大学共同利用機関法人 人間文化研究機構　国立民族学博物館

Objectives

In Arab states, personal connections are the basic means for running society. However, behind the scenes are complex human relationships forged through unceasing negotiations among numerous individuals which cannot always be solely utilitarian. Tangible face-to-face human relationships rather than organizations and systems constitute the mainstream in this society. Such human relationships in fact and in name have created a seamless, global-scale network of people which arose in the Middle East after the eighth century and continues today, and transcends national, ethnic, linguistic, religious and geographical boundaries on a vast stage that spans three continents. As a result, people can avail themselves of a flexible structure of consciousness not bogged down by borders. Such a huge multicultural integrated space so tied together truly merits the name of a borderless world. The objectives of this research are an attempt to discover the actual human relationships in this world in various locations in the Middle East, which form the hub of the network, and to explicate how the systems behind the human relationships of this borderless world operate and have been created observing the human sensibilities and world views that create the conditions that make that world possible.