Arab-Muslim World in the Global Age : A Review of Anthropological Approach to the Arab Societies

该研究项目的主要目的是评价日本阿拉伯世界社会文化人类学研究的累积成果，并在全球化进程影响到社会和文化生活许多方面的阿拉伯国家获得人类学研究的新前景。项目组由几位人类学家和其他对人类学著作感兴趣的学者组成。在这些场合，人类学家阅读论文，论文的主题是反思他/她所做的工作和他/她最近在阿拉伯人中发现的社会文化问题。另一方面，以历史研究或区域研究为主要研究领域的学者，则在自己研究的基础上，对人类学的相关问题进行了探讨。会议讨论的主要议题是人类学与其他学科的可能合作、对穆斯林“圣人”概念的批判性审视、研究全球化带来的新问题的学术策略、穆斯林社会比较研究的方法论以及殖民主义对人类学研究的影响。因此，我们认识到阿拉伯世界最近出现的一些社会文化问题，人类学家必须认真调查，同时获得一些关键，以改善人类学的方法和理论框架，以适应阿拉伯社会迅速变化的社会文化状况。我们还收集了一些文献，这些文献很难获得，并派出首席调查员调查埃及社会变革的现状。在这些学术活动的基础上，我们正在规划一个研究项目，其主要目的是在一些阿拉伯国家进行实地考察，以了解那里的实际社会文化变化及其对阿拉伯人民的影响。

This research project aims mainly to evaluate accumulated results of socio-cultural anthropological studies of the Arab world in Japan and to obtain new prospects of an anthropological research in Arab countries where the globalization process has effected on many aspects of social and cultural life. The project team consists of several anthropologists and other scholars who have been interested in anthropological works.We have four meetings. In these occasions, anthropologists read papers, the main themes of which are a reflective examination of what he/she has done and the socio-cultural issues he/she recently found among the Arabs. On the other hand, the scholars whose main field of research is a study of history or the area studies talked on some subjects related to anthropology based on their own study. Main topics discussed in the meetings are a possible cooperation of anthropology with other disciplines, critical examinations of the concept of Muslim "saint", scholarly strategies of studying the new issues brought about by a globalization, the methodology of comparative studies of Muslim societies, and influences of the colonialism on anthropological research. As a result, we recognize some socio-cultural issues recently emerged into the Arab world, which anthropologists have to investigate seriously, and, at the same time, obtain some keys to improve the methodological and theoretical frameworks of anthropology to adjust to rapidly changing socio-cultural conditions of the Arab societies.We also collected some literatures, which had been hard to obtain, and sent the head investigator to survey current situations of social transformations in Egypt. Based on these academic activities, we are planning a research project, the main purpose of which is to carry out fieldworks in some Arab countries to throw light on the actual socio-cultural changes there and their effects on Arab people.