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研究会報告 2017

Workshop Report
MINDAS 2017 the Study Group on Intimate Spheres, the 2nd Workshop

Date：	Sunday, 3rd December, 2017. 13:30-17:30
Venue：	National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Presenter：	1. Kanako Nakagawa (Otemon Gakuin University) “Separation of Workplace from Residential and Its Effect on Caste Recognition: Case study of women’s intimate zone of the meat shop owners in Kathmandu”
Presenter：	2. Yoko Taguchi (Hitotsubashi University) “Relatedness through domestic work: Contingent connections of family, maids, and personhood”
Summary：	1. Kanako Nakagawa 　　This study analyzed shifts in a women’s intimate zone of meat shop owners in Katmandu, Nepal. Specific examination was made of women of the Khadgi caste, who have historically engaged in slaughtering, processing, and trading livestock in a caste-based role, and who in many cases, work as mistresses in their meat shops. This report specifically describes shifts in their intimate zone and its effect of Khadgi’s caste recognition during the most recent three decades. 　　After democratization in 1990, the population of Kathmandu expanded rapidly. Shopping areas have formed around the city periphery. Women from the Khadgi caste started to rent their residences as tenants and work as mistresses in the bazaar. During lunchtime, when the meat shop is closed, they mutually gather and chat. Thereby, they formed intimate networks of meat shop mistresses. In the 2000s, as a sub-organization of their caste association, Khadgi women formed a women’s association and subsequently organized numerous programs such as income generation and accounting. By examining the shifts, this study elucidates the role of women’s networks in reconstructing the recognition of their caste. Caste recognition is usually regarded as an example of identity politics, centering on public meetings and agitations by caste associations in public sphere. By contrast, the author demonstrates how women’s networks have broadened the horizons of caste recognitions themselves, by bringing in activities related to family businesses and by income generation.
Summary：	2. Yoko Taguchi 　　In this paper, I discussed the division of domestic work as well as the creative maintenance of the household by focusing on the case of one Mumbai family. Drawing on the literature both on changing social imaginaries in the era of globalization (including frictions of the moral economy accompanying international movements of domestic workers and subsequent changes in global householding) and on classic anthropological studies of Indian kinship and personhood (including caste-based division of labor and transactions of substance-codes), I explored the dynamics of family and household in contemporary India. 　　Middle-class families in urban India commonly employ a few maids for housework and childcare. The complex division of housework continues in various forms, even though the more traditional caste-based division of labor has apparently loosened. For example, in Mumbai today, it is not unusual to hire maids from abroad or other regions without knowing the details of their castes, and available maids are often simply introduced by the building’s watchmen. Similarly, live-in and full-time arrangements have been partly replaced by part-timers, who presumably have more freedom and control over their own lives. The social imaginary regarding the relationship of employers and domestic workers oscillates between hierarchical and patriarchal bonds and more temporary and commercial relations. In this way, the logic of family and attachment and the logic of the market and efficiency are more entangled in contemporary domestic arrangements. Based on my preliminary fieldwork in Mumbai, I described how family and non-family are connected and how personhood is extended in the contingent and somewhat intimate sphere of the household.

Workshop Report
MINDAS 2017 the Study Group on Music and Performing Arts, the 1st Workshop
“String instruments of South Asia: Historical Connections and Contemporary Applications”

Date：	Saturday 21st - Sunday 22nd, October, 2017
Venue：	National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Presenter：	1. Yoshitaka Terada (National Museum of Ethnology) “Introduction” String instruments of South Asia: Historical connections and contemporary applications.
