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Toru Yamaguchi
(Keio University)
Hiroya Yamano
(National Institute for Environmental Studies)
Satoshi Tanahashi
(Ochanomizu University)
Naoko Fukayama
(Tokyo Metropolitan University)
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Stream:
Borders and Places
Sessions:
Wednesday 16 September, -, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Multi-disciplinary studies of 'islandscape' as a meshwork.
Panel B06 at conference RAI2020: Anthropology and Geography: Dialogues Past, Present and Future.
Island landscape can be viewed to have been formed through two agencies, nature and human, and transformed with contingent encounter and entanglement. We want to call this cohesiveness and transformation as 'islandscape', which needs to be studied through a multi-disciplinary perspective.
Long Abstract:
Islands are places that gather up various researchers simply because the landforms are restricted by the seawater. As we sometimes engages in field research on the same island in the same period, we can get a chance to know new knowledge and methodology of other academic domains next to each, if we do not hesitate to have such a dialogue. Islands are typical places of encounters and entanglements. It holds true not only for our personal experience but also for landscape of islands. As all land-dwelling creatures including human being cannot stop over in the vast ocean, a variety of animals, plants and things travel toward the restricted landform of an island, in particular along with human colonization. Here the island landscape can be viewed to have been formed as a 'meshwork' through two agencies, nature and human, and transformed with contingent encounter and entanglement. We want to call this cohesiveness and transformation, the main features of island, as 'islandscape'. Islandscape needs to be holistically studied, through a multi-disciplinary perspective that integrates environmental archaeology and history, cultural and ecological anthropology, geoscience and humanistic geography, and so on. Thus anyone interested in landscape of islands is welcome to join this panel. The following topics would be most relevant; sea level change, climatic disasters, portmanteau biota, exotic materials, anthropogenic degradation or enhancement of environment, encounter ethnography, MIRAB societies, social resilience to climate change.
Atolls are good for the 'islandscape' study. The anthropogenic landscape of agricultural pits, in particular, is a historical product of entanglement between two agencies, nature and human. I will show an archaeological contribution to the perspective through a case study of Pukapuka Atoll.
Paper long abstract:
Oceanic atolls are typical instances fitting in with the perspective of 'islandscape.' The precarious islets of sand and gravel were formed by wave energy on Holocene coral reef, and sea currents or sea birds transported seeds of littoral vegetation, which took root on the low and flat islets. Pisonia could grow into forest providing a habitat for sea birds, droppings of which added nutrient rich soil, while human colonization drastically increased the variety of vegetation including coconut palm, breadfruit and taro. Taro tubers are cultivated in agricultural pits which were dug into the water table of freshwater lens. I have conducted archaeological surveys of agricultural pits in several atolls. As most atolls in the remote Oceania have been less affected with deposits of volcanic ashes and alluvial sediments, it was normally harder to stratigraphically excavate prehistoric sites. However, it has now become clear through our surveys that we can see stratigraphic sediments at spoil banks surrounding agricultural pits. These banks are of secondary deposition which was artificially piled up, but this human-induced sedimentation covers cultural deposits in a good condition, from which we can also frequently obtain charcoal flecks for the dating analysis. Construction of agricultural pits should be a crucial factor affecting human settlement in the severe atoll environment, and their spoil banks would provide archaeologists with chronological information of this anthropogenic landscape. I will show an archaeological contribution to the study of 'islandscape' histories through our research results mainly of Pukapuka Atoll in the northern Cook Islands.
We present results on the development of the reef flat and island, as well as the reconstruction of late Holocene sea-level change, at Wale Island on Pukapuka Atoll in the northern Cook Islands. The major part of the island formed under stable or slightly rising sea levels before 2100 cal yr BP.
Paper long abstract:
We present results on the development of the reef flat and island, as well as the reconstruction of late Holocene sea-level change, at Wale Island on Pukapuka Atoll in the northern Cook Islands, based on excavation of the island and examination of fossil corals. The fossil in-situ corals (microatolls) indicated sea level reached its present position by 4600 cal yr BP. A slight (~30 cm) highstand was found at around 2100 cal yr BP, and possible fall occurred after then. The windward and leeward reef flats formed by ~4100 cal yr BP and ~1400 cal yr BP, respectively. The oldest age of the island was 5500 cal yr BP from the northeast, windward part of the island. The island appeared to expand both to the west and to the south, and the major part of the island established before 2100 cal yr BP. The western (leeward) part of the island showed ages ~1400 cal yr BP to Present. The major part of the island formed under stable or slightly rising sea levels before 2100 cal yr BP. Waves and swells would generate, transport and build-up the pebble-sized Pocillopora sediment, and occasional storms/cyclones could have produced the layers with coarser sediment. Results serve as baselines to discuss the island's future in response to sea-level rise and possible increase in storm/cyclone intensities.
