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Theme: 4. Seeing from the Neighbourhood: States, Communities and Human Mobility
Maho Araki
Kobe University, Japan
Benjamin Wolfs
Kobe University, Japan
Benjamin Wolfs
Kobe University, Japan
Sakine Nakajima
Kyoto University, Japan
Maho Araki
Kobe University, Japan
Ayane Kimura
Kobe University, Japan
Saki Maeta
Kobe University, Japan
This panel ethnographically explores the various ways in which local communities attempt to regain control over their lives and living surroundings amid developments caused by national policies and neoliberal globalization. Drawing from wide-ranging case studies across Asia and Oceania, this study focuses on the reinterpretation of the connections between people, things, and places by local communities.
It is already common knowledge in anthropology and related fields that the construction and maintenance of the modern nation state entailed major changes in the lives of many local communities. The formation of a modern state often goes hand in hand with the reinterpretation and manipulation of local resources, histories, cultural practices, and identities.
However, the reinterpretation works in both ways. Anthropologists have stressed that the various people living in a state are not passive subjects and have highlighted the various ways in which they can take initiative independently from the state. In this panel, we view reinterpretation as a form of what Tessa Morris-Suzuki (2020) calls ‘informal life politics,’ referring to various types of collective action at the grassroots level aimed at directly changing living conditions independently of the state.
Such collective action is intimately connected to the themes explored in this panel, including the continuity of fluid maritime networks and the maintenance of identity among Indian Muslim immigrants in Malaysia within the nation-state framework; shifting perspectives of Torres Strait Islanders regarding Thursday Island in Australia, from a colonial control center to an integral part of their indigenous community; the popularization and transformation of divinatory knowledge through local connections in oral knowledge through publishing and printing technology and nationalism in Java; the collective rediscovery and transmission of ‘value’ found within abandoned objects recovered from vacant properties in Japan; and the reconsideration of the traditional relationship with the mountains by the local community on a remote island in Japan.
These tactics have been overlooked or regarded as small voices that currently live between national policies. They are not one-size-fits-all but rather a way of coping with gradual change. However, the words and actions in each presentation are by no means an outright resistance movement against the state, local administrations, etc. It is important to note that the focus is on how to live "here and now,” reviewing the past and looking to the future.
Presenter: Benjamin Wolfs – Kobe University
Presenter: Sakine Nakajima – Kyoto University
Presenter: Maho Araki – Kobe University
Presenter: Ayane Kimura – Kobe University
Presenter: Saki Maeta – Kobe University