	2. Hidetoshi Kobinata (Tokyo College of Music) “Organology of Sitār”
	3. Masakazu Tamori (National Museum of Ethnology) “Sarod and Rabab: Their Relations and Musicians”
	4. Yoshitaka Terada (National Museum of Ethnology) “History and contemporary development of vinas”
	5. Masato Tani (Kobe University) “Comparative study of Santur in Iran and North India: Mode of playing and the tuning system”
	6. Tomoko Yoneyama (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies) “Stringed musical instrument used by Turks in Central Asia – Emphasis on the Saz in the republic of Turkey”
	7. Shota Fukuoka (National Museum of Ethnology) “Southeast Asian Musical Instruments of South Asian Origin”
Summary：	1. Yoshitaka Terada 　　South Asia constitutes a treasure trove of string instruments, which are highly diverse in their physical construction, music style, performance context, status of performer, and cultural significance. The wide diversity of the instruments reflects a multitude of ethnicities, religions and cultures within the region, but it is also a result of the complex interplay between South Asia and its surrounding regions over a long period of time. As generally believed, South Asia played a decisive role in the migration of instruments in Eurasia because numerous string instruments exist in West, Central, Southeast, and East Asia, which resemble those in South Asia. 　　The migration of musical instruments across wide areas of the world was a main concern in comparative musicology until the 1960s, when it was replaced by ethnomusicology, with its greater emphasis on ethnographic detail in a limited locality. Accordingly, despite the importance of South Asia as a crossroads of musical instruments, the historical connection between musical instruments across wide geographical areas has not come to be a major topic of inquiry in ethnomusicology. 　　The objectives of this two-day meeting were to assess the present state of knowledge related to the historical trajectory of some major string instruments in South Asia down to their contemporary applications. On the first day, presentations were given on the three major types of South Asian instruments (sitar, sarod, and vina), although presentations on the second day specifically emphasized instruments from surrounding regions, including Persian santur, Turkish bağlama, and Indonesian rabab. The meeting was successful: individual research interests were placed in a larger historical context; moreover, many potential areas of investigations were identified during the course of discussion.
	2. Hidetoshi Kobinata 　　This paper explores the historical changes of sitār hardware from the second half of the 19th century to the present, using iconographic materials, a handbook for sitār, Sitār Darpan (1914) as well as several art works depicting this musical instrument. Generally, sitārs are classified into two types: sādā (plain) and tarafdār (with sympathetic strings). Most modern sitārs are of the latter type, excluding cheap ones or toys. Those of the former type were played widely before the 1940s. An interesting photographic image of a sitār shows young Pt. Ravi Shankar (age 10 or so) playing the sādā type in Paris as a member of the Uday Shankar Ballet Troupe. After two decades, however, in 1949 when he played the sitār in a radio program as a professional musician, he played the tarafdār type, as shown in his photographic document. "Virtual art galleries" are also useful for organology based on iconographic materials. A sitār in the collection "Musical Instruments Donated by Raja Sir Sourindro Mohun Tagore (Indian Museum, Kolkata)" confirms that the sādā type was commonly used during his lifetime between 1840 and 1914. These photographic images also tell us that the number of frets on the sādā type was limited to 16 or fewer, compared to 20 for a modern sitār. The features of these early models are apparent also in the figures and playing instructions found in Sitār Darpan. The method used for this paper might be applied further to older hardware of this instrument when tracing back the origin of the sitār.
	3. Masakazu Tamori 　　The sarod is an important stringed instrument along with the sitar in Hindustani music or North Indian classical music. The historical and ethnomusicological study of the sarod has very wide implications in consideration of its precursors and the interaction between the musical culture of different regions and peoples. An effort is underway to ascertain its origin in the ancient Indian lute like Chitra-vina, but the most convincing theory is that the sarod is a gradually developed form of the rabab of the Central Asia or Afghanistan during the later Mughal period. Actually, many common points exist in the form and structure between the sarod and the Kabuli-rabab. The most important improvement from the Kabuli-rabab is that the sarod was covered a metal fingerboard and that the gut strings were replaced by metal wires. It follows that the sarod can produce the continuous slides between notes known as mīnd, which are important in Hindustani music. Then, who remodeled the rabab into the sarod under what kind of environment, when and where? This presentation is an attempt to reconsider these points by analyzing the historical materials in Mughal period and an oral history of the Pathan rabābiyā/sarodiyā who came from Afghanistan and established the sarod gharānā (school) in Hindustani music.
	4. Yoshitaka Terada 　　The Sanskrit term vina has been applied to diverse string instruments throughout South Asia, some of which are prominent in the classical music of both northern and southern North and South India today. The vina refers to plucked zithers with two large gourd resonators (rudra vina and vichitra veena) in northern North India, although it means the long-necked lutes with a single resonator (saraswati vina and gottuvattiyam/chitra vina) in southern India. This presentation outlines the development of the instruments with a common appellation. Based literally on textual, iconographical and pictorial sources, scholars generally agree that the rudra vina, a result of long evolution from ektantri (one-string unfretted zither) and kinnari vina> (fretted zither with more strings), reached its modern form during the Mughal period. 　　The history of the southern Indian saraswati vina>, the most popular of all vinas today, is more problematic. Presumably, it acquired its present form in the 17th century in Tanjavur, but the predecessor of this instrument has not been identified. Moreover, the historical connection between the zither-type vina and lute-typevina remains unresolved. Compared to the vinas with frets, those without them are of more recent origin and have known inventors. Vichitra vina was named only after 1920, although gottuvattiyam (chitra vina) was invented around 1900. In recent decades, vina of a few newer types have been invented. In northern North India, the guitar with sympathetic strings was developed and named mohan vina, after the name of the guitarist who invented it. In southern South India, electric and portable vinas> have been created to aid traveling musicians. Although vina enjoy high status among instruments, much of the associated history remains enigmatic. A closer examination of historical sources is fundamentally necessary. For the saraswati vina particularly, a comprehensive examination of both Tamil literal sources and iconographical evidence is in order.
