| Record of activities in 2017 at KURCPI |
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Research Seminar No.183, 11 December 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「“Gakko-Geino” : The case of the Yaeyama Islands」
GOYA Junko (Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts Faculty of Music)
Recently, many schools have been actively teaching folk performing arts. An analysis of folk performing arts transmitted through school education has revealed that such approaches are becoming more diverse year by year. The adoption of folk performing arts in school education varies depending on the region. For example, some communities are no longer able to take a responsible role in passing down folk performing arts and therefore schools partially act as their substitutes. In the case of the Yaeyama Islands analyzed in this study, three local high schools are teaching folk performing arts while being involved with their respective communities. In this process, however, none of the folk performing arts has been separated from the communities; rather, their connections with the communities have been strengthened.
In this context, this presentation aims to reveal the current situation and outlook of how to preserve and transmit Yaeyama Performing Arts through the case studies of ongoing education about them at three high schools in the Yaeyama Islands as well as the analysis of historical, social, and cultural backgrounds of the islands. At the same time, this presentation examines the impacts of the exchanges of people between the Yaeyama Islands and Okinawa Main island in the early-modern Ryukyu era to uncover what kind of people were involved to form today's Yaeyama Performing Arts and how they have been adopted in school education.
of the three kingdoms and finally to the formation of the Ryukyu kingdom.
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Research Seminar No.182, 23 October 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「Archaeological study on the Gusuku period, focusing on the emergence of social complexity in the Ryukyu archipelagos」
SHINZATO Akito (Board of Education Isen Township)
The Ryukyu kingdom, established in 1429A.D, is also known as the trade nation. As the name implies, the kingdom established long distance exchange systems with Japan, China, and South East Asian countries. Archaeologists have always been interested in the state formation of the kingdom. Until recently, however, they have mainly focused on the Okinawa archipelago because of the abundant amount data available in the region. In order to understand the state formation of this kingdom, they have attempted to establish chronological orders of local pottery, earthenware, Kyushu and Chinese food serving goods. Based on the chronologies, archaeologists have successfully dated agricultural settlements and structures of castles. Consequently, the developmental stages of the state have been grasped in Okinawa archipelago. However, it is important to note that this developmental stage has been centered around only in the Okinawa since great amount of data available from the island where the center of the kingdom was located. Recently, we have slowly but steadily accumulated data from the Amami archipelago, locating north of Okinawa and the Sakishima islands, locating south of Okinawa. These data strongly indicate that the formation of the state cannot be adequately understood without considering these regions.
In this study, based on the chronology of the food serving goods, (which is used also for dating features and sites,) I will examine production, circulation, and consumption of food serving goods recovered from the Amami, Okinawa and Sakishima archipelagos. In other words, I will analyze the life cycle of food serving goods. In this category, the followings are included: local table ware produced in each islands, the Kamuiyaki pottery made in Tokunoshima, the soapstone cauldron manufactured in northwestern Kyushu, and Chinese ceramics. The analyses of these artifacts have elucidated the regionalities in these three archipelagos. I would like to examine how the economic situations changed and how it contributed to the emergence of the three kingdoms and finally to the formation of the Ryukyu kingdom.
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Research Seminar No.181, 25 September 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「Communicating the non-communicable: developing media and communication strategies to tackle the growing NCD epidemic in the Pacific」
PAPOUTSAKI Evangelia (Research Center for the Pacific Islands, Kagoshima University: Unitec Institute of Technology, New Zealand)
The Pacific Islands face a health crisis fuelled by the increased prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Today, these chronic conditions often inflict heavy financial costs on households and over 70% of deaths in the Pacific are estimated to be due to NCDs. Pressures imposed by globalisation and urbanisation have lead to an increase in NCD risk factors such as unhealthy diets (a decline in growing local food and increase in the consumption of processed and imported food high in salt, sugar and fat), unhealthy behaviours like alcohol and tobacco consumption and levels of physical inactivity. These lifestyle changes amongst Pacific Island populations have led to an epidemic of NCDs such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. In order to reverse these trends communities require adequate health education and awareness around these health issues and this is currently lacking across the Pacific Islands. Furthermore, at times cultural codes may reinforce unhealthy lifestyles. Given that many NCDs are preventable, health promotion activities can play a key role in reducing the burden of NCDs in the Pacific.
