Asia | antropologi.info

The cultural nationalism of citizenship in Japan and other places

Published on June 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, globalisation, migration, Us and Them

As in several European countries, Japanese citizenship is still defined by decent. Inspired by the recent immigration debates in the US, anthropologist Sawa Kurotani reflects about the “cultural nationalism” of Japanese citizenship and concludes: “As long as this biologically and culturally produced Japaneseness continues to be the basis of Japanese citizenship, the mobility between citizen and noncitizen categories will be minimal.”

He explains:

Japanese self-analysis of their national character is widely known as nihonjinron (literally, discussion or theory about the Japanese), which centers on the unique characteristics shared among the Japanese that are the product of both biology and culture. The essence of Japanese identity is passed down through the “blood,” and is nurtured through the early process of socialization to make one truly “Japanese,” so the theory goes. This is why so many Japanese stubbornly refuse to accept a non-Japanese who attains near-native fluency in Japanese or who are able to grasp subtle cultural nuances: How can a gaijin (foreigner) without blood ties or proper upbringing possibly understand anything Japanese?

(…)

When Japan began to admit a large number of foreign workers into the country in the 1980s, the overwhelming preference was given to descendants of Japanese who emigrated to Brazil and Peru. Japanese seemed to believe that their Japanese blood made them “Japanese,” despite their socialization as Brazilians and Peruvians, and they were truly surprised when they later found out otherwise. This instance gives us a sense of how powerful the belief in “Japanese blood” is.

(…)

Japan is now one of the few developed countries that do not allow dual citizenship. This is not a major problem in the world of “one citizenship per person per lifetime,” which is, perhaps, the world in which the majority of my compatriots still live. But, it is about time that we acknowledge that the myth of “homogeneous society” is just a myth, and that an increasing number of Japanese nationals are experiencing transnational/multicultural lives outside Japan, while more and more non-Japanese are choosing to live and work in Japan.

>> read the whole article in The Daily Yomiuri (updated with copy)

Kenichi Mishima: Japan: Locked in the Self-assertive Discourse of National Uniqueness?

“Germans stick to the ethnic definition more than any other European nation”

“Germans&Japanese less sensitive about race”

“Anthropologists Should Participate in the Current Immigration Debate”

Anthropologist: "The proper way of eating is with a spoon and a fork"

Published on May 14, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, culture traditions, food and drink, migration, websites

(Links updated 7.9.2020) A Montreal newspaper story has rapidly sent Filipino tempers rising around the world. Luc Cagadoc, a 7-year-old pupil, was punished by a lunchtime day-care monitor: “You are in Canada. Here in Canada you should eat the way Canadians eat,” the Quebecois educator allegedly said, and went on to observe that Luc “ate like a pig.” The reason: Luc insisted on eating with a spoon and fork as most Filipinos do.

“Educators and parents alike should find ways to work together to avoid traumatizing children who deserve more than to be made to feel inferior because of their parent’s culture”, the editor (I suppose) of the Philippine Daily Inquirer comments (text no longer online).

In a follow-up article called “Spoon Wars” (no longer online), anthropologist Michael L. Tan gives us more information about food, eating habits and cultural history (that’s the role anthropologists should play, isn’t it?):

For Filipinos, and most Asians, spoons were the greatest invention ever. Throw away the knife and the fork but never the spoon, which we use for soups, desserts, vegetables, even to cut meat.

Anyone with knowledge of culinary history can tell you the spoon was the first eating utensil to have been invented. Knives, well, they were originally invented as weapons, and then got reduced for the dining table. And the fork, the infamous fork that westerners insist is the main eating utensil? They come much later, introduced from the Middle East into southern Europe, but treated with disdain by the northern Europeans.

(…)

Etiquette changes all the time because they’re based on meanings we give to people, events, places. In earlier less civil times, meals could become quite violent so the last thing you needed were utensils brandished like weapons, which is why the Chinese resisted knives and forks and stuck to chopsticks.