	5. Masato Tani 　　This presentation describes some differences between Iranian Santur and Indian Santoor from their ways of playing and the tuning system. Santur is the hammered dulcimer-type musical instrument with strings over a trapezoidal sound box. It is played with a mallet in each hand. Dulcimers on which strings are struck with mallets are ubiquitous throughout the Orient. 　　Both in Iranian and Hindustani music, the phraseology characteristic of vocal music has been regarded traditionally as a universal language that all musicians should master. A distinct difference between Iranian Santur and Indian Santoor is that in Iranian Santur, a tremolo, which is the reflection of vocal music, is played with both hands, whereas in Indian one, it is played with one hand only. This unique mode of playing is said to have been created by Pandit Shivkumar Sharma. He renovated traditional Kashimir santoor on both a hardware and software basis and incorporated it into Hindustani classical music. 　　As for the tuning system, in Iran, for some years past, new tuning systems called “Ravan kuk” “Santur 7 dastgah” were invented and introduced, whereas, in India, nothing new has been introduced. “Santur 7 dastgah” which means “Santur with seven different modes” is the mechanical system that makes it possible to change the key (the length of the strings) in a few seconds. “Ravan kuk,” which literally means “fluent tuning,” is a completely new tuning pin using a “tuning screw in pin” system instead of traditional “tuning pin in wooden body” system. This new tuning pin makes tuning easier and more stable.
	6. Tomoko Yoneyama 　　This presentation briefly describes the historical transition of the main stringed musical instruments used by Turkish people in Central Asia. It then especially describes the historical transition and modern development of stringed musical instrument called the Saz in the Republic of Turkey. Central Asian Turkish has used stringed musical instruments such as the copuz, the dutar, the komuz, the dombra, the tambour, and the rubab. They have been played by minstrels once and are now also used for popular music. The Saz in the Republic of Turkey originated from the copuz of Central Asia and was also played by minstrels called Ozan and Asik. The Saz has been used as an instrument for folk music accompaniment in Turkey. The name differs depending on the size. It takes three months to produce one using traditional production methods. After founding of the republic, it was to be used as the original musical instrument of Turkey. Today, it is also known as a national musical instrument in Turkey because it represents regional characteristics and because it can be played simultaneously with various Turkish music genres such as popular music and Arabesk.
	7. Shota Fukuoka 　　Evidence from iconographical, archaeological, and literary sources indicates that musical instruments of various types were introduced from India to Southeast Asia. Some studies of comparative musicology during the first half of the 20th century engaged in detailed documentation of instruments used in a certain area. Such studies were intended to classify them according to their presumed origins. An extended study of instruments in Celebes (Sulawesi) by Walter Kaudern (Musical instruments in Celebes, 1927) is reviewed in the first part of the present work. Detailed descriptions of the instruments of the island still have value for us as historical documentation, but the reasons for the inference of their origins are ambiguous in some cases. That is true because the reconstruction of genealogies depends on comparative studies of their shape, construction, and names because the respective histories of instruments had been rarely documented. In the second part, bar-zithers on the reliefs of historical architecture including Borobudur were examined based on the book Hindu–Javanese Musical Instruments by Jaap Kunst (2nd enlarged ed., 1968). Bar-zithers were popular instruments carved on them, but they seem to be extinct in Java, in contrast to Thailand and Cambodia, where this type of instrument is still used. In the last part, the author describes an examination of lutes named kecapi or related ones: hasapi (Indonesia),kudyapi (the Philippines), krajappi (Thailand), chapey (Cambodia), etc. The names are said to derive from the Indian kacchapi-vina or kacchapa, a Sanskrit name for the tree cedrela toona.

