Donnerstag, 14. Mrz 2024, 18:00 - 19:30 iCal
u:japan lecture s08e02 - Timo Thelen
Living with ever-changing currents: Following an ama diving community over one decade
14.03.2024 18:00 - 19:30
A hybrid u:japan lecture by Timo Thelen (Kanazawa University, Japan)
Department of East Asian Studies, Japanese Studies (2.4), Seminarraum 1
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.4 (Campus) , 1090 Vienna
Hybrider Event (an einem physischen Ort und online)
| Abstract |
Japanese ama (professional free-diving women) are well-known from various documentaries and movies, most prominently from James Bond: You Only Live Twice (1967), or also from the NHK Morning Drama Series Amachan (2013). While their popular image as exoticized “pseudo-mermaids” is still spread in the media, ama divers are, in reality, hard-working and often remotely living people from the Japanese countryside, facing themselves with the profound impacts of a modern world and trying to arrange their lives in a steady negotiation of old and new, local and global, human and environment. This lecture will reflect on Timo Thelen‘s fieldwork on the ama diving community of Hegura Island / Wajima City spanning from 2014 to 2023. During this period, the ama community, on the one hand, struggled with an aging population, unsteady prices for their catches, and declining resources. But, on the other hand, they also experienced attempts of revitalization and support from the regional government and researchers, such as the designation of their fishery practices as immaterial cultural heritage or the establishment of the abalone festival – a commercial event centered on their catches. Yet, even under the inevitable menace of environmental changes caused by the global warming and international crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, the ama community always managed to cope with diverse obstacles and preserved their fishery practices in a sustainable manner. The Noto Peninsula Earthquake of New Year’s Day 2024, however, caused a yet incomparable disaster to the community, whose aftermath will affect them for many years to come.
Beyond the popular mystifications, this lecture aims to present a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of the ama community, how they experienced substantial changes and how they reacted to them.
| Bio |
Timo Thelen is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of International Studies in Kanazawa University. He has received his PhD in Modern Japan Studies from Dusseldorf University. His research focusses on media, tourism, and rural culture. His monograph Revitalization and Internal Colonialism in Rural Japan was released in the Japan Anthropology Workshop Series at Routledge in 2022.
| Date & Time |
u:japan lecture | s08e02
Thursday 2024-03-14, 18:00~19:30
| Place & Preparations |
LIVE @ Campus of the University of Vienna
Department of East Asian Studies, Japanese Studies
Seminarraum JAP 1, 2K-EG-21, Ground floor to the left
Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2.4 (Campus), 1090 Vienna, Austria
| Plattform & Link |
univienna.zoom.us/j/64485374691
Meeting ID: 644 8537 4691 | Passcode: 128282
| Further Questions? |
Please contact ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at or visit japanologie.univie.ac.at/ujapanlectures/s8/.
Veranstalter
Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften/Japanologie und AAJ (Akademischer Arbeitskreis Japan)
Kontakt
u:japan lectures
Department of East Asian Studies
Japanese Studies
01427743814
ujapanlectures.ostasien@univie.ac.at
Erstellt am Donnerstag, 14. Mrz 2024, 09:59
Letzte Änderung am Mittwoch, 20. Mrz 2024, 10:10