This paper focuses on contrasting taro patches in Pukapuka of the Cook Islands, and argues that the socio-cultural and geographical differences of these contribute to make the atoll "islandscape" not only diverse but also flexible as a living space.
Paper long abstract:
The aerial photograph of the main island of Pukapuka, an atoll of the northern remote islands in the Cook Islands, shows scattered green "meshwork". These are muddy taro patches that provide the residents with the staple food. They are significant elements of "islandscape" of the atoll island, in the sense that they represent entanglement of constant human activities and natural environment. The residents recognize four types of taro patches; (1)uwi kotikoti e te wenua (patches managed by the whole atoll), (2)uwi kotikoto e te oile (patches managed by villages), (3)uwi koputangata (patches managed by decent groups), and (4)uwi kelinga (patches managed by families). (1)&(2) are regularly to be redivided and reallocated to individuals depending on the changes of members. However, (3)&(4) are inherited through genealogical links over generations. In other words, (1)&(2) constitute relatively communal landscapes with public memories while (3)&(4) constitute private landscapes with individual memories. Besides, the locations of taro patches are also contrasting. The communal ones tend to be found on the lower open land near the lagoon where swamps previously spread, while the private ones are on the higher narrow inland where more efforts for excavation were needed to access water. I argue that such differences of taro patches contribute to make the atoll "islandscape" not only diverse but also flexible as a living space. They have managed to deal with unexpected situations like natural disasters or depopulation by sharing vulnerability of the "islandscape".
Based on research on the anthropogenic islandscape transformation processes on the Pukapuka Atoll, this paper analyzes the characteristics of the multifaceted interactional relationships between the Pukapukan people and their assigned cemetery to propose the concept of a cemeteryscape.
Paper long abstract:
Since 2017, our multidisciplinary team has been conducting field-research on geomorphological and anthropogenic islandscape transformation on the Pukapuka Atoll. As one of our research targets, we carried out a historical survey of 30 cemeteries (pō) on the Pukapukan main islet of Wale, logged their GPS coordinates to create a location map, and interviewed genealogical descendants of the buried about burial ground designation procedures. In Pukapuka, one's cemetery is decided at birth through the mutual agreement of one's parents. Patrilineal choice of cemetery is the basic principle; however, maintaining a geographically balanced islet-wide distribution of burial is a crucial factor in any final decision. Therefore, patrilineal and matrilineal lines, as well as flexible adoption to a distant line, are utilized. Once a child's cemetery is decided, the child is incorporated into a "burial relationship" (yōlonga) with the people who are to be buried in the same cemetery in the future. Today several thousand Pukapukans live off-island in New Zealand and Australia. Many of them were born off-island. However, when they first encounter a fellow Pukapukan, they still ask each other the "traditional" greeting, "where are you going to be buried?" Expectations to share a cemetery nucleate specific collaborations in everyday life and connect people with different positionalities to generate a confluence of otherwise diversified trajectories. The relationships based on their future final resting place last literally until their dying day. Pukapukans live through their burial relationships which create and expand their futures. Therefore, Pukapukans live their lives on a cemeteryscape.
This paper focuses on Indigenous prospective of times and places in the Anthropocene, and how the acknowledged presence of the ancestors influences the way two local communities inhabit the islandscape.
Paper long abstract:
Starting from an analysis based on the ethnography of two Pacific archipelagos - geographically distant, populated in distinct eras, characterized by different historical events and in which different landscapes have been produced - this paper analyzes a common value the "weight of the ancestors" when talking and managing islandscapes. The methodology that are mobilized are: native geography and indigenous epistemology. Together with "a variety of animals, plants and things that traveled toward the island, along with human colonization" there were also the spirits. Spirts are active actor in the meshwork that formed and still shapes the landscaped. When talking about Anthropocene and the human agency, the presence and the entanglement with the spirits of the ancestors is rarely taken into consideration. This proposal aims to investigate the local, indigenous response to the Antropocene in the Belep Islands (New Caledonia) and in the island of O'ahu (Hawai'i). We will examine how the weight of the ancestors, that dwell in the natural scapes, shapes the local response through practices and storytelling. In the case studies presented spirits care for the memories of the places shaping todays landscapes, recalling landscapes of the past and imagining future's landscapes. Climate change events related to islandscape are interpreted as a lack or wrong doing in the relationship with the non-human world. What is interesting to underline is the ability of native cultures to see environmental changes in a perspective that holds future, present and the past together, thanks to the presence of the ancestors.
