Global Indigeneities and the Environment

Global Indigeneities and the Environment—covering fields from American Indian Studies, anthropology, communications, ethnoecology, ethnomusicology, geography, global studies, history, and literature, the purpose of the Special Issue is to give new understandings of the concept of global indigeneities and to showcase some of the most promising work in the field to date

Human Rights and Professions Museums as Interlocutors of Buraku Identity in Japan

Members of the Buraku minority group in contemporary Japan are traditionally perceived as descendants of outcaste communities who performed work deemed impure according to Shinto and Buddhist taboos in Japan’s caste system during the Tokugawa Era (1603-1867). After receiving emancipation in 1871, they continued to experience severe discrimination. Following successful activism culminating in government-issued affirmative action “special measures” funding beginning in 1969, Buraku people have now approached social and economic parity with mainstream Japanese. Partially due to these successes, the Buraku Liberation League, the largest Buraku rights organization in the country, has now embraced a new globalized, UN-centric Buraku identity that situates the Buraku equality movement amongst those of other caste-based minorities. During the special measures programs of the 1990s, many Buraku communities established human rights and/or professions museums to educate the populace on Buraku discrimination while performing a reclaimed Buraku identity centering on pride in the role of Buraku professions in Japanese state-building. This project examines how Buraku identity is currently performed in those museums in light of the evolving globalized Buraku collective memory. A qualitative content analysis was performed on the websites, handouts, and publications of five different museums in various regions of Japan. Data were triangulated through fieldwork and interviews. Three main themes emerged from this analysis. First, all five museums were strongly rooted in their local communities but engaged with these communities using different mechanisms. Second, while two museums demonstrated evidence of embracing the global turn in the Buraku movement, three museums appeared to reject it. Finally, while all of the museums discuss discrimination as a salient aspect of Buraku identity, the museums in western Japan locate the root of the discrimination as stigmatized space while those in Tokyo identify pollution ideology associated with traditional Buraku professions as the source of the discrimination. This study assists in elucidating for museums some of the challenges inherent in constructing a cohesive narrative within a social minority group with an uncertain and contested master narrative. In addition, this dissertation adds to research methodology literature by synthesizing the qualitative content analysis literature and creating stepwise instructions for its use

Notes for EGEO 423 Pacific Rim : Sustainable Environment

The Japanese government has constructed facilities such as dams and nuclear power plants in the periphery for the purpose of supplying the core with energy and water in the process of modernization. This essay highlights the environmental issues in the periphery concerning waste, dams and nuclear power plants caused by the government’s ignorant policies in favor of the local people. The waste issues focus on the illegal dumping of industrial waste in Teshima and dioxins coming from the incinerators at Kunugiyama. The Nibutani Dam represents the dam issues. Lastly, the nuclear issues consist of referendums on nuclear facilities in Maki, Kariwa and Miyama, and the nuclear disaster in Tokaimura. It is concluded that the local people’s struggle for social justice and decentralization backed by others is a driving force for the government to improve its policies.特集 : 「環境調和型社会を指向して

Afro-Cubans, Incorporation, and Cubanidad in Miami, FL

The purpose of this research study is to investigate how Afro-Cubans as double diasporic subjects have been incorporated into the socio-cultural landscape of South Florida and the relationship between these methods of incorporation and the evolution of ethno-racial identification. The study examines the role of race and racism in shaping the socio-economic adjustment of Afro-Cubans in South Florida. Miami is the appropriate research site as home to half of all Cuban immigrants in the United States where cubanidad is most closely associated with whiteness. Miami also has a substantial population of other Afro-diasporic populations, including Afro-Caribbean immigrants as well as African-Americans. This ethnographic study employs a mixed-methods approach that used participatory research (semi-structured and in-depth interviews), and participant observation as principal methods. Self-ethnography, archival research, and the most recent census data are used to complement the principal research methods. This project engages in three overarching theoretical frameworks to elucidate the experiences of Afro-Cubans in South Florida: African Diaspora theory, Critical Race Theory, and theories grouped under migration studies. Intersectionality is the focal point which connects the theoretical paradigms. The study concludes that Afro-Cubans are indeed members of two diasporas, the Cuban diaspora and the African diaspora, which differentiates their experiences of incorporation from their white co-ethnics. Moreover, Afro-Cubans use their double diasporic, intersectional identity to create diasporic alliances with other communities, particularly afro-descendant ones, to ease social isolation and create economic opportunities. While race continues to be a significant factor in determining socio-economic outcomes for South Floridians, superdiversity theory was used to consider other areas of difference that intersect with race - including wave of migration, gender, phenotype - that impact incorporation. This research not only hopes to fill in a void in the study of Afro-Cubans in the United States, but also endeavors to make a significant contribution to the study of Afro-Latinos and other black immigrant populations in the United States

