Overview

Despite their small area, the southern islands of Japan can be seen as stepping stones towards a more nuanced view of cultural osmosis between Japan and the outside world. Integral to this viewpoint is a comprehensive understanding of the inhabitants of these islands, including their culture, beliefs and mores. ""Nature, Ritual and Society in Japan's Ryukyu Islands"" contains original ethnography which explores the mind of the islanders, their relationship with the natural world, their social relationships, and the rituals which represent and give expression to these relationships. This book is based on extensive original research, and includes participant observation. Village priestesses in the southern Ryukyu Islands verbalise a sense of connectedness with the landscape through their prayers. Rather than interpreting this oratory as an example of symbolic or metaphoric construction, however, the author guides the reader toward a more concrete experience of the effect induced by the ornate words. This approach allows the authentic voices of the Ryukyu island worlds to speak for themselves, and also sets the work in the wider context of anthropology, Japanese studies and Pacific island studies. This book strings together issues of mind, society and nature and captures the exact moments when impressionistic views of nature are composed into stylized utterances. This study will be of great interest to the general anthropological readership interested in theoretical advances through fieldwork, as well as to Asian studies scholars.

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9780415355636

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Reviews

'Arne Rokkum has produced a complex, nuanced, and carefully argued ethnography on nature, ritual, society, and symbolism in the Ryukyu Islands, specifically, in this case, Yonaguni Island...There are some wonderful vignettes in this ethnography and some well-constructed analytical frames of reference...it is informative, well researched, and exposes a level of detailed observation and analysis rarely found in the English-language literature on the Ryukyus.' - Matthew Allen, Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 33

'Arne R kkum has produced a complex, nuanced, and carefully argued ethnography on nature, ritual, society, and symbolism in the Ryukyu Islands, specifically, in this case, Yonaguni Island...There are some wonderful vignettes in this ethnography and some well-constructed analytical frames of reference...it is informative, well researched, and exposes a level of detailed observation and analysis rarely found in the English-language literature on the Ryukyus.' - Matthew Allen, Journal of Japanese Studies, Volume 33

Author Information

Arne Røkkum is a professor of Social Anthropology in the Department of Ethnography, University Museum of Cultural History, University of Oslo. He has conducted fieldwork among the Izu and Ryukyu islanders of Japan and among the Bunun and Yami of Taiwan. He is the author of Goddesses, Priestesses and Sisters: Mind Gender and Power in the Monarchic Tradition of the Ryukyus (Scandinavian University Press, 1998).

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