Japanese Journal of Cultural Anthropology
Online ISSN : 2424-0516
Print ISSN : 1349-0648
ISSN-L : 1349-0648
Volume 80, Issue 3
Displaying 1-33 of 33 articles from this issue
  • Article type: Cover
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages Cover1-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (22582K)
  • Article type: Cover
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages Cover2-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (22582K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages App1-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (70K)
  • Mitsuru Hamamoto
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 341-362
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    Anthropologists generally agree that long-term, intensive fieldwork makes anthropology what it is. If the anthropological knowledge produced through ethnographic field research is qualitatively unique among-and in certain points superior to-other modes of disciplinary knowledge in the social sciences, what aspects of fieldwork contribute to it? Given the centrality of field research in anthropological practices, it is puzzling that few anthropology departments have offered formal training in fieldwork methods. Admittedly, it is sometimes difficult to teach fieldwork systematically as a methodology, or as a set of standardized research techniques and methods. What makes fieldwork so difficult to teach? How is it related to the assumed superiority (if any) of the anthropological mode of knowledge production? In a recent theoretical re-evaluation of fieldwork, some authors, emphasizing the open-ended, unpredictable nature of fieldwork experience, argued that producing anthropological knowledge through field research is an incessant process of making and unmaking theories, and is inevitably improvisatory. Though I agree with them, I would also argue that fieldwork, widely known as "participant observation," is, above all, a social practice or practice of living socially, establishing and maintaining intimate relationships with local people, while developing an inimical or distanced relationship with others. The network of such social relations is also the network of daily conversation through which several touchy topics, whose circulation is necessarily restricted, are shared. Long-term fieldwork enables anthropologists to access and participate in that kind of conversation, while raising many ethical matters as well (in the sense of a local moral community) . The knowledge obtained through such personal social networks, which turns out to be crucial in understanding ongoing events and social processes, is normally inaccessible to survey-based research, using questionnaires, structured interviewing, and even open-ended ethnographic interviewing. In order to illustrate that point, I refer to a case recorded in August 2013, when I revisited the Duruma people of Kenya, among whom I have conducted ethnographic research since 1982, after a hiatus of a year. Similar to that of many Japanese anthropologists, my fieldwork style is to make repeated visits to the same place, performing so-called "yo-yo fieldwork," spanning more than 30 years, and totaling some 60 months on the ground. A few days before my arrival, one of the most promising young men in the community died accidentally through electrocution. After I arrived, five different narratives explaining his death were circulating within and around the village in a period as short as four weeks, as follows: (1) The Christian narrative, circulated mainly by the deceased man's father and his Christian friends; (2) a narrative attributing his death to the witchcraft of a certain old man who hates the development of the village; (3) a narrative accusing the man's father of killing his son using witchcraft to get richer; (4) a narrative accusing the father of devil worship; (5) a narrative blaming the young man himself for his blasphemous behavior against a certain Pentecostal church. Those narratives are not simply irresponsible gossip and rumors freely exchanged by the members of the community. With the possible exception of the second group of narratives, which largely circulated outside the village, all the narratives had moral, social, and possibly political consequences, which could have led to a formal accusation of witchcraft, as well as violent incidents against the supposed culprit, or his expulsion, and so forth. To narrate is to relate. When one notices several meaningful connections among the particulars of a situation, both in time and space, such as causal, analogical, or motivational ones,

