Short Abstract:
In this panel we will discuss hunting practices and their cultural transmission globally, with particular regard to animal welfare and defending agricultural areas against wildlife attack.
Long Abstract:
In this panel we will discuss hunting practices and their cultural transmission globally, with particular regard to animal welfare and defending agricultural areas or human life against wildlife attack.
Traditional or subsistence hunting and related activities by indigenous peoples and professional hunters have decreased globally, in recent years. At the same time, we can see the continuity of hunting as a hobby, in forms such as trophy and sport hunting, and an act of defending agricultural areas against wildlife attack. Modern hunting activities, traditional and otherwise, are practiced to acquire meat for survival, for certain human mental desires or satisfactions, to maintain economic activities, and for the safety of human life. Hunting is generally premised on directly claiming the life of an animal, and can conflict with various concerns for animal welfare or survival.
The panel will try to foresee the future of hunting by comparing, in a range of social contexts, the views of hunters, the cultural transmission of hunting practices, inheritance and innovation in hunting skills, the treatment and uses of meat and other animal products, and relationships between hunters and others.
Accepted papers:
Session 1
In defense of the endangered black buck: Bishnois of India raise the stakes for hunters and poachers
Bobby Luthra Sinha
(University of Basel, Switzerland)
Paper short abstract:
In this case study from India replete with an ethnographic focus on a micro-social movement against hunting and poaching, we seek to anaylse how issues on ground between people and the democratic state are effectively and innovatively solved by movement actors.
Paper long abstract:
Can a people's movement for the defense of wildlife provoke debates around democratic accountability and justice? With respect to this question, we present a case study of how Bishnois in India contribute in saving wild life and create an ongoing dialogue between democracy and people. Based on ethnographic field-work, this study explores the local people's day to day practices as well as the larger issues of Democracy in which these practices unfold.The gap between the key instruments and the key mechanisms of democracy in India is being creatively negotiated through the political imagination of the social movement actors in Western Rajasthan during the past two decades. A case study of some important actors and sites of Bishnoi ecology movements in Rajasthan will be presented. Operating in the arid and semi-arid zones of western Rajasthan in India, Bishnois of Bikaner and Jodhpur have bought to life the dialectics between the voice of the people and the voice of the state. These movements have become a valuable text in understanding locally embedded discourses and transformations on ground.
Keywords: Democracy and Justice; Hunting and poaching; Bishnoi Ecology movements
Hunting and land use: property relations among the Embera
Hiroshi Kondo
(National Museum of Ehtnology)
Paper short abstract:
In this presentation, I will discuss the relation of hunting activity and agricultural activities in contemporary village life of the Embera in Panama. By considering this incoherence of the different economic activities, I would like to discuss the idea of property in contemporary village life.
Paper long abstract:
In this presentation, I will discuss the hunting practices of the Embera in Panama. Even though the Embera in eastern Panama consume products circulated in the international, national, and local market economy, they also practice slash-burn agriculture and hunting for daily consumption. My objective is to describe the relation of hunting activity and agricultural activities in such a situation of diversification of economic activities in contemporary village life.
Through the political discourse of indigenous rights and conflicts with neighboring non-indigenous group, the concept of land property has also been taking roots in their daily life. Claiming their collective land property, the Embera try to exclude outsiders' agricultural activity from their territory. This conscious of exclusive use of the territory resides with their agricultural activities. They often claim or indicate individual land rights even toward un-used lots by using some fruit trees as markers of border of different lots.
However, in the context of hunting, the idea of exclusive use of territories or crops are not taken notice. Not only hunters can go into wherever they (or their dogs) find preys, but also people let animals eat their crops. The Embera do not practice trap hunting in their agricultural filed. Moreover, they even allow outsiders to hunt inside of their territory. Here, we can regards that properties in agricultural activity are not matter of concern in hunting practice. By considering this incoherence of the different economic activities, I would like to discuss idea of property in contemporary village life.
A hunting practice of 'Ryoyukai': the relationship between hunters in voluntary organization in Japanese local society
Atsushi Nobayashi
(National Museum of Ethnology, Japan)
Paper short abstract:
This paper shows how the hunters practice their hunting activity in voluntary organization 'Ryoyukai' of a local society in Japan and discusses the relationship between hunters in modern Japanese context.
Paper long abstract:
People practice hunting for defense against wildlife attack to protect their agricultural products in Japan. They are engaged in agriculture and their hunting is a volunteer work. Some hunters are interested in hunting itself or the ecology of wild animals and they are absorbed in developing a method or a way of hunting. However, it is not necessarily passed to others or next generation by themselves because the hunters are not related by blood or marriage and they just belongs to voluntary organization 'Ryoyukai' 'Ryoyukai' has also members who are not engaged in agriculture and they are not concerned with defense against wildlife attack. They might have different expectations and it sometimes gives conflicts or misunderstanding to the members. At the same time, 'Ryoyukai' has a role of connecting hunters to a government office, police and the general public.
