KAWAI, Aya

Positions, degrees

Associate Professor, Ph.D.

Research Keywords

Anthropology, Southeast Asia, Orang Asli

Email

a-kawai[at]aa.tufs.ac.jp

マレーシア半島部に暮らす狩猟採集民の環境との関わりを研究しています

The Orang Asli” is one of the ethnic groups of Peninsular Malaysia, known as a multiethnic country. It is an official government category that includes 18 populations with different languages and customs. I conduct fieldwork in one of the Orang Asli groups; the hunter-gatherer Batek, to understand human-environment relationships. Batek people speak Batek, which is different from Malay, and their community is nonliterate. While they stay at an Orang Asli village during the rainy season, they use bamboo rafts to travel into the forest to camp during the dry season. They rely on purchased rice and forest food, such as freshwater fish and leaf-monkeys caught with blowpipes. Rivers play an essential role in their lives; providing drinking water, a place for defecate and a place to bathe.I have been researching how they recognizee and live in their environment, as well as exploring the dominant views of the environment in many societies, based on my field experience.