    (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

    Download PDF (2320K)
  • Masashi Nara
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 363-385
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper examines how a Hui Muslim minority can assure religious autonomy from the contemporary Chinese state, which strictly controls religions. Specifically, it focuses on processes whereby Hui Muslims carry out informal and highly mobile Islamic pedagogical activities in Kunming, Yunnan Province. Recent studies of religious revival in China have tended to interpret it with the assumption that it is possible for religious groups to expand their autonomy through political action either against the state or with it, such as resistance and institutionalization. However, such studies overlook the fact that people paradoxically lose autonomy by engaging in politics against the state. According to Foucault's work regarding modern forms of power, resistance and power are inseparable, and there can be no autonomous space beyond the reach of power. Therefore, when people attempt to challenge the state through means legitimized by it, they effectively often become agents of the state. They are empowered in the name of the state and officially enrolled as actants in government. That is to say, they do not necessarily expand or obtain autonomy through political action against or with the state. Conversely, James C. Scott has proposed an alternative, suggestive way to address this issue without walking into a paradox, terming it "the art of not being governed." According to Scott, hill peoples in upland Southeast Asia before World War II maintained autonomy from the lowland states by taking flight, both culturally and geographically, from central state power. However, city dwellers like the Hui Muslims that this paper focuses on do not have such an anarchic space within the modern nation-state. Moreover, Scott also regards "the art of not being governed" as a merely pre-modern subject. Based on that, this paper examines how the autonomy of the Hui Muslims is possible without taking political action against the state or directly negotiating with the government while taking into consideration power relations that people cannot take flight from. Moreover, in order to examine this problem, this paper focuses on the processes and practices that Hui Muslims have carried out by engaging in informal religious activities to deal with governmental regulations in contemporary China. A rapid revival of religion has occurred in China because of the abatement of religious policies by the post-Mao Chinese state. Moreover, the Chinese government supports religious groups financially and politically, such as rebuilding mosques. However, religious policies have still been strict. For example, places utilized for religious activities are placed under governmental control. Although officially-authorized mosques are legally enabled by the government to carry out religious activities, official mosques must follow instructions regarding religious practice that are determined by the Chinese Communist Party. Consequently, most mosques have become places where Muslims cannot conduct religious activities freely. Such religious policies have made ordinary Muslims progressively distrust the clergy as well as the mosque system. Because in such a situation, some of the clergy behave as government agents who work to influence the opinions of ordinary Muslims to promote and apply state policies more efficiently. Therefore, ordinary Muslims tend to consider the clergy and mosques as a de facto part of the Chinese government. That has brought about a relative decline in the religious authority of the clergy among ordinary Muslims. Furthermore, in general, most Hui consider fellow members of their ethnic group who go on to receive Islamic education to become clergy members as failures in public school. Thus, most Hui people see the clergy as being "cultureless." Their criticism rests on the notion that "culture" is necessary to interpret and preach Islam. Although the word

    (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

    Download PDF (2384K)
  • Masaki Shimada
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 386-405
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    In Japan, the study of hunter-gathers and primatology both arose within the field of anthropology. We have indeed deepened our understanding about several aspects of humanities-such as culture, society, interaction, and ecology-by comparing them with the equivalents in non-humans, especially primates. In primatology and ethology, researchers need to restrict 'non-neutral' verbs to evoke the feelings or intents of subjects to describe the observed behavioral and interactive phenomena among animals, while using 'neutral' verbs, since the internal states of subjects can never be confirmed by observation. In normal or legal usage, the verb 'kill' is inevitably associated with the murderous intent and motivation of a subject, such as describing a situation saying "A killed B." Thus, the verb 'kill' should be restricted when describing phenomena about animal behavior in the tradition of ethology. Nonetheless, ethologists have never hesitated to use it. The so-called 'causal process model of killing' can be defined as a conceptual frame allowing us to think about the motive of the subject that causes the murderous intent, the murderous intent that causes the killing act, and the killing act that causes the object's death. The basic logic of sociobiology, which is one of the most powerful biological theories of the 21th century, is that all animal behavior can be understood assuming that they behave to maximize their own inclusive fitness. Ethologists have actually succeeded in understanding most animal behavior from the sociobiological viewpoint-even such behaviors as infanticide among non-humans-which originally had seemed abnormal. In most cases of animal behavior causing the death of another, ethologists can assume that the subject has a motive to maximize the inclusive fitness of its own behavior, having an obvious murderous intent without contradiction. Thus, the phenomenon can be described using the verb 'kill,' such as in the sentence of "A kills B," since the case fulfills the causal process model of killing. However, in interactions between wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and such other species as the red colobus (Piliocolobus badius) during 'hunting,' ethologists frequently can read neither a clear murderous intent in the chimpanzees'behavior nor the motive to kill the prey, even in interactions resulting in the victim's death. Since chimpanzees need to consider the risk of being wounded by the target animals'counterattack to some extent, and given that previous studies suggest that not all chimpanzees need to eat meat, it cannot be concluded that behavior such as 'hunting' increases their inclusive fitness. Thus, irrational sociobiological interactions between chimpanzees and other animal species cannot be described using the verb 'kill.' Chimpanzees have several ways to express their internal emotions, and observers can rationally and empirically infer their internal state by objectively observing their faces, hair, and whole body posture. Since human hunting is a practice in which the participants experience passion, it is necessary not only to understand the sociobiological rationality but also the emotional flow of the participants to understand killing by humans, including hunting. From the viewpoint of emotional flow, chimpanzees, when interacting with other animals, confront their prey and recognize their animacy. Chimpanzees are motivated to extract animacy from their prey, not just in the context of play, but also when 'hunting.' When 'hunting' the red colobus, several chimpanzees are motivated to cooperate with each other through empathy, maintaining the interaction itself. They feel an ambivalent joy when interacting with other animals, experiencing both passion and fear when maintaining that interaction.

