Short Abstract:
The progress of globalization reduces physical distances and inconspicuously excludes specific groups and individuals. Anthropology has differentiated itself from neighboring disciplines by fieldwork practice. How we can mediate local and global communities carefully and significantly would be a touchstone for the future of anthropology.
Long Abstract:
This panel aims to examine globalization from field sites. The progress of globalization has not only linked physical spaces such as megalopolises, remote spots, and different areas but also different groups, ideas, issues, and fields. As we have realized, it also widens gaps in inequality and excludes particular groups and individuals. Furthermore, various phenomena relate to each other in a complex and intricate manner that in many cases is beyond control, e.g., issues of poverty. Regarding this circumstance, a global “community” or a global civil society is sought in international society. However, we find that many existing concepts (such as human rights, democracy and justice) that had been considered universal need to be re-framed considering local, cultural, and historical diversity. This panel reconsiders globalization from the perspective of field sites in order to bridge the gap between the local and global.
The panel discussion comprises two sessions. The first session examines armed conflicts, the process of peace-building, and the restoration of governance after conflicts. From a long-term perspective, peace-building studies confront the question of why conflicts recur once peace-building processes are implemented. We will respond to this crucial global issue using insights from field sites.
The second session analyzes the phenomena of migration and social transformation resulting from advances in transportation and communication. This process requires reformation of groups and ethnic consciousness and formation of new identities. The panel examines such on-going processes to discuss a new civil society. This discussion also includes a reexamination of development studies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1
Global justice and peace building in an unequal society: internal armed conflicts and indigenous people of the highland Andes
Hiromi Hosoya
(Seikei University)
Paper short abstract:
Anthropology helps contribute to the emerging theme of global justice through onsite research methods that consider social diversity. In this context, I analyze the different articulations of justice among the international community, nation-states, and local groups.
Paper long abstract:
Global justice has been discussed in many interdisciplinary ways, and while the international community seeks a global standard of justice, the diversity and contextualization of justice have also been revealed. Further complicating the concept of justice, the international community's principal unit has been the nation, despite national societies consisting of various groups among whom relations are often unequal. Therefore, I examine the different articulations of justice in the international community, a nation, and local groups by analyzing the Peruvian peace-building process after internal armed conflicts.
Peru's violent period began with an armed rebellion of the Peruvian Communist Party-Shining Path (PCP-SL), who followed Mao's strategy: the rural areas will surround urban areas. However, this foreign strategy faced the vernacular uniqueness of Peruvian society, where indigenous people are identified as "peasants (campesinos)." Subsequently, both the national army and the PCP-SL conducted massive massacres of rural inhabitants. According to the 2013 Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of Peru, almost 70,000 people died or disappeared from 1980 to 2000, of which, remarkably, 75 percent were indigenous language speakers. However, no indigenous people were nominated as TRC commissioners, and they were excluded from the peace-building process. Now, the former Emergency Declared Areas have again been declared as such. Postcolonial conditions, such as racism, are also important factors in this result. Consequently, I examine how justice differs amongst various groups and instances during the peace-building process and also highlight how this justice often appeared contradictory.
The "local" arises from motion: the transformative trajectory of "Khartoum's meaning" among returnees to Juba, South Sudan
Yuko Tobinai
(Morioka University)
Paper short abstract:
I discuss the changed perception of "Khartoum" among the people who returned from North to South Sudan. Through this case study, I seek to understand the process by which human movement creates the meaning of the "local."
Paper long abstract:
My presentation demonstrates the process of transformation in the meaning of "Khartoum" among returnees from North Sudan to Juba.
People who live in the Greater Sudan had experienced multiple kinds of movements. In particular, the civil wars have caused populations to move to southern Sudan. Moreover, people have been scattered all over the world. Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, has the largest number of displaced persons. Many Southerners were part of its population, but they considered it as the city of the "Arab," their enemy. The Southerners regarded Khartoum as "too hot," "dirty," and "not suitable as a residence for humans." For them, the "South" was home or "heaven."
During the referendum period, many of Southerners returned to South. Most attempted to settle in Juba, the capital city of South Sudan. Their life in Juba has hardly been "easy." They thus came to know the reality of their perceived heaven. These returnees re-grasped the meaning of "Khartoum" during their time of struggle in Juba. This transformation is the background of their experience as displaced persons.
The movement of people is one the most important aspects of globalization. We have understood this movement as a deviation from established settlement. Nowadays, however, we cannot understand the world without human movement. Thus, we must think about the world My presentation shows that the process of human movement determines the meaning of the "local."
International state-building and cultures of governance: the case of post-1999 Timor-Leste
Hiroko Inoue
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines international state-building in Timor-Leste and demonstrates the significance of local culture of governance. To grapple with the malleable and ever-contested nature of local culture, it posits state-building as an interactive process in which culture is formed and reformed performatively.
