Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the landscape of indigenous villages in the Amur region during the Soviet era with GIS analysis and oral histories. The result of these researches shows that the land use and management in this area by Kolkhoz was not already sustainable before the collapse of the Soviet system.

Paper long abstract:

The policies of the Soviet Union caused one of the most drastic landscape shifts in the 20th century. During the Soviet era, however, it was difficult for anthropologists from the Western Bloc to visit and do research. Therefore, ethnographic information on those landscape shifts was very limited.

This paper attempts to analyze the landscape of indigenous villages in the Amur region during the Soviet era with GIS analysis using satellite imagery. In particular, this research examines the Corona satellite images that gathered information on landscapes in the Soviet era and compares those images to the present. In addition, it clarifies information on past landscapes in the satellite images through oral histories based on interviews with local people conducted as part of the ethnographic research.

The results of these different types of research lead to the conclusions that indigenous villages in the Soviet era founded and managed by Kolkhoz were not sustainable with the work force of local villagers only, and that such a situation was already difficult to sustain before the collapse of the Soviet system. On the other hand, ethnographic data shows that the subsistence activities of indigenous villages which were based on a delicate balance of relationships with outside economies have sustained their daily life even after the collapse of the Soviet Union and have constructed the present landscape in this area.

Paper short abstract:

This paper describes the process of M market as social landscape has changed by analyzing the influence of brokers and city planning. The practice at M market via exchanges among villagers remains prevalent although some brokers earn a profit due to the price differences between towns and villages.

Paper long abstract:

This paper regards the markets as places to exchange products that differ in terms of the attendees' places of residence and as social landscapes that involve a variety of behaviors. That is, products differ according to the characteristics of different regions, such as the differences in the vegetation in highland and lowland areas, as well as according to local social practices, such as the ways in which people negotiate prices and trades. It is also regarded that landscapes as the agency to interact to people's behavior. This paper describes the process by which the function of these markets has changed by analyzing the influence of the introduction of brokers and city planning to the process. Since the 1990s, the M market has grown, and the administration and city planners have moved the areas used to sell and buy cash crops. This could be interpreted as a sign of creating a permanent marketplace. At the same time, however, the practice of selling and buying agricultural products at the M market via exchanges among villagers remains prevalent although some brokers entered this market to earn a profit due to the price differences between towns and villages.

Paper short abstract:

This paper points out the changes in burial practices of Taiwanese aborigines, which initially emulated the indoor burial, and later adopted the Japanese-style grave marker, followed by the Han Chinese custom. It was shown clearly that external politics was the driving factor.

Paper long abstract:

Indoor burial, a characteristic of Austronesians, was a burial system common among the Taiwanese aborigines. However, after Japan occupied Taiwan, this practice came to an end because it was forbidden as a bad habit. Taiwanese aborigine's funeral attendance and burial customs changed with a change in policy makers. During the beginning of the Japanese reign, burials were performed in Japanese-style tomb; the burial custom of Han race was adopted after World War II. Moreover, the rise of native movements in recent years attempted to represent their aboriginal identity at the grave.

In addition, the problem of faith arose. Although the Taiwanese aborigines believed in animism, many converted to Christianity after World War II. These converts had crosses as their grave markers, representing their religion. This western practice is also observed by the Han race in Taiwan and by the Christians living in Japan or China. Thus, despite being a western characteristic, the cross is found on graves of Taiwanese aborigines.

This paper examines cemetery setting as an accumulation of history from the viewpoint of material culture. The results showed that the changes in the cemetery scene clearly reveal that the representation of the Taiwanese aborigines' identity has changed because of external policy makers.

Paper short abstract:

This article draws on an ethnographic research in order to examine local politics of managing watershed landscapes in Northern California, focusing on the process of landscapes building and its function which reinforce legitimacy on resource use and bring social norm among local stakeholders.

Paper long abstract:

Since the 1970s, across the Northern West Coast of the United States, the spread of environmentalism led to the construction of new values and relationships with watershed resources such as salmon and old growth forests, and caused more intense competition in claiming legitimacy among stakeholders regarding the control of and decision-making about watershed resources and their uses. Common to these constructed and increasingly politicized landscapes are the forms and practices of how stakeholders discovered focused attention, and built these resource-values landscapes which enable each stakeholder group to name their collective identity, acquire their history of resource use, and recall shared constructed collective memory. Based on a case study analysis, this article specifically sketches the processes in which each stakeholder group founded its watershed-values landscape in the political strain of resource use competition, especially since 1990, and shows how the landscapes were reconstructed materially and conceptually, mixed with each stakeholder group's ideal image of a watershed, while being conscious of differentiation among stakeholders. This sketch also illustrates, how local actors, in order not to fall into the never-ending political disputes and irrevocable escalation of conflicts, discovered their 'everyday landscape' in contraposition to each differentiated and conceptualized one, and evaluated it as what was locally shared and embodied as common daily social practices among local actors. From an analysis of the constructions of the legitimacies of watershed landscapes, we may discuss the gap between the conceptualized landscapes and 'everyday landscapes,' and their interplay in the politics of watershed landscapes.

Paper short abstract:

In contrast to previous landscape theory of "daytime", this paper explores the significance of landscape experienced during nighttime, i.e. night-scape. In particular, discussions will be made of stars as components of night-scape for the navigation and season-reckoning in the Pacific islands.

Paper long abstract:

Landscape is the world out there as understood, experienced, and engaged with through human consciousness and active involvement. Although dynamic nature of human-landscape relations has been well noticed, the discussion still remains a static land-oriented view. Also landscape has been examined a priori as experienced during daytime.

Pacific islanders have been engaged with sea constantly, and to them seascape is the key framework for everyday life. In the middle of the sea, the navigators do not see land but they see wave, splash, birds, aquatic animals, and so on. Everything in the seascape is thus in a constant flux. Moreover, one of the most important aspects of the indigenous navigation was observing the movement of stars during night.

In addition, archaeologists have disclosed the relationship between the direction of archaeological structures and particular cardinal points, such as solstices and equinoxes of the sun. There are recent opinions that the structures were directed not toward the sun but toward constellations. Confusions may have come from the fact that, in the tropical areas, bearing of June solstice sunrise/sunset is close to the rising/setting Pleiades, that of equinox sunset/sunrise is close to rising/setting Orion, and so on. Since there are much more legends and folk knowledge concerning stars than those of sun in the Pacific islands, the author argues that we should shift our gaze from the fixed and diurnal landscape to the fluid and nocturnal seascape and "cosmo-scape" that incorporate moving constellations in the sky.