    (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

    Download PDF (2090K)
  • Eriko Kawanishi
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 406-426
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

    This paper discusses the sort of social relations needed by participants in the so-called Goddess movement in Glastonbury, England, in the process of expanding that movement, classified as an alternative spirituality. It then argues that the social relations developed in an alternative spirituality group depend on that group's method of organization and privatization. Chapter one examines general arguments about social relations and religion. Generally, some researchers argue that the decline in traditional religions has severed the social relations that used to exist in local communities. Meanwhile, others argue that alternative spirituality has become more popular than traditional religions. However, such spirituality is considered as a privatized type of religion, so people are reluctant to discuss its organizational aspects. It is hard to believe, though, that like-minded people gather without any organization, so this paper focuses instead on alternative spirituality, especially the Goddess movement, as a case study. Chapter two introduces the details of the Goddess movement, which arose in the West around 1970. The Neopaganism movement arrived in North America during the 1960's, along with second-wave feminism. Some feminists left Christianity and became interested in the female deity "Goddess" as a symbol of a powerful and strong woman, as opposed to the patriarchal Christian God. This powerful image has often helped participants, especially women, encourage and transform themselves. Recently, the political aspects of the movement have declined, with the spiritual aspects becoming increasingly apparent. A woman named Kathy Jones founded the Glastonbury Goddess movement in the 1990's. One of the unique aspects of her movement is that the participants regard Glastonbury as the sacred place of the Goddess. Another attribute is that self-development course known as "Priestess Training," established by the founder and based on her idea of the Goddess. The course has successfully recruited new people to the movement, with many people taking it ending up sympathizing with the movement and moving to Glastonbury. Chapter three describes the life stories of such Goddess people. I relate four participants' stories, including that of a man. Based on semi-structured interviews, I discovered that the reason for their move to Glastonbury was not only to strengthen their Goddess beliefs, but also to socialize. For example, after their move, they recognized that they lacked opportunities to meet one another, so they started potluck suppers, not just to eat supper together, but also to share their feelings and inner experiences with the other participants. That means that they desired and needed close social relations, stemming from their sharing of deep emotions. Chapter four, on the other hand, also reveals that the Goddess people who moved to Glastonbury for closer social relations soon began to desire more casual ones instead. After several months, fewer and fewer people attended the potluck suppers, which were stopped after only a year, mainly because they were reluctant to share their feelings and inner experiences with others. They came to realize that they did not, in fact, need such close relations. Then, exactly, what kind of relations did they expect to have with the other participants? Soon after the potluck suppers started, invitations for various parties increasingly began to appear on mailing lists. The number of participants at birthday parties, for example, came to exceed those who attended the potluck suppers. Although the suppers stopped after a year, the Goddess people continued to hold various kinds of parties. Such changes in the types of gatherings indicate that they actually longed for more casual social relations than the more intimate ones sought for previously. In the last chapter, I start out by discussing how the

