-91
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 91-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 92-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages 93-94
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages App2-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages App3-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Appendix
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages App4-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Cover
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages Cover3-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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  • Article type: Cover
    2014Volume 79Issue 1 Pages Cover4-
    Published: June 30, 2014
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
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