This paper traces the history of Kioa Island in Fiji, which has been colonised by Tuvaluan migrants since 1947, and analyses the process of shaping the landscape, which can be characterised in three phases: replanting, responding, and remembering.
Paper long abstract:
As landscape is the result of encounters and entanglements of nature and culture, a case of a migrant community can more dramatically illustrate the related processes. This paper traces the history of Kioa Island in Fiji, which has been colonised by Tuvaluan migrants since 1947, and analyses the process of shaping the landscape, which can be characterised in three phases: replanting, responding, and remembering. At first, Tuvaluan migrants attempted to replant their native nature and culture in their new environment in order to make a living. They brought Tuvaluan plants such as coconut and taro and established a village with a meeting hall, symbolising unity of community, which is highly valued cultural norm. However, the replanted nature and culture underwent great changes responding to the new environment. Now the migrants plant and value Fijian root crops, such as tapioca and yaqona, more than Tuvaluan crops as ordinary food because the latter grow "too easily" in the fertile soil of the volcanic island. People think that the unity of community has been gradually weakened through Fijianisation. On the other hand, the settlers never stop remembering their roots and routes by commemorating their day of first arrival. They still grow taro for feasts and praise unity in oratory at gatherings in the meeting hall. These three phases of replanting, responding, and remembering can be understood in chronological order; however, they also occur simultaneously, generating multiple entanglements. In these processes, people are not only shaping but also being shaped by the island.
Ngardmau village in Palau underwent the traumatic destruction caused by bauxite mining in the 1940s. However, the people of Ngardmau have retrieved their village landscape through a peculiar way of remembrance in which exploitation by the Empire of Japan is converted into prosperity of the village.
Paper long abstract:
In the early 1940s, the Empire of Japan initiated bauxite mining in Ngardmau village on Babeldaob, a largest volcanic island in the Palau Islands. The mining transfigured the village-scape far from the traditional one. Along the bauxite mining, Ngardmau saw the arrival of a large number of external trespassers; Japanese engineers; miners from Japan, Korea, Palau and other Micronesian islands; and military personnel proceeding to or retrieving from the South. Those involved in mining left Ngardmau after the Pacific War, leaving the non-operable mining infrastructure and materials behind. Soon after the transitional time, most villagers left their traditional houses with stone pavements to resettle along the new roads the Japanese mine company had built. The villagers also reused the harbors from which mined ores had been transported, foundations of houses for mine workers, and other remnants. To the present, the villagers has maintained the memory of mining era in the songs sung in Japanese and Palauan languages, which are often performed with contemporary dances. These songs tell the story of mine workers working in the mountains and factories and include the stories from the leisure time after work. Although the relics from the mining era pertain hues of optimism, the songs exemplify a peculiar way of remembrance in which Palauans convert exploitation by the Empire of Japan into prosperity of their own village. Despite the severe exploitation and destruction, the people of Ngardmau have retrieved their village landscape through appropriating colonial discourse of development.
This paper analyses the landscape formation process of Koiji Island in Minamata Bay, where Chisso Corporation's factory caused severe mercury poisoning, revealing that people do not attach meanings to a physical landscape but rather find signs in the growing landscape and respond to those signs.
Paper long abstract:
Minamata Bay is the spawning grounds for a wide variety of fish in the Shiranui Sea. Koiji Island, located in the bay, functioned a 'natural fishing reef' where fish, shellfish and fishermen gathered. Previously inhabited, this island was deserted after the release of methylmercury in the wastewater from the Chisso Corporation's factory, which caused severe mercury poisoning in the 1950s. Minamata disease (MD), first discovered in 1956, is a neurological syndrome caused by the consumption of fish or shellfish contaminated with methylmercury. In 1990, part of Minamata Bay was transformed into a landfill by the Kumamoto prefectural government. During this process, Koiji Island recovered its vegetation, a very noteworthy positive development in larger tragic context of MD.
This paper analyses the landscape formation process of Koiji Island, viewing its present landscape as the cumulative product of the contingent encounter and entanglement between human beings and nature. The analysis, focusing on the experiences and narratives of people living with MD and the environmental changes on Koiji Island, is based on field data collected over 28 months between 2006 and 2019. The people living with MD interpreted the island's regeneration as a hopeful sign of revitalisation and a symbol for rebuilding the relationships between people and between human beings and nature, which were destroyed by MD. This finding suggests that people do not attach various meanings to a physical landscape but rather find signs in the growing landscape and respond to those signs.
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