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Toward a study of emerging social
network and community in globalizing world
Koki Seki
I was pleasantly surprised to have learned that my book was selected
as one of this year’s recipients of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Award,
which has been honoring many excellent works on Asian societies. This award
truly motivates me in considering the next step of my study, and I would
like to express my sincere gratitude to the prominent professors in the
selection committee, and also to the members of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial
Foundation.
The book was written based on the anthropological field work in the
Visayan Islands, central Philippines. It is about the everyday lifeworld
of the Visayan fishermen, wives, and children, colored by their hope and
pleasure, desire and enmity evolving through interaction with the ecological
features of the Asian maritime islands society as a background. My work
is a micro ethnography mainly based on various narratives made by the fishermen,
vendors, and merchants on their lives, works, and migration experiences.
I am pleased that this type of research has been recognized, by having
been awarded, as one of the effective methods in understanding the contemporary
society and culture of Asia.
The lifeworld of the fishermen is characterized by various uncertainties.
While confronted by those uncertainties inherent in maritime ecology, the
fishermen work out various strategies based on a flexible manipulation
of their social networks in order to expand the niche for their living.
I discussed, in the first half of the book, the various practices of strategy
through the case study of seasonal and circular migration by the fishermen,
which results in the distribution of risks and effective sharing of resources.
Furthermore, the social ties and networks of the fishermen should be discussed
while focusing on the asymmetrical power relationship that exists in their
community. The fishermen’s community consists of various social, and also
supernatural, others which include not only the capitalists and local politicians,
but also the spirits, saints, and god. In this sense, the community is
a gridded social space characterized by distinction and difference. Through
everyday practices of resistance, negotiation, and compromise by the fishermen
with those others, the ideas of self and identity are constructed and deconstructed;
the dynamics of which is the topic of the second half of the book. Again,
I express my appreciation for having been granted the award as it certainly
encourages me toward further study on the emerging social network and community
in the globalizing Philippines, Japan, and Asia.
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