午夜剧场

I have been fascinated by the cultures of Oceania since my undergraduate days. For 40 years since then, I have lived my life engaged in cultural anthropological research of the island world, repeatedly conducting live-in field surveys on small islands in Oceania. When I am in Japan, my body has even reached a state where I find myself desperately longing for the harsh tropical sunlight under the equator and the occasional blessing of a cool breeze.

My research has covered various themes without much restraint: from studies on eschatological thought that arose amidst the chaos of colonization by European powers, to research on social change processes caused by the introduction of European-style modern land legal systems, and studies on demographic dynamics. For over 10 years now, I have settled into research with Toru Yamaguchi of the Faculty of Letters at the Juku and others on the impacts of sea-level changes and intensifying weather disasters caused by global climate change on small island societies, as well as the resilience (the power to restore or recover from distortions caused by external forces) of local societies, repeatedly conducting field surveys on atoll islands in Micronesia and Polynesia. Atoll islands are small islands built on a foundation of ring-shaped coral reefs; they are low and flat at less than four meters above sea level, with thin soil, poor terrestrial flora and fauna, and no fresh water on the surface other than collected rainwater.

During the course of my field surveys, I witnessed the ongoing fury that climate change continues to exert on atoll islands, which fall into the category of the most fragile environments on Earth. I felt anger at the injustice: the negative distortions accumulated on this planet over many years, triggered by the activities of continental "civilization," are erupting first in small island societies—societies isolated from continents, poor in living resources, positioned at the extreme periphery of the world by "modernity," and long toyed with by colonial rule that was indifferent to proper infrastructure development.

Of course, the accusation of injustice and anger are not the conclusions of my research. What draws attention is the strength to survive developed by the people of small island societies as they live through this double intersection of fragility: the fragility of the natural environment and the artificially created fragility resulting from continuous marginalization by "civilization" and "modernity." That strength is the power of flexibility—the ability to survive by drastically changing even social structures and political organizations in response to distortions caused by external forces, including the fury of nature. I believe there is an inexhaustible amount we can learn from this power of flexibility.