This paper shows how the hunters practice their hunting activity or develop techniques or skill involved with other members of 'Ryoyukai' and then discusses the relationship between hunters or hunters and other peoples in modern Japanese context.
Some aspects of hunting tour in guided hunts: a case study of Ezo Deer hunting in Nishiokoppe special hunting area in Hokkaido, Japan
Yoshinori Tojo
( The Graduate University for Advanced Studies)
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on aspect about hunts with guide in Hokkaido, Japan. Based on field data, hunting tour in guided hunts has characteristic influenced by weather condition and skill of shooting.
Paper long abstract:
This paper discusses hunts with guide in Hokkaido, Japan. Nishiokoppe special hunting area has accepted guest hunters and provided guided hunts to them. Guest hunters usually stay at the hotel in the area and practices hunting with guide hunters for a few days. Ezo deer (Cervus nippon yesoensis) is the main game of the hunting tour. The program of the guided hunts has shooting and disorganizing deers and bagging meats of deers.
The success of the hunting depends on how guest hunters could enjoy hunting practice. Weather condition on the very day of hunting practice, a kind of guns and guest hunters' skill of shooting are very important to it. For example, the difference of shot range between shotgun and rifle has an effect on the way of accessing to games and its distance. Suggestions from the guide have also an important role to guest hunters for removing the influence by weather condition, behavior of the game or guest hunters' skill of shooting and ensuring security during the hunting.
Baced on field data, this paper reports that hunts with guide have some future in Japan.
Rethinking 'wildness': knowledge and practice about animals among hunters in Borneo
Yumi Kato
(Kyoto University)
Paper short abstract:
I examine the factor of discrepancy between wildlife conservation at the national level and wildlife hunting, and eating customs at the local level. Then, I will consider how the lifestyle change is reflected in the people’s traditional ecological knowledge and recognition for the wild animals.
Paper long abstract:
The natural environments have greatly changed by large-scale logging and plantation development in the Insular Southeast Asia since 1960s. In regard to the degradation of forest, sustainable forest management and wildlife conservation have been carried out. In order to protect and conserve wild animals, the hunting ordinance was issued. Therefore, it is prohibited to hunt, eat, and trade wild animals freely. In this paper, I will examine how this hunting ordinance is understood, recognized, and practiced in local level. I will consider the factor of discrepancy between wildlife conservation in national level and wildlife hunting, eating customs in local level.
In Sarawak, Malaysia, hunting ordinance was issued in 1998. At the same time, chicken farming project by the government was introduced in the villages as part of the food self-support program for not to depend on hunting. However, they did not easily stop conventional hunting and eat the animals which were bred. It is because of their preference for wildness, their consideration about health and life among dietary behavior.
In this paper, I will discuss the transformation of the preference of wildness and consideration to health under the influence of the wildlife habitation transition caused by recent land use change. Furthermore, I will consider how the transformation of their social environment, including the lifestyle change by the increase of wage labor can be reflected in the traditional ecological knowledge and recognition for the wild animal.
Ethno-fishery by locals In Sub-Himalayan North Bengal, India
Ashok Das Gupta
(University of North Bengal )
Paper short abstract:
Ethno-fishery by locals In Sub-Himalayan North Bengal, India is the prime object of the paper.
Paper long abstract:
Ethno-fishery by locals In Sub-Himalayan North Bengal, India is the prime object of the paper. Locals practice there agro-forestry, are involved in collection of wild potatoes and rhizomes of various types,bamboo and mushroom, collect catechu and rubber, work under forest department, protect forest, collect fuel, used as labourforce in logging, make wooden plough and boats, work as forest guards to prevent bio-piracy and preventing wild attacks.
They also possess knowledge about local fishes of both edible and ornamental types. They have prepared different types of fishing implements and traps to collect these fishes of different size and season along with crabs, tortilla and shrimps/prawns.
Many of these folk communities have now become settled cultivators and involved in other types of job,but their fishing traps actually symbolizes their Indo-Mongoloid affinities suitable for small rivers and streams coming down from Tibeto-Himalayas.
Commercial hunting of the indigenous people in the Russian Far East: the change of their hunting strategy and techniques
Shiro Sasaki
Paper short abstract:
The indigenous people in the Russian Far East has a long history of the commercial hunting for the fur bearing animals. I will discuss what elements induced the change of their hunting and what parts of the hunting they tried to protect with every effort.
Paper long abstract:
The indigenous people in the Russian Far East (the Nanai, Udehe, Ulcha, and Nivkh) has a long history of the commercial hunting for the fur bearing animals (sable, ermine, weasel, otter, lynx, and fox). As far as historical documents tell us, they have engaged since the thirteenth century. They have experienced some drastic changes of its conditions since the nineteenth century. The first one was caused by the change of the ruler (from the Qing dynasty to Imperial Russia) in 1860. The second one was seen in the 1960s and 70s, during which the Soviet government conducted an important reform of the collective farms. And the third one was induced by the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Every time the hunters changed their strategy, took new techniques and technology, and adapted themselves to the new conditions. I will discuss what elements induced the change of their hunting and what parts of the hunting they tried to protect with every effort.