This presentation assesses the challenges of addressing NCDs in the Pacific from the perspective of development communication and social change. Strategic media and communication initiatives can target specific areas identified as the causes of the increase of NCDs. The presentation examines examples of how different countries coordinate their response and discusses a variety of media and communication initiatives that are currently being undertaken in countries across the Pacific.
The presentation is based on data collected in the PACMAS State of Media and Communication Baseline research project (2013), undertaken across 14 Pacific Island nations and through a partnership between RMIT University (Australia), the University of Goroka (Papua New Guinea) and UNITEC (New Zealand). The research was guided by the principles of Communicative Ecology and Communication for Development (C4D) that deliberately encompasses all forms and modes of communication, including community radio, information and communication technology (ICT) initiatives, and processes such as community dialogue along with the more traditional mass media. The main research methods included desk-based research, stakeholder interviews (212) and a verification survey with Pacific media and communication experts.
Respondents indicated that due to the chronic nature of NCDs, communities often accept them as inevitable or a natural way to die. It was noted that the gap between awareness of NCDs and behavior change is challenging to address but programs using participatory approaches and face-to-face communication have shown some success in these contexts. Respondents called for a better understanding of the role of media in health communication and for links between government, non-governmental organisations and journalists to be strengthened.
This presentation highlights some of the key challenges and opportunities unique to the Pacific region when designing media based NCD strategies. By combining analyses across countries and including some best-practice examples the presentation explores potential avenues for NCD communication strategies in the Pacific in order to inform and assist further planning and design of health promotion strategies.
- Research Seminar No.180, 10 July 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「Maintaining Mechanism of a Quercus miyagii – Castanopsis sieboldii Forest」
UGAWA Shin (Faculty of Agriculture, Kagoshima University)
Mature forests are needed to maintain biodiversity as habitats for wild lives. In Amami Islands, endangered species such as Pentalagus furnessi, Garrulus lidthi, Tokudaia osimensis and Calanthe amamiana lives in forests, indicating an importance of conserving the forest ecosystem. Especially, mechanism for maintaining populations of tree species, which forms the forest ecosystem as dominant species, should be understood because the dominant species constitute the external forms of forest ecosystem. In this presentation, I introduce our research results for maintaining mechanism of a Quercus miyagii – Castanopsis sieboldii forest in Toknoshima Island. I explain the position of this type of forest in Amami Islands, and then report our insights: special distribution and population dynamics of Quercus miyagii and Castanopsis sieboldii. Based on these insights, I would like to discuss about the direction of conserving natural forest in Amami Islands.
- Research Seminar No.179, 19 June 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「Human History in Maritime Asia and Pacific- Migration, Island Adaptation and Marine Use」
ONO Rintaro (The School of Marine Science and Technology, Tokai University)
Fish and shellfish are part of the major aquatic food resources and play significant role for human diet and tools for a long time, while its evolutional process of exploiting such aquatic resources by human who originally birthed in forest and terrestrial environments is yet unclear. In this presentation, I will introduce the archaeological new findings and current outcomes for the past human marine exploitation and maritime or coastal adaptation particularly in Maritime Asia and Pacific regions where I have studied for long time. The oldest dated fish hooks and traces of pelagic fish use are found in the regions back to the late Pleistocene around 40,000 to 20,000 years ago, while the human migrations to some remote islands (e.g. Hawaii, Easter Island, and New Zealand) in Polynesia show us the longest maritime navigation by prehistoric human. By introducing the latest research outcomes and my own field experiences related to such topics, I discuss developments of marine exploitation and maritime adaptation from the Pleistocene to Holocene times by human, especially by modern human (Homo Sapiens).
- Research Seminar No.178, 29 May 2017
17:00-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「The Effect and Problem of the Action of the Branding Framework of Fish: A Case Study of “Kabosu Buri”」
TORII Takashi (Faculty of Fishery, Kagoshima University)
Nowadays, the management of fisheries is severe, as many of them are operating under financial distress and troubled by price stagnation. It is under these conditions that they are trying to establish new brands, such as “Burioh” (Azuma-town FCA), “Umi no Ohkan” (Tarumizu-city FCA), “Nanohana Kanpachi” (Yamakawa-town FCA), and so on. These fishes are currently traded at the same price as regular cultured fish. However, branding activities often raise production costs, with the risk of making fisheries’ management even more difficult.
