The National Museum of Ethnology in Osaka, Japan is organising a symposium on the occasion of its 50th anniversary in conjunction with the Center for the Maritime Asian and Pacific Studies. The hybrid event is free, but registration is required.
This is an international symposium designed and conducted by National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) with the joint of the Center for the Maritime Asian and Pacific Studies (MAPS) at Minpaku. As the 50th anniversary of Minpaku, this symposium focuses on the past and current situation of tangible and intangible cultural heritages in the maritime world, mainly in coastal and island environments. MAPS project consists a part of the Global Area Studies Program launched by the National Institutes for the Humanities in FY2022.
For these years, Minpaku and MAPS has conducted researches from the perspective of human-induced development and environmental change, focusing mainly on the protection of archaeological sites and cultural heritages that have been directly affected by infrastructure and resource development in the island worlds, and the conversion of these sites into tourism resources, as well as on cultural revival and reaffirmation of identity, which are becoming increasingly active as a resistance to globalization and development.
Based on these current research and projects, the symposium will be divided into three main themes; (1) Cultural Heritages, Indigenous Culture and Museums (2) Canoe and Traditional Navigation Knowledge, and (3) Bark-cloth (Tapa) and Paper Mulberry-its Origin, Tradition, and Art, all of which provide important issues and cases of both intangible and tangible cultural heritages in maritime world. We invite various speakers who have been very active in front lines of each topics from the world to report and discuss the current situation and future tasks how to conserve, continue and develop such cultural heritages and human activities.
