ABSTRACT
From the viewpoint of the sociology of knowledge production, anthro-
pology can be seen as a socio-cultural product which is defined and prac-
tised within a particular socio-cultural framework at a particular historical
time. Therefore, ‘anthropologies’ (in the plural form) throughout the world
have different practices with different historical backgrounds. Under the
name of anthropology, we may be doing different things. As Eduardo
Restrepo and Arturo Escobar (2005) put it: ‘Other anthropologies and
anthropology otherwise.’ In this essay, first, I review several historical moments in which Japanese
anthropology was seen as being a socio-cultural product at the intersection
of Japan with the West, Asia and the South (the Pacific). Second, on the
basis of this review, I locate my own anthropological position as being
‘somewhere in between’ on the map of ‘world anthropologies’,1 and propose
moving towards an ‘interactive anthropology’. In so doing, I would like to
contribute to a world anthropologies project which will make possible the
coexistence of anthropologies and enlarge the anthropological horizon beyond the traditional East-West dichotomy.2