Paper long abstract:
This paper, by examining the case of international state-building in Timor-Leste, demonstrates the significant impact of local culture of governance on the local reception of state institutions, and elucidates a variety of factors that uphold the culture of governance.
Fistly, the local culture of governance was heavily influenced by the nation's colonial past. Democratic state institution-building reflected post-colonial characteristics of political culture; electoral democracy was continuously projected with, and redefined through, the sense of nation-ness, which had a strong emphasis on unity over diversity. Secondly, like many other post-conflict societies, large parts of East Timor had maintained viable customary forms of governance based on a kinship community. Village institutions built in the post-1999 period therefore became an intersection where the 'universal' ideas of governance, such as democracy and gender equality, met 'traditional' norms of governance. Thirdly, the local subsistence agriculture-based economy was also a key component in the resilient local 'traditional' culture. State judicial institutions were not particularly active in rural areas due to conceptual gaps and lack of infrastructural backing. Lastly, and most crucially, the significant presence of the international community and the introduction of the neo-liberal market economy in post-1999 East Timor also brought about rapid change in the culture of governance, influencing the local society's relationship with state institutions.
In short, informed by the history of colonialism and embedded in socio-economic structures, the local culture of governance had significant implications for the way in which local society engaged with the state.
The adaptation of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese in Belarus
Siarhei Sakuma
(Center for the Study of Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature)
Paper short abstract:
The number of Asian people in Belarus tends to increase year by year. This has started to change the traditional way of life of the Belarusian society. On the other hand, due to the process of adaptation patterns of life of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese are changing.
Paper long abstract:
The number of Asian people in Belarus tends to increase year by year. This has started to change traditional way of life of the Belarusian society. That is why we need to study the adaption of new ethnical groups in Belarus. On the other hand, due to the process of adaptation patterns of life of Japanese, Chinese, Koreans and Vietnamese are changing.
The most steady patterns are in food and eating, calendar holidays, family traditions and identity. Among second-third generations of migrants from East Asia we can fix mixed identity (Belarusian-Vietnamese, Belarusian-Japanese etc.)
The main difficulties during adaptation for study migrants from East Asia are connected with studying and using Russian language, adaption to local food, system of education, living conditions. To solve these problem study migrants founded such organizations like Chinese students' Union, Vietnamese students' Union, Korean students' Community.
Among the main factors of adaptation of East Asian people in Belarus we can distinguish such as ethnical, legal, linguistic, social-economic, and external. The last means the relationship between migrants and the host society.
“Self culture” in the age of uncertainty and globalization: young Japanese outbound migrants in “lost 20 years"
Etsuko Kato
(International Christian University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores in what aspects young Japanese self-searching migrants in Canada and Australia embody universal “self culture”, and in what aspects they consider themselves “Japanese”. It also argues that self-searching project reflects the class- and gender-stratification within a society.
Paper long abstract:
In high modernity, self-reflexivity is no more a luxury of privileged people, but is an obsessive life project for lay people in any post-industrial country. When people’s concern of self culminates, it can defy conventional notions of nation-state or social norms. They, in a sense, are creating a universal “self culture”. One such people are the Japanese who quit their jobs around 30 years old and fly overseas, notably to English-speaking countries, for the pursuit of true self or “what I want to do”. The majority of such group is non-elite, and women, who experienced unstable, unfulfilling, or harsh working life as well as societal encouragement of self-improvement during “lost 20 years”, i.e., Japan’s economic recession from early 1990s to early 2010s. Based on in-depth interviews of young migrants in Canada (from 2001) and Australia (from 2011), this paper explores in what aspects these migrants embody universal “self culture”, if any, and in what aspects they consider themselves “Japanese”. The paper also argues that self-searching project reflects the class- and gender-stratification within a society, which encourages less privileged people to change and improve self more.
A study on ethnic culture identification of Yi undergraduates from the perspective of globalization
Qiuping Xu
Paper short abstract:
In multi-ethnic countries, ethnic minorities are facing the issue of culture identity. It becomes more prominent in the process of globalization. This paper attempts to explore how Yi college students perceive ethnic identity their attitudes towards it.
Paper long abstract:
Ethnic culture Identification refers to individual's recognition of his or her own ethnic beliefs, attitudes and ethnic identity. In the multi-ethnic countries, ethnic minorities are facing the issue of culture identity due to the impact of historical change and social development. It becomes more prominent in the process of globalization. Yi nationality, one of the ethnic groups, accounts for the largest group in southwest China. This paper attempts to explore how Yi college students perceive ethnic identity and their attitudes towards it through a questionnaire from the perspective of Yi language, culture, religion and customs.