In this presentation, I outline the important factors for the “Kabosu Buri” brand (Yellowtail, Oita prefecture), which succeeded in forming a discriminatory high price. Among the reasons behind such a discriminatory price, are fisheries’ efforts to produce high quality cultured fish, as well as the administrative role, in coordination with production, of the staff of the Fisheries Cooperative Association, which sells the “Kabosu Buri” with good results. Finally, I also mention the challenges left for future research.
- Research Seminar No.177, 17 April 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building, 5th Floor
「Another Story on the Opening of the Japan Sea and the Birth of the Japan Islands」
KANO Kazuhiko (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology)
The main part of the Japan Islands is a volcanic arc that has separated
from the continent and migrated to its present position and the Japan Sea
is a depression formed behind the volcanic arc along with the process.
It was soon after Alfred Wegener published his idea on the continental
drift in 1915 that Torahiko Terada and others advocated this idea. Their
primitive thought had remained minor for a long time under the prevalence
of the geosyncline orogeny theory but became widely accepted in 1980’s
when a tectonic model including clockwise rotation of SW Japan and counter-clockwise
rotation of NE Japan was proposed in support with the temporal changes
of the rock magnetization vectors examined at various places in Japan.
However, the timing of the movement and the details of the geologic processes
are still controversial. This is because it was difficult to accurately
date and read the geological processes that might have been recorded in
the Green Tuff successions. Recent research results obtained with application
of volcanic facies analysis and reliable dating methods give a new perspective on the opening of the
Japan Sea and the birth of the Japan Islands.
- Research Seminar No.176, 13 March 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「What Makes Me Study Headhunting?」
After a brief overview of my book, Religious Ethnology of Headhunting (Chikuma Shobo, 2015), I will discuss the development of headhunting studies
after its publication, and then talk about my own motivation for, and the
significance of, this sort of studies. As might be astonishing, the custom
of headhunting was extremely rare among hunter-gatherers, while quite common
among horticulturalists in both Continental and Insular Southeast Asia.
The basic idea was to secure by this act the fertility of crops and women,
success of hunting, and warding off of diseases. In Japanese history we
have apparently similar acts in times of wars, as is shown in K. Shimizu,
Japanese History of Cutting Off Ears and Noses, and K. Muroi, Mounts of Head, Body, and Thousand People (both Yosensha, 2015). F. Larson's Severed (Japanese translation: Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2015) mentions the so-called shrunken heads of the Jibaro or Shuar in South America, which share interesting features with headhunting in Southeast Asia. What drives me towards such studies? It’s because I believe things very remote from our own common sense can reveal the essence of human kind ? it is almost incredible how much the notion on the value of human life has changed and varied both over the long history and among the wide range of cultures.
- Research Seminar No.175, 13 February 2017
16:30-, The Interdivisional Education and Research Building , 5th Floor
「The Challenges of Crime in Papua New Guinea with Some Reference to Crime
in Japan」
SALI Gary (Research Center for the Pacific Islands, Kagoshima University)
The presentation is an analytical understanding of not only crime concerns
in Papua New Guinea but also a broader context of the conditions in which
crime occurs are illuminated with some comparisons with Japanese crime
and justice system. Using relevant literature review materials and anecdotal
evidences available through the various media channels, the presentation
will provide the crime concerns from Papua New Guinea through the lenses
of white-collar crime; transnational crime; ethnic conflict; property crime;
and crime against person. It is echoed throughout the presentation that
crime is not an isolated and separate problem, but it originates from the
broader social context in which Papua New Guineans and Japanese reside
and operate their daily lives. Japan has continued to have low crime rate
compared with many developed and developing countries in the world and
therefore Papua New Guinea must learn not only from its criminal justice
system but structural factors that have contributed towards such a low
crime rate. It will be highlighted that Papua New Guinea need to get away
from the crisis driven approaches and see the crime problem being shaped
by mixture of structural factors that require not only committed political
will and resources but a strong, vibrant, stable, and resilient bureaucratic
and law and justice system to prevent this appalling state of crime in
the country.
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