Indigenous Arctic Fish Skin Heritage: Sustainability, Craft and Material Innovation

The use of fish skin(1) for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by coastal Arctic societies as a subsistence lifestyle(2) depending on aquatic resources for food and clothing. Arctic Indigenous(3) Peoples(4) need formidable resourcefulness to thrive in inhospitable ecosystems; fish skins provide them physical and spiritual protection(5). During the last century, they resisted not only colonisation and repression by humans but also dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. Fish skin craft became a way to communicate traditional knowledge where practical benefits combined cultural resilience(6). As market goods have replaced traditional fish skin clothing, the need for the skills required to create these items have diminished. The decrease of local natural resources also threatens the craft. The focus of this research is primarily to propose a vision of sustainability as an anthropological study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples, their lifestyles, and fish skin practices. Secondarily it identifies the historical, cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic importance of fish skin as an innovative sustainable material, explored through the study of materials, processes and artefact analysis. Thirdly, the application of fish skin materials and craft practices has been tested through participatory workshops to explore how this material and the skill transmissions can contribute to sustainability practices in fashion. The contribution to knowledge is firstly the mapping of fish skin craft participatory practices with Artic Indigenous communities as this is the first time that such a survey has been undertaken. The material study of fish skin and its contribution to fashion sustainability forms a secondary contribution. 1 Within this thesis, the terms fish skin and fish leather are used to indicate different processes of the same material. Fish skin. Skin indicates the superficial dermis of an animal. In the thesis fish skin is referred as the historical raw material tanned following traditional methods: mechanical, oiling, smoking, bark, brain, urine, fish eggs and corn flour tanning. Fish Leather is used to indicate that the fish skin has passed one or more stages of industrial vegetable or chrome tanning production and is ready to be used to produce leather goods. 2 Subsistence activities of hunting, herding, fishing and gathering continue to be of major significance to the Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic in providing food, social relationships and cultural identity. 3 Indigenous Peoples are descent from the populations which inhabited a geographical region at the time of colonisation and who retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural and political institutions. In this thesis, I use the terms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘Native’ interchangeably. In some countries, one of these terms may be favoured over the other. 4 The specific Arctic Indigenous groups with historical evidence of fish leather production are the Inuit, Yup’ik and Athabascan of Alaska and Canada; the various Siberian peoples, such as the Nivkh and Nanai; the Ainu from the Hokkaido Island in Japan and Sakhalin Island, Russia; the Hezhe from northeast China and the Saami of northern Scandinavia. 5 Arctic Indigenous Peoples believed that humans, animals and nature shared spiritual qualities. Arctic seamstresses decorated hunters’ fish skin clothing with motifs imbued with spirits, which gave protection from danger. 6 Arctic Indigenous Peoples have become a symbol of cultural resilience, actively adapting to colonisation, place dislocation due to land dispossession and resettlement, challenging the persistence of Indigenous knowledge systems

Indigenous Arctic Fish Skin Heritage: Sustainability, Craft and Material Innovation

The use of fish skin for the construction of garments and accessories is an ancient tradition shared by coastal Arctic societies as a subsistence lifestyle depending on aquatic resources for food and clothing. Arctic Indigenous Peoples need formidable resourcefulness to thrive in inhospitable ecosystems; fish skins provide them physical and spiritual protection. During the last century, they resisted not only colonisation and repression by humans but also dramatic ecological changes in seafood security. Fish skin craft became a way to communicate traditional knowledge where practical benefits combined cultural resilience. As market goods have replaced traditional fish skin clothing, the need for the skills required to create these items have diminished. The decrease of local natural resources also threatens the craft. The focus of this research is primarily to propose a vision of sustainability as an anthropological study of the resourcefulness and resilience of the Arctic Indigenous Peoples, their lifestyles, and fish skin practices. Secondarily it identifies the historical, cultural, environmental, and socioeconomic importance of fish skin as an innovative sustainable material, explored through the study of materials, processes and artefact analysis. Thirdly, the application of fish skin materials and craft practices has been tested through participatory workshops to explore how this material and the skill transmissions can contribute to sustainability practices in fashion. The contribution to knowledge is firstly the mapping of fish skin craft participatory practices with Artic Indigenous communities as this is the first time that such a survey has been undertaken. The material study of fish skin and its contribution to fashion sustainability forms a secondary contribution