Workshop Report
MINDAS 2017 the Study Group on Textile, the 1st Workshop

Date：	Saturday, 7th October, 2017. 13:30-18:00
Venue：	National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Presenter：	1. Yoko Ueba (National Museum of Ethnology) Introduction: Textile in South Asia
	2. Chie Fukuuchi (Institute for Advanced Social Research) “Of “dressed prints”: Background of production and acceptance in the first half of the 20th century India”
	3. Kaoru Kawanaka (Kyoto University) “Relations between Local Technology Formation and Textile Materials in the Apparel Export Industry of Delhi, India”
Summary：	1. Yoko Ueba Textiles, including yarns and fabrics, have been important goods for trading since ancient times. Since the Age of Exploration, South Asian textiles have influenced textiles worldwide. Around the world, handicrafts are disappearing or are in danger of extinction. In South Asia, however, handcrafted textiles continue to be made and to exert a continuing impact on textiles worldwide. 　　Textile products are not confined to practical use as clothing. Textiles are used as emblems to express identity and authority. Indeed, they sometimes function as currency. They can, in other words, play important social, economic, political, and religious roles. In the world of fashion, Indian textiles embody rare materials and fascinating techniques and patterns rooted in Indian culture. They are used in clothing that is closely connected to society and religion. 　　The “Textile in South Asia” unit, based on fieldwork in regions where South Asian textiles are produced, social and cultural anthropologists and ethnologists will present cases illustrating these trends, with consideration of the characteristic of textile in South Asia.
	2. Chie Fukuuchi 　　This presentation explored “dressed prints” or print-works embellished with cloth, which evolved during the first half of 20th century India. Such dressed prints have various names that include “cloth work photos” and “Burma prints” in today’s art and antiques markets. Although less well studied, these dressed prints seem to have made a remarkable sight from the viewpoint of global art history. 　　Tracing historical documents and image information of private collections related to “dressed prints” revealed that Bombay-based agents of Ravi Varma Press such as “Anant Shiwaji Desai” and “The Ravi Varma Picture Depot” were in charge of the production of the dressed prints. They distributed the prints to southern India through local dealers in Madras and Madurai during the first half of the 20th century. These findings led our attention to the “Chettiar Community,” a mercantile community in South India that used to work away from home and used to engage in the lively business activities prevailing in Southeast Asia including British Burma. Preliminary research of their homeland Chettinad revealed existence of the dressed prints hanging on the room-walls of mansion houses, mostly built in the early 20th century, in today’s India. Most of these prints are the production of Ravi Varma Press. In the discussion section, I described the relevance of “Ravi Varma Press,” “dressed prints,” “Chettiar Community,” and “Burma prints,” with the suggestion that “dressed prints,” in terms of the spirit and substance of cloth, show the prestige of the bride’s carry-on goods (sir danam) in the Chettiar Community custom.
	3. Kaoru Kawanaka 　　This study examines the relation between local technology formation of tailors and textile materials within the apparel export industry in Delhi, India. Tailors in Delhi are reported to be in an unsettled labour condition that is exacerbated by industrial policies and trade liberalization, leading to the informalisation of the labour force in India. Nevertheless, export production requires skilled human resources, especially for the tailoring process, to create value-added apparel products with unique Indian textiles. How can we interpret the gap separating migrant tailors and export products with value added? Using textile material data of export apparel firms obtained from field work, this study assesses processes of migration-embedded local skill formation among tailors based on interpersonal relationships.

