Core Project: The Anthropological Explorations into the Linkage of Micro-Macro Perspectives
Leader:
Ryoko NISHII
Subleader:
Ichiro MAJIMA
Member:
Hirohide KURIHARA,
Jun TAKASHIMA,
Hideo FUKAZAWA,
Yuko MIO,
Kaori KAWAI,
Wakana SHIINO,
Ikuya TOKORO,
Yutaka SAKUMA,
Yohei FUJINO
Submember:
Koji MIYAZAKI
Most of field researches in cultural/social anthropology untill 1970's were carried out in relatively small and isolated communities. In recent years, however, anthropological themes on macro perspective vary from nation states and "the modern world system" to globalism/ transnationalism. On the other hand, another subjects on micro perspective such as habitus, affordances, tacit knowledge, intercorporality and so on which are focused upon an individual's body are more and more prevalent. Under these theoretical backgrounds, we think that anthropologists must attempt to construct a new anthropological perspective which will be able to sublate the profound dichotomy between individual and society, structure and agency. Therefore the main subject of our anthropological core project aims to graft and integrate the macro perspective theory and the micro perspective theory, or to explorate the linkage of micro-macro perspectives.
●Pursuing More Focused and Leading Research Topics: Fieldwork and Theoretical Studies on the Intersection of Affect/Affectus and the Social
Added on June, 2013
Our joint research activities over the past three years have suggested that today's key research subjects in anthropology regarding the linkage of micro-macro perspectives all lie in the intersection of "affect (affectus of Spinoza), " which can be experienced in the field, and the "social," which is fluidly organized through engagement with affect.
Affect is not limited to usual personal emotions such as anger and sorrow; it transcends consciousness and human agents. This concept helps us focus on relationships generated when different bodies co-existing in the field engage with each other. We include in these relationships not only a person and another person, but also a person and things, and a person and the environment. Contrary to the traditional, humanistic approach of seeing the world, which emphasizes agency of human beings and human will, the notion of affect sheds light on the passivity of letting things happen and the reality that emerges from that passivity. Its theoretical direction is similar to that of the recent "The Affective Turn", influenced by Deleuze and Guattari back through Spinoza, and the viewpoints taken by "Anthropology of Embodiment" and the Actor-Network Theory.
Let us extend our discussion to the issue of morals originated in the human imagination and developed through a sequence of multiple affects. The social has been oftentimes underestimated as an "outside market" factor. However, in today's globalized world along with the global economy and the globalization of civil wars, the emerging value of the social is attracting more attention as an important research topic in anthropology in contrast to the economic and political themes.
Living in the twenty-first century constantly reminds us what an uncertain and unexpected world it is that humans live in. We have no alternative but to live in such circumstances. Previous views on human life have mainly been based on something that seemed real, and have thus overlooked the essence of something uncertain. However, disregarding uncertainty for the sake of weighing risks and chances hinders sincere academic efforts to confront the actuality of the world. Our research goes beyond the functionalistic contrast of "emotions and structure." In order to face unknown social changes that are beginning to arise in the world and to restore actuality to anthropology, we advocate that the most important task for researchers is to conduct fieldwork, because that is where affect and the social intersect.
References
Nishii, R. (2013). Ethnography of affectus. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press (in Japanese).
Majima, I. (2011). Mauss écologique. Gendai-Shiso, 39(16), 136-152 (in Japanese).
Tokoro, I., & Kawai, K. (Eds.). (2011). Anthropology of material culture. Kyoto: Kyoto University Press (in Japanese).
Mio, Y., & Tokoro, I. (Eds.). (2012). Globalizations. Tokyo: Kobundo (in Japanese).
Caillé, A. (2011). Critique de la raison utilitaire. (T. Fujioka, Trans in Japanese.). Tokyo: Ibunsha. (Original work published 1989)
Sugawara, K. (2002). Emotional ape-man. Tokyo: Kobundo (in Japanese).
Dupuy, J-P. (2011). Petite métaphysique des tsunamis. (M. Shimazaki, Trans. in Japanese). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (Original work published 2005)
Roberts, M. (1993). Emotion and the person in nationalist studies. (T. Osugi, Trans. in Japanese). Shiso, 823, 127-150.
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