The Potential Value of Indigenous Knowledge in Managing Hazards in Asia and Africa: The Anthropological Explorations into the Linkage of Micro-Macro Perspectives 2
Website: http://coe.aa.tufs.ac.jp/kikanjinrui/index.html
Term: 2016.4 –
Leader: Ryoko NISHII
Members: Kaori KAWAI, Hirohide KURIHARA, Masahiko TOGAWA, Ikuya TOKORO, Yukako YOSHIDA, Aya KAWAI
Summary
Globalization and modernization have generated hazards and risks across the globe that cannot be fully understood from a Western-centric viewpoint. Virtually all aspects of human lives are being endangered by various conflicts, environmental changes, population changes (e.g., the issue of marginal villages), economic crises, and natural disasters, which are uncontrollable by humans. As this situation escalates, people have started to believe that they have the power to control political, economic, social, as well as natural phenomena with reason-based modern technology in the interest of humans. Though this fallacy has been met with widespread opposition, effective solutions are yet to be found.
The mail objectives of this research project are investigate ‘indigenous knowledge,’ or the way of doing things unique to individual regions in Asia and Africa by using the theories and methods that have been established through our ‘explorations into the linkage of micro-macro perspectives’, the main theme of the Core Research Program of Anthropology, and by integrating the isolated knowledge of coping with hazards and risks into unified human knowledge. This knowledge can be verified in and adapted not only to Japan, but to anywhere in the world. The mission of the anthropologists committed to the Core Research Program is to pave the way to move indigenous knowledge from Asia and Africa beyond individual experiences and apply it in a wider range of contexts, by sharing the achievements of this research with people inside and outside of Japan, thereby contributing to resolving several issues in Asia and Africa.
Related Joint Research Projects
- Comparative Ethnographical Study on the Dynamisme of Debt (jrp000250)
- Multi-disciplinary Study on the Interactions between Islamism and Socio-cultural Factors in Southeast Asia-Transnational Networks and Local Responses (jrp000260)
- Emotional Moments of Social Changes/Movements in South Asia (jrp000261)
- Global Youth Dynamics and ‘reality’ negotiation in Eastern Africa (jrp000272)
- Reconsideration on Death: Anthropological Explorations on the Actuality of life (jrp000273)
- An Interdisciplinary Study on Performing Arts in the Time of COVID-19 (jrp000274)
Research Projects and Resources
[Established Academic Institutions]
[Research Projects]
[Facilities for Joint Research]
[Research Resources / Publicizing Research Results]
[Visitors to the Institute]
Copyright © 2010 Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. All Rights Reserved.