This paper highlights some of the choices and ways of life among the Aboriginal people living in the central desert, especially those who call themselves or who are known as Anangu, as manifested in the processes of acquiring money to purchase alcohol based on an analysis of canvas sales using welfare payments and the sharing repeated in those processes.

While the existing studies of Aboriginal people have focused on how they rearrange mainstream social systems to live in their own unique way, those who drink alcohol have been depicted as "victims of modernization." This paper focuses on Aboriginal people who consume alcohol and who have been omitted from discussions of social constructs in the past, and closely analyzes the technique used for obtaining money to purchase alcohol through sales of canvas. These analyses lead to the conclusion that the Anangu who are engaged in acquiring money to buy alcohol, do not abide by the duty of sharing, and further, they do not seek their own personal benefit; rather, they have established a situation-based approach known as the "way."

This paper aims to discuss the significance of sonic ethnography as a practical research method based on field recordings. "Sonic ethnography" refers to field recording works as a product of anthropological fieldwork. In ethnography, which is the empirical description of people’s activities, visual experience has been more important than auditory experience, and the potential of sound recording media has thus far not been sufficiently examined. This paper presents the sonic ethnography "Uminari Tonari" as a case study. We find that sonic ethnography can change the way we perceive things and the world by depicting the mutual and fluid world in which people, things, and nature resonate with each other through sound. The significance and potential of sonic ethnography lie in the sensory connections among people, things, and places through the act of recording, and the reflective thoughts and circulation of research methods and processes.

The last two decades have seen a growing interest in the study of morality/ethics within anthropology. This relatively new trend within the discipline has attempted to tackle the question how morality/ethics can be anthropologically defined, analyzed, and described. While the concept exist as a meta-theme in a number of works in the ethnographic canon, rarely has it been placed as the direct object of inquiry. One of the principle features found in the recent literature is the focus on individual or interpersonal practices which seek for the good in everyday settings, rather than moral codes consisting of imperatives and obligations to be followed. This special theme explores the extent to which theoretical discussions on morality/ethics since the 2000s can deepen our understanding of human life, as well as calling attention to several aspects that tend to remain in the shadows through the phrasing and perspectives prevalent in the current climate of discussion.

Recent discussions designated as the "ethical turn" have become influential in the anthropology of morality and ethics. This paper aims to identify the possibilities of the discussion surrounding the ethical turn in analyzing the politics and civic activism fields. Specifically, I investigate the morality and ethics of non-governmental organizations' (NGO) activism in Slovakia after the political transition, using conceptual distinction between morality and ethics, which Zigon suggested. The first generation of Slovak NGO activists participated in the activity to create a new society amid uncertainty. Their act could be understood as an ethical engagement motivated by democratic principles. However, once democracy stabilized in Slovak society, such civic activism gradually transitioned toward moral engagement, such as social norms that people should obey. The discussion of the ethical turn engenders a new perception of morality and ethics, enabling moral and ethical values to be presented differently through their practice.

Ordinary ethics is a term used by anthropologists to understand the ethical feature of human lives by employing the concept of Ordinary Language Philosophy (OLP). In this article, I attempt to unravel a part of its rich potential by examining some anthropological works that draw on the teaching of OLP, especially Cora Diamond’s article "The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy." In particular, I introduce two different paths of her work as guidance to approach the life of the vulnerable other. One is to attend to the other’s often unarticulated and obscured reality through the use of "imagistic language." Another is to write recognizing that one may always dismiss the other’s pain when an acknowledgment is most needed. These approaches are applied to revisit my field note taken during my stay in Sri Lanka, to explore other modes of writing about ethical issues, such as care and disregard.

One of the prevailing trends in the anthropology of morality/ethics criticizes the Durkheimian concept of morality, which had led to "the science of unfreedom," and emphasizes that the subject who holds and exercises reflective freedoms is a presupposition for ethical life. This paper calls attention that the researcher's assumption on the ethical subject with reflective freedom is liable to make discrepancies with the sense of "unfreedom" which the actor feels when s/he reflect upon his/her previous experiences. I focus on the act of sparing the "enemy" on the battlefield among the Daasanach in East Africa. The act of sparing the enemy’s life seems to be a decisive action with strong intentions by the actor. However, there are narratives whereby the actor is unable to explain the reasoning as to why he spared the enemy. This paper analyzes the case in which the actor feels a sense of "unfreedom" in a double sense, given that the actor spared the enemy unconsciously and could not comprehend and explain the act ex-post facto. I attempt to examine what conditions make the actor feel this sense of "unfreedom."

The aim of this article is to present a fresh perspective on the recent anthropological debates on ethics and morality, focusing on a fatal accident that occurred at a primary school in Japan in 2012. I will describe the efforts of the bereaved parents, who do not want to be involved in a story that transforms the incomprehensible accident into an event to be mourned respectfully and then forgotten, while trying to search for the truth about their daughter's death. Moreover, I will explore the importance of an empathetic understanding of the event, which can negotiate conflicts between the first- and third-person perspectives that arise about the inspection and interpretation of the accident. Through these investigations, I will indicate the significance of ethical practices of the bereaved that cannot be subsumed to a redemptive story but rather lead others to respond empathetically to the voiceless feelings of the deceased.