Education as a Contact Zone

IIJIMA, Shuji

This article claims the following. At first, this article introduces "teaching anthropology" or "the anthropology of teaching" into the Anthropology of Education in Japan. Further, we regard our seminar on cultural anthropology as a chain of contact zones. According to our framework, five aspects of our seminar are distinguishable. (1) A teacher establishes contact with villagers at the field sites. (2) At the university, the teacher provides students with several materials and methods to make them skilled fieldworkers. (3) On their path of learning ethnography, the students establish contact with villagers. (4) After the seminar, students describe what they have learned. However, interestingly, their recognition of what they could learn often differs from the teacher's objective. (5) At the end, the teacher contacts villagers to ensure every effect of the seminar, which contributes in their planning of the next seminar. The central point here is the way of treating contact zones established between teachers and students, students and villagers, and villagers and teachers. We would like to name this chain of contact zones as a field of "total education, " where unintentional development of three agents̶teachers, students, and villagers̶occurred, enabling us to expand teaching anthropology and not restrict it to the evaluation of teachers, students, and villagers. Then we can combine "philosophical anthropology" and "scientific anthropology" on the practical level, which I believe enhances our anthropology for the future.

Education as a Contact Zone

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