| Record of activities in 2012 at KURCPI |
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- Research Seminar No.127, 7 May 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「“Koshikijima no Toshidon” and the UNESCO」
FOSTER Michael (Indiana University)
In September 2009, thirteen Japanese traditions were added to the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. One of these was “Koshikijima no Toshidon,” a New Year’s Eve ritual performed on the small island of Shimokoshiki-jima off the southwest coast of Japan. What effect does recognition by an international body such as UNESCO have on a local tradition in a small, relatively isolated community? How does a global designation affect the way the islanders perceive and perform their own “intangible cultural heritage”? What are their fears and expectations for the future? Will tourism increase, and if so, what will happen to the tradition? What does this mean for a relatively isolated island community confronting a rapid decline in population? This paper will introduce Toshidon, and then explore how the islanders have responded to UNESCO’s recognition. The material presented is based on ongoing fieldwork in the community of Teuchi, including residence on the island since December of 2011.
- Research Seminar No.126, 16 April 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「The oceanographic cruise and the sea based on past experience」
ICHIKAWA Toshihiro (Faculty of Science, Kagoshima University)
Because I specialized in oceanography I had an opportunity to go to the North Pacific, the Bering Sea, the South Pacific, and the Indian Ocean by training ship and research ship. I spent approximately 1500 days in the various ship but I joined most in a cruise of Keitenmaru, Kagoshima University. As for the work in the ship including seasickness and the experience at the visiting foreign port during the long term cruise are unforgettable and good memory for me. The oceanographic study does not readily progress, but is quite attractive. I would like to report the oceanographic cruise and the sea based on past experience.
- Research Seminar No.125, 12 March 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「A retrospection ? the Amami Access Centre and my research」
YAMADA Makoto (Faculty of Law, Economic and Humanities, Kagoshima University)
There was a dramatic change of the legislative framework for Japanese
national universities in the early 2000’s. After then, Kagoshima University
increased its use of the Amami Islands, which are located between Kyusyu
and Okinawa, as a basis for research and education. As one of the people
involved in the process from the early stages, if I look back, I feel like
I have witnessed a historic change in Japanese national universities and
their surroundings and a mitigation of the nervous historical relationship
between Kagoshima and Amami Islands.
The Amami Access Centre was established at the same time that I was involved
in two research projects on Amami, one funded with a JSPS grant, the other
an interfaculty research project of Kagoshima University. However these
were both started for different reasons and developed quite separately.
In spite of that, as one of the masterminded behind all three projects,
I feel proud that as a result my contribution has been able to heighten
our university’s presence in the islands, which until then had not been
so great for both historical reasons and also that other universities had
already forged connections with the islands. From a personal perspective,
my own Amami-based research had also been limited to just one sensational
paper written long ago before that interfaculty project began. Since then
I have had the opportunity to visit Amami on many occasions mostly for
meetings or to give classes at the access centre, although the amount of
times I have been able to conduct research there is however relatively
few. In fact, as it turns out, the most I have been able to study about
Amami has been from student’s reports in class. In this way, the connection
between my research and the access centre has grown, for which I am extremely
grateful to my students.
- Research Seminar No.124, 29 February 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「Action, Pedagogy, Theory: A Commentary on Pacific Islander Studies」
Keith L. Camacho (Department of Asian American Studies, University of California, Los Angeles)
This talk explores the making of Pacific Islander Studies in the continental
United States, with an emphasis on California. As a burgeoning academic
field, Pacific Islander Studies partly draws from Pacific Studies and Pacific
Islands Studies, with its antecedents in the Cold War brands of anthropology
and area studies. In these and related studies, Pacific Islanders are often
understood as discrete, indigenous collectives, whose notions of place
and power reside in the various atolls and archipelagoes of the region.
Notwithstanding the contributions of diaspora and migration scholars, however,
very little research has examined Pacific Islander communities beyond these
locales, and especially in the continental U.S. This talk examines, then,
the various intellectual, historical, and political formations of Pacific
Islander Studies in California, an area where some of the most robust articulations
and contestations of this new field have taken place. A central aspect
of these debates has been the methodological turn to ethnic studies and
indigenous studies, and to the ways in which their analytical categories,
institutional capacities, and political praxes advance (or not) Pacific
Islander calls for decolonization and social justice.
- Research Seminar No.123, 20 February 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「Wonderful marine world for geology」
OHKI Kimihiko (the Kagoshima University Museum)
In the early 1970’s, I collected a lot of bottom surface sediments of
sea areas by the research vessel “Keiten-maru and Kagoshima-maru” owned
by the Faculty of Fisheries, Kagoshima University. I clarified the sedimentary
environments of Kagoshima Bay from sedimentological and paleoecological
point of view and published the results in South Pacific Study in 1989.
In the period from 1981 to 1993, marine ecological study on the habitat
of Nautilus pompilius, the Monbusho International Scientific Research Program were carried out
in south Pacific and the results were published in five Occasional Papers,
Kagoshima University Research Center for the south Pacific. I would like
to speak about brief outline of these projects.
- Research Seminar No.122, 9 February 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「Prehistoric development of domestication studied by isotope analysis of
fossil bone from archaeological sites around the East China Sea」
MINAGAWA Masao (Faculty of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University)
Radionuclides from nuclear power plants explosion remind us that our
life is directly depended on natural products from land or ocean ecosystems.
Generally it is not easy to recognize such relationship between human life
and natural substances unless specific indicators like pollutants are occasionally
available. Recently, stable isotope analysis has become more relevant to
reveal biological origin and resources common in an ecosystem, because
carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes can be an ideal tracers reflecting
initial states of the ecosystem and already applied for plant and animal
ecology as well as ecological anthropology. In this lecture, a case study
to study ancient human behavior related with domestication of animals and
trading across the East China Sea will be presented. Isotopic analyses
of fossil bones from archaeological sites showed different dietary pattern
of pig or boar depend on the sites and the age, suggesting that in China,
Korean peninsular and Ryukyu islands had developed each unique feeding
methods to use domesticated boar or pigs in each history. General advantages
and disadvantages to apply isotopic analysis method for various subjects
will be also summarized.
- Research Seminar No.121, 16 January 2012
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「The plant life-types of coastal vegetation in Chuuk and Nansei Islands」
KAWANISHI Motohiro (Faculty of Education, Kagoshima University)
The coastal vegetation that established in boundary between sea and land
is one of the characteristic elements of island landscape. In general,
growth of many kinds of plants is restricted in coastal environment i.e.
high salinity, poor soil, wind damage and ground instability. Therefore,
species composition of coastal plant community often is very simple. On
the other hand, species composition and structure of the coastal plant
communities vary among the topographical or geographical condition. I will
compare life type spectrum of the coastal plants in Chuuk islands and Nansei
Islands, and discuss ecological commonality and the diversity of the coastal
vegetation.
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