Asian Ethnology

Asian Ethnology is dedicated to the promotion of scholarly research on the peoples and cultures of Asia. It began in China as Folklore Studies in 1942 and later moved to Japan where its name was changed to Asian Folklore Studies. It is edited and published at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, with the cooperation of Boston University. Asian Ethnology seeks to deepen understanding and further the pursuit of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Asia. We wish to facilitate intellectual exchange between Asia and the rest of the world, and particularly welcome submissions from scholars based in Asia. The journal presents formal essays and analyses, research reports, and critical book reviews relating to a wide range of topical categories, includingnarratives, performances, and other forms of cultural representationpopular religious conceptsvernacular approaches to health and healinglocal ecological/environmental knowledgecollective memory and uses of the pastcultural transformations in diasporatransnational flowsmaterial culturemuseologyvisual culture

Asian Ethnology is dedicated to the promotion of scholarly research on the peoples and cultures of Asia. It began in China as Folklore Studies in 1942 and later moved to Japan where its name was changed to Asian Folklore Studies. It is edited and published at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan, with the cooperation of Boston University. Asian Ethnology seeks to deepen understanding and further the pursuit of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Asia. We wish to facilitate intellectual exchange between Asia and the rest of the world, and particularly welcome submissions from scholars based in Asia. The journal presents formal essays and analyses, research reports, and critical book reviews relating to a wide range of topical categories, including narratives, performances, and other forms of cultural representation popular religious concepts vernacular approaches to health and healing local ecological/environmental knowledge collective memory and uses of the past cultural transformations in diaspora transnational flows material culture museology visual culture

Asian Ethnology is a semi-annual, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the promotion of scholarly research on the peoples and cultures of Asia. It began in China as Folklore Studies in 1942 and later moved to Japan where its name was changed to Asian Folklore Studies. It is currently edited and published at Nanzan University in Nagoya, Japan. Asian Ethnology seeks to deepen understanding and further the pursuit of knowledge about the peoples and cultures of Asia. We wish to facilitate intellectual exchange between Asia and the rest of the world, and particularly welcome submissions from scholars based in Asia.

Volume 79, issue 1 of Asian Ethnology, a journal produced at Nanzan University with the cooperation of Boston University.

This book brings the ironic worldview of the Lisu to life through vivid, often amusing accounts of individuals, communities, regions, and practices. One of the smallest and last groups of stateless people, and the most egalitarian of all Southeast Asian highland minorities, the Lisu have not only survived extremes at the crossroads of civil wars, the drug trade, and state-sponsored oppression but adapted to modern politics and technology without losing their identity. The Lisu weaves a lively narrative that condenses humanity’s transition from border-free tribal groupings into today’s nation-states and global market economy. Journalist and historian Michele Zack first encountered the Lisu in the 1980s and conducted research and fieldwork among them in the 1990s. In 2014 she again traveled extensively in tribal areas of Thailand, Myanmar, and China, when she documented the transformative changes of globalization. Some Lisu have adopted successful new urban occupations in business and politics, while most continue to live as agriculturists “far from the ruler.” The cohesiveness of Lisu culture has always been mysterious—they reject hierarchical political organization and traditionally had no writing system—yet their culture provides a particular skillset that has helped them navigate the terrain of the different religious and political systems they have recently joined. They’ve made the transition from living in lawless, self-governing highland peripheries to becoming residents and citizens of nation-states in a single generation. Ambitious and written with journalist’s eye for detail and storytelling, The Lisu introduces the unique and fascinating culture of this small Southeast Asian minority. Their path to national and global citizenship illustrates the trade-offs all modern people have made, and their egalitarian culture provides insight into current political choices in a world turning toward authoritarianism.

Asian anthropologies and anthropologies in Asia : an introductory essay / Eyal Ben-Ari and Jan van Bremen -- Indigenous and indigenized anthropology in Asia / Grant Evans -- Beyond orthodoxy : social and cultural anthropology in the People's Republic of China / Frank N. Pieke -- Anthropologists of Asia, anthropologists in Asia : the academic mode of production in the semi-periphery / Jerry S. Eades -- Native discourse in the 'academic world system' : Kunio Yanagita's project of global folkloristics reconsidered / Takami Kuwayama -- Korean anthropology : a search for new paradigms / Okpyo Moon -- 'Indigenizing' anthropology in India : problematics of negotiating an identity / Vineeta Sinha -- An Indian anthropology? : what kind of object is it? / Roma Chatterji -- From Volkenkunde to Djurusan antropologi : the emergence of Indonesian anthropology in postwar Indonesia / Michael Prager -- Anthropology and the nation state : applied anthropology in Indonesia / Martin Ramstedt -- Indigenization : features and problems / Syed Farid Alatas.

Scholars in anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, and Asian American studies consider traditional models for enthographic research. They explore the construction and displacement of self, community, and home integral to Asian American cultural journeys in the late 20th century

Volume 78, issue 2 of Asian Ethnology, a journal produced at Nanzan University with the cooperation of Boston University.

Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.