A Study of Individual-Based Worlds: Dynamism of Movings and Encounters in the Middle East

Keywords

Individual,the Middle East,moving

Objectives

The Middle East is a huge sphere of cultural exchange where various people have repeated meetings and partings as well as negotiations beyond the differences in ethnic groups, religions and languages since ancient times. In this area, a great number of travel books called Rihlah have been produced, which are filled with the names of people, places and events. People’s strong interest in proper names is widely observed in their daily lives and conversation, and such interest is considered important in forming their daily lives. The spread of such interest shows that the existence of an individual in person, his or her experience of moves, and his or her encounters with unknown people, places and information have been taken as the basis for constituting and envisioning the world in wide areas centering on the Middle East.
　
Focusing on specific individuals who have high profiles and are based on the Middle East, this research aims to clarify the characteristics of the world formed by individuals through our pursuit of how their encounters with people, places and information occur, how their negotiations and relationships are realized, and how the exchange of people, things and knowledge beyond borders and the formation of a place for micro daily-lives are related.

Research Results

This inter-university research project was conducted in collaboration with the National Institutes for the Humanities Network-based Project, “Modern Middle East Area Studies.” The inter-university research project was mainly concerned with two issues. The first was to reveal the limits of the current analytical framework and understanding of the Middle East. The second was to further multifaceted understanding of the actual lives of the men and women who live in the Middle East and how their world has expanded by examining ethnographic cases based on project members’ research.
For the first one, taking the concept of the Arabic word salaam (“peace”) often used in Japan in trying to understand Islam as an example, we raised issues about the dangers of the familiar representations, concepts, and descriptions we are used to, which may actually hurt rather than help further our understanding of the people living in the Middle East.
For the second, the inter-university research project team, consisting of researchers specializing in not only anthropology, but also cognitive linguistics, gender studies, ethnomusicology, information science, and history to examine cases from diversified perspectives, presented a wide range of cases. Focusing on specific individuals, the presentations covered the following: 1) activities of individuals that crossed regions and religions in the Western Mediterranean Sea during the Medieval Period, 2) the Middle East’s chance encounter with Europe in the Modern Period and the relationship between Arabia and Islam, 3) the expansion of interpersonal relations through knowledge and the production of knowledge, 4) aspects of moving in modern times through international marriages, economic activities, asylum, etc. 5) questioning understanding based on religious and ethnic differences, and 6) critical examination of research experiences.
Furthermore, the results of this project have been disseminated internationally and contributed to the community through two international symposiums held in fiscal 2015 and 2016 and a panel session organized at an international academic conference in fiscal 2018. The first international symposium was the kickoff international symposium for the National Institutes for the Humanities Network-based Project “Modern Middle East Area Studies” held in February 2016 titled: Formation d‘une “culture populaire” au Moyen Orient: un rééxamen de la notion de “populaire” (“The Formation of Popular Culture in the Middle East: Reexamination of the Notion of ‘Popular’”). The second was held in March 2017 at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. Co-organized by the school and the National Institutes for the Humanities, it was titled: La culture populaire au Moyen-Orient: Approches franco-japonaises croisées (“Popular Culture in the Middle East: A Franco-Japanese Approach”).
Furthermore, in fiscal 2018, we received an inter-university research project grant for international projects from the National Museum of Ethnology, and organized and presented research results at a panel session at the 5th World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies held in Seville, Spain in July 2018 titled: “The Challenge of Ethnography on Identity and Social Realities in the Middle East: Going Beyond the Category from Within.”