Ethnology/Anthropology is for me an academic field constituted from the two epistemologically distinct horizons of the ultra-macro and the ultra-micro. There is no need to unreasonably conjoin these two horizons, nor is it necessary to casually fill in the gap or chasm between them. Rather, I celebrate this gap and estrangement. And, while looking squarely at this schism as such, I believe that, regarding human existence and action, ethnology/anthropology has its own scholarly approach that differs from those of related academic fields. With this as premise, I take the opportunity of having received the 2009 Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology Award to discuss what position "resources" have had as research object in the wider anthropological field. I do so employing the four main themes of death, (material) "things," ethnos and evolution. It is thus possible to view resources as objects compressed from between these themes. From the ultra-macro time-scale of evolution, ethnos and death-which each are involved in a circuit binding the (macro) species and the (micro) individual-pass beyond being themselves tightly intertwined and more directly become resource related "things." My hope for ethnology/anthropology is that it will break away from its anthropocentrism in research on "things," and that-within the equilateral triangle formed by the three themes of evolution, ethnos and death-it will pursue the processes of morphogenesis, which may be seen to reach their pinnacle in the form of extinction.

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This paper explores what makes a particular way of handling cultural objects "appropriate," by focusing on the claims against the charge of unauthorised excavation and export of objects from Turkey for the international art market. It examines how the illegal trade in archaeological objects from Turkey is problematised by looking at ideas and concepts -such as those of protection, legality, illegality and place of origin- as mobilised by different groups in and outside Turkey to support their claims against such transactions. In particular, by demonstrating how these different groups articulate the significance of protecting cultural heritage, the paper reveals that the moralised language of protection works as a boundary concept to differentiate these claims for handling such objects.

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In any post-industrial society today it is common for "youth," including those who are in their 30s and 40s, to keep searching for "what I really want to do" and to cross national borders in pursuit of their personal searches. Japan, where the idiom of "self-searching" (jibun-sagashi) has become a cliche, sends thousands of youths to various parts of the globe every year, including to Vancouver, Canada. Two characteristics are notable among Japanese sojourner-migrants in that city: seeking identification of their "true self' and doing "the work they really want to do." The gender imbalance in the population (80% women, 20% men) is also remarkable. Based on eight years of fieldwork, this study will clarify: (1) what motivates young Japanese people to pursue their search for their true selves overseas, especially in Vancouver, and (2) why this phenomenon is heavily defined by gender. By exploring Japanese women and men's respective relationships with work, this study critiques simplistic popular views of "oppressed Japanese women fleeing from male-dominant Japanese society" and also problematizes a peculiar form of patriarchy in Japanese society that hinders young Japanese men from searching for self-identification and work overseas.

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This paper aims to identify, through a case study of the urban poor community in Metro Manila, a distinct characteristic of contemporary urban governance in the processes of decentralization and liberalization since the early 1990s and, specifically, the subjectivity of urban residents constituted through the particular working of power under such governance. As discussed by Foucault, governmentality can be considered a broad effect of power which organizes and structures the interaction of actors, through which some subjectivity internalizing specific norms and rationality is constituted. The current paper examines one aspect of such interaction between governmentality and subjectivity under a concrete setting of the urban poor community in Metro Manila, but further considers the broader implications of the case by contextualizing it in the growing literature on neoliberal urban governance in various parts of the contemporary world.

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The entertainment robot "AIBO," which was fist marketed by SONY in 1999, has attracted people as the first robot designed for everyday life. In this paper, I analyze both the engineering and reception of AIBO in order to grasp the multidimensional nature of technology, to question the relationship between science and culture, and to re-imagine the notion of "technology," by focusing on its capacity to mediate between heterogeneous entities. During the engineering processes that led to AIBO, the design practices of engineers related scientific knowledge and technological devices to cultural narratives about robots in an effort to make an attractive product. In the process of reception, the interpretive practices of owners related the mechanical behavior of AIBO to cultural meanings in their living spaces in such a way that, over time, the attractiveness of AIBO robots for owners became profoundly different from the initial suppositions of the design engineers. Finally, I explore the methodological and ethical implications of thinking of technology as mediation.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of wealth-sharing in a multi-ethnic village in southwestern Ethiopia, by focusing on how and to whom crops are distributed. It will also reveal the dynamic process underlying the distribution, by analyzing peoples' interactions when giving to others and keeping things for themselves. In most of the literature, the issues of wealth-sharing and reciprocal assistance have long been discussed in terms of their cultural aspects. In this paper, I focus on a rural village in highland Ethiopia, where migrants from a variety of ethnic backgrounds have settled to produce cash crops. The people have different cultural backgrounds, and it is almost impossible to find a single cultural trait or concept shared by all the villagers. This kind of case study can provide a much wider basis for understanding the dynamic processes of possession and distribution in a changing society.

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