(…)

But don’t worry, with 8 million Filipinos living and working in Canada and all kinds of other remote, savage lands, many infiltrating homes as nannies and cooks and housekeepers, we’ll teach the world that the proper way of eating is with a spoon and a fork.

Michael L. Tan is an engaged anthropologist. He publishes most of his columns in a blog called Pinoy Kasi. His older texts can be found at http://www.pinoykasi.homestead.com. His current texts are available here: https://opinion.inquirer.net/byline/michael-l-tan

(Links updated 7.9.2020) A Montreal newspaper story has rapidly sent Filipino tempers rising around the world. Luc Cagadoc, a 7-year-old pupil, was punished by a lunchtime day-care monitor: “You are in Canada. Here in Canada you should eat the way…

Ladakh: Emmigration is threatening sacred weaving traditions

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, books, culture traditions, technology

Weaving is a tradition dear to the Rupshupa of Ladakh. But the craft is at the crossroads because many youngsters are leaving in search of a better lifestyle, says anthropologist Monisha Ahmed in The Hindu. “There are very few ethnic communities in the world where both men and women weave, and that’s what makes the Rupshupa special,” she says. She was so intrigued by their weaving tradition that in 1992 she decided to do her doctoral dissertation on the Rupshupa:

In the years since, Ahmed has spent a lot of time roaming and camping in their stark Changthang highlands with the Rupshupa, studying the fabric of their life. She has seen them moving 10 times a year, observed them herding and shearing their livestock, weaving their hair and fleece, playing traditional games, celebrating marriages, mourning the dead and offering worship at their monasteries in Thugje and Korzok, the tiny towns where they have their storehouses.

She has learned their songs and understood their prayers. Her first book, Living Fabric: Weaving among the Nomads of Ladakh, Himalaya, won the Textile Society of America’s Shep Award in 2003 for best book in the field of ethnic textile studies.

>> read the whole story in The Hindu

Chronicles Women’s Social Movements in India

Published on March 26, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology (general), anthropology in the news, Asia, development empowerment, gender, globalisation

The small groups of rural women in India fighting for change is something the rest of the world needs to take note of, says Mangala Subramaniam, an assistant professor of sociology and women’s studies. Since the late 1990s, Subramaniam has studied social movements in India, particularly the women’s movement in India and the dalit – poor, rural low-caste women in India – as they organized in their small villages.

Her book The Power of Women’s Organizing: Gender, Caste and Class in India will be published this month.

In a press release she says:

“Unfortunately, many people in America and Europe are not aware of or know about the vibrancy of women’s movements in Asian countries, such as India. And many people especially do not think about rural women in India organizing to fight for rights such as educational opportunities as well as to challenge discrimination based on social inequities of class, caste and gender. Studies of women’s social movements outside of the west – America and Europe – are necessary in this increasingly globalizing world.”

>> read the whole story at OneWorld.net

>> Review of The Power of Women’s Informal Networks: Lessons in Social Change from South Asia and West Africa. Bandana Purkayastha and Mangala Subramaniam

>> Information about her dissertation: Translating participation in informal organizations into empowerment: Women in rural India
Mangala Subramaniam

The World Social Forum is a place where social movements meet. Two years ago, it was held in Mumbai, India. I’ve written a summary: Inspiration from India: Hindus and Muslims eat breakfast together; Christian nuns join Tibetan monks in a chant. See also “Just like apartheid”: The dalits are engaged in a fierce struggle to stop the ancient discrimination.

Joshua Barker – one more blogging anthropologist!

Published on February 27, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, journal articles / papers, persons and theories, websites

Most homepages of anthropologists at universities only consist of a boring list of non-clickable publications. One of the few exceptions is the homepage of Joshua Barker at the University of Toronto. Eight papers can be read, including papers that have been published in exclusive journals like Current Anthropology. His research focuses on Indonesia, on urban studies, crime and security, and new technologies. Barker is currently conducting a three-year research project ‘Engineers and Political Dreams: Indonesia’s Internet in Cultural Perspective’.

Some weeks ago, he’s started his blog Metropolis 347