Lecture by Noboru Ishikawa: Anthropogenic Tropical Forests: Human-Nature Interactions of the Riverine Societies in Sarawak, Malaysia
Professor of Social Anthropology at Center for Southeast Asian Studies Kyoto University Noboru Ishikawa will be giving a lecture on his work on human-nature interactions.
Info about event
Time
Location
Moesgård Museum, Moesgård Alle 15, 8270 Højbjerg, Conference room 301.
Organizer
Abstract:
The distinction between social sciences and natural sciences continues to make communication for researchers in these two areas an uneasy task. The current confluence of geosphere, biosphere, and human society under global capitalism, however, is too important to be addressed in any way other than through a trans-disciplinary approach. We can no longer afford to be in isolation and separation when investigating relations between natural and social systems. The presentation introduces our challenge to conventional anthropocentric perspectives in the social sciences by examining connections and changing relations between nature and non-nature. We do so in one part of Southeast Asia that is under spatial reconfiguration through the dispossession of biomass and land.
I first present an overview of five-year collaborative research (2010–2014) on the human-nature interactions in the riverine societies of Sarawak, Malaysia. A multi-sited, trans-disciplinary research has been conducted in the Kemena and the Tatau catchment basins in Bintulu District, by a team of natural and social scientists in order to examine the emerging dynamics of landscapes of Sarawak with the expansion of planted forest of oil palm and Acacia mangium. The riverine societies connecting inland and coast were strategically chosen to examine the characteristics of human and non-human communities as well as the interactions between the two.
The research team represents a wide array of fields and approaches that include anthropology, human geography, economic history, rural and macro economy, linguistics, ethnic Chinese history and ethnography, plant, animal and ecosystem ecology, agronomy, hydrology, and life cycle assessment. Through the application of trans-disciplinary expertise and collaboration, the team focuses on multi-dimensional aspects of human-nature interactions in a mixed landscape that consists of primary and secondary forests, swidden fields and plantations.
Read more about Noburu Ishikawa
All interested are welcome to attend the lecture.