    (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)

    Download PDF (2141K)
  • Takuya Soma
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 427-444
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This research reports on the ethnography of the traditional art and knowledge (TAK) and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) fostered by Altaic Kazakh eagle masters, known as burkutchu, in the context of horse-riding falconry in the Bayan-Olgii Province of western Mongolia. From the standpoint of ecological anthropology and ethnoornithology, it especially focuses on (1) the process of the first-stage taming arts of hunting golden eagles, and (2) the feeding frequency and quantity, as well as the appropriate animals used in the eagles'diet. Qualitative research based on long-term, live-in fieldwork was carried out with a falconer family in the Buteu winter pasture of Sagsai County from August 4, 2011, to January 10, 2013 (300 working days in total). In addition, quantitative research, based on structured interviews, was done with 42 eaglet masters in Bayan-Olgii Province over a two-month period from September to October 2014. Three things were discovered in the research. First, participant observation and interviews detected at least nine taming procedure stages (from first contact to hunting excursions), together with getting accustomed to riding horses. The taming procedure differs slightly between eaglets taken straight from the nest (korbara) and young or adult birds that are captured (juz). Second, the research clarified the feeding frequency and quantity for the eagles, the procedure of which differs between summer (the moulting term, or tulyek) and winter (the weight-reduction term, or kaiyru). The average feeding quantity (mean ± S.E.) was calculated at about 1137.5 ± 130.5g in the summer and 541.4 ± 70.8g in the winter. The overall average feeding quantity per year was thus 241.3 ± 18.3kg, or equivalent to 9.6 to 12.0 local sheep or goats. Third, the research specified the appropriate animals used in an eagle's diet according to each eagle master's TAK. The animals were divided into four classes, depending on their appropriation, as follows: (1) rabbits, foxes and sheep; (2) organs, cows and marmots; (3) river fish, horses, dogs and goats, (4) camels, mice and wild birds. Eagle masters prefer using natural prey meat over livestock meat. Consequently, a unique rapport is formed between the eagle master and golden eagle, one that can be characterized as more of a friendship between equals than a relationship between commander and subordinate. The research clarified two main traits in the early stage of eagle taming. First, the taming processes seem a bit rough compared with the U.K. or Japan, though a clear procedure was constructed in the total process. Second, the taming of the eagles was heavily dominated by the obligation to feed them. In addition, quantitative research calculated the concrete amount of food in the annual diet, as well as the appropriation of animal species used in feeding the eagles. Altaic Kazakh eagle masters have developed a unique, systematized TEK over centuries of practice. Therefore, the development of TEK and local ethno-ornithological perceptions by eagle masters can be defined as a noteworthy contribution to human history.
    Download PDF (23771K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 445-449
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (519K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 450-454
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (586K)
  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 455-461
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (3643K)
  • [in Japanese], [in Japanese], [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 462-467
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (671K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 468-471
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (464K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 472-475
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (510K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 476-479
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (568K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 479-481
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (441K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 482-485
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (585K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 485-488
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (610K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 488-491
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (557K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 491-495
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (707K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 495-497
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (468K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 498-501
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (569K)
  • [in Japanese]
    Article type: Article
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 501-503
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (442K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 504-506
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (238K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 507-509
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (285K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 509-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (78K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 510-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (92K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages 511-512
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (182K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages App2-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (37K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages App3-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (37K)
  • Article type: Appendix
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages App4-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (37K)
  • Article type: Cover
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages Cover3-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (44K)
  • Article type: Cover
    2015 Volume 80 Issue 3 Pages Cover4-
    Published: December 31, 2015
    Released on J-STAGE: April 03, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (44K)
feedback
Top