Inter-Regional Comparative Studies on Frontier Societies

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The "frontier" has been used specifically to designate the American West of the 19th Century, and this concept has drawn academic, mostly historical, interest in relation to understanding the social characteristics of regions colonized by Western people. This research was organized in order to gain new insights by extending the scope of this specific concept to the frontier characteristics, such as conflict of land and resource management, migration, state and ethnic boundaries, observed in contemporary Southeast Asia and in other regions such as Africa, South Asia, East Asia including pre-modern Japan. Scientists from various fields such as socio-economic history, cultural anthropology, and agricultural development have participated in a total offifteen seminars since the beginning of project in April 1 999. As a result of inter-regional comparative studies presented in the consecutive seminars, various types of frontier societies came to be recognized, such as "local frontiers" in Africa, "silent frontier" in India, and "ever-lasting frontier situation" consisting of internal and external frontiers in Southeast Asia, and this shed light on the question of whether the frontier hypothesis, which was built by F. J. Turner, is universal to regions other than the United States. In addition, from the comparison of frontier societies between pre-modem East Asia and contemporary Southeast Asia, it was revealed that the perpetuation of frontier situation in the latter was closely related to political and economic transformation in resource management. Compiling a total of 26 presentations, a research report entitled "Inter-Regional Comparative Studies on Frontier Societies," consisting of five parts: (1) In connection with frontier hypothesis, (2) Cross-bordering, migration and frontier, (3) Resource management and frontier, (4) Nation, ethnicity, culture and frontier, and (5) Development and frontier, was published