Workshop Report
MINDAS 2017 the First Joint Workshop “State and Religion in South Asia”

Date：	Saturday, 2nd September 2017. 13:00-19:00
Venue：	National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Presenter：	1. Minoru Mio (National Museum of Ethnology) “Introduction”
	2. Aya Ikegame (The University of Tokyo) “The Guru and the State: Examples from Hindu Mathas in Karnataka, South India”
	3. Mitsuru Niwa (Hitotsubashi University) “Outlining the Relation between the State and Religion(s) in Nepal with Emphasis on Protestantism”
	4. Mari Miyamoto (Keio University) “Religion, State and Society in Contemporary Bhutan”
	5. Sou Yamane (Osaka University) “Religious Legitimacy of the Nation State of Pakistan”
Summary：	1. Minoru Mio 　　In South Asia, religious communities have historically coexisted with populations of tens to hundreds of millions, including Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, and Christians. Moreover, these communities have served important roles in various aspects of each state, including politics, economy, society, and culture. Nevertheless, in 21st-century South Asian countries, circumstances have arisen that have come to threaten the right to live and the freedom of speech of numerically minor religious communities. 　　As one example, Indian-style secularism by which the state equally respects religious communities and gives consideration to minor religious groups has been advocated since India’s independence. Nevertheless, a political party with executive members who consider individuals of minority groups, such as Muslims and Christians as “second-class citizens” and which professes the opinion that they should obey the wishes of Hindus, who constitute a majority, has recently gained dominance in Parliament and in several State Assemblies. They oppress minorities by various means, such as prohibition or restriction of minor religions’ missionary work and residential segregation among members of different religions. In Pakistan, although Islam has become the political mainstream since the 1980s, confrontations between different Islamic schools are entangled with confrontations among regions and tribes. Sometimes sectarian confrontation engenders violent confrontation. In Nepal, although secularism is declared in the new constitution, certain social movements since the time of royal rule have championed the goal of returning to a “Hindu” state. 　　Apparently, each South Asian country has followed a different historical trajectory, but all have come to confront situations in which the religious majority holds hegemony in a state, situates its own religion as the state religion (or de facto state religion), and increasingly marginalizes the religious minority. Both majority suppression and minority resistance sometimes entail intense violence. Such a trend is influenced strongly by the globalization of terrorism, by international trends to label resistance groups one-sidedly as terrorists, and by suppression of the groups. 　　In this seminar, four manuscripts, presenting four (India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan) countries’ situations, were given to illustrate how state and various religious agencies and groups have interacted to shape the “public/private” “secular/religious” sphere since the 20th century. In the general discussion, these four countries’ trajectories were compared. Participants reconsidered the features of the state-religion relationship in contemporary South Asia and discussed the desired future of peaceful co-existence among different religious communities and the state’s (and other agencies’) role for this future.
	2. Aya Ikegame 　　In recent years, several Hindu religious leaders have emerged as influential actors in the increasingly polarising political environment of India. The most populous state of Uttar Pradesh has chosen a head of a monastery as its chief minister, for example. This apparently closing gap between religion and politics gives the impression that secularism in India is facing a grave crisis, again. The relationship between religious leaders and the state, though, cannot be fully understood within the argument of constitutional secularism. In rural south India, many monasteries (mathas) have been engaging in a variety of forms of social work (education, health and social justice) in the region since the early twentieth century. In this context, monasteries seem to have been acting like a state, providing necessary provisions to the people. They could be regarded as a parallel state that operates independently from the nation state. Deep investigation though reveals that the relationship between the monasteries and the state is overlapping and mutually dependent. By looking at two state-led-development projects (a large scale lift irrigation project, and online crop compensation scheme both funded and implemented by the regional state government), it becomes clear that without the timely intervention of locally powerful religious leaders, these projects would have remained only on paper. The paper thus argues that renouncer-gurus are acquiring a new role as the 'ultimate intermediary' who pushes the modern developmental agenda of the state for the public. The uncertainty of accountability, transparency and legitimacy of religious authority in such interventions undermines the ideals of modern state formation in which only elected representatives of the people can assume such authority. However, some gurus who act as the ultimate intermediary seem to force the state to be more responsive to the demands of the public. In this exercise, the relationship between the state and guru is neither what modern secular ideals uphold or denounce, but the guru ironically emerges as saviour of democracy.
	3. Mitsuru Niwa 　　The aim of this paper is to outline and discuss the historical change in relations between the state and religion(s) in Nepal, with specific examination of Protestantism. Christianity has long been a target of legally endorsed persecution in Nepal because Hinduism, as Nepal's national religion, had been at the core of national unity, integrity, and identity. However, the success of 1990 Democracy Movement achieved relative freedom for various religion(s), including Protestantism. As a result, Hinduism gradually started to lose its dominance. Moreover, the success of 2006 Democracy Movement brought secularism into Nepal. Therefore, Hinduism legally lost its status as Nepal's national religion. Under those circumstances, religious minorities have started to enjoy religious freedom, but, as a reaction, some Hindus started to show apparent hostility and enmity, which sometimes produces violence against religious minorities nowadays, especially against Protestants. In contemporary Nepal, so-called 'religious communalism' is certainly said to be an important and crucially important national issue. In addition to the points raised above, this paper introduces opinions of a politician and a Protestant intellectual who warn of the dangers of religious communalism that has its origin in secularization of Nepal to be radicalized in the near future. Therefore, they demand that secularization be repealed.
	4. Mari Miyamoto 　　In Bhutan, the Buddhist organization has long maintained a say in the public political realm, but the place of religion was not secured when the new election act and Constitution were approved upon democratization in 2008. They were required to restrict their influence to religious and cultural areas. As secularization of the political sphere advances, Buddhist monasteries become ever more influential to the society and the living world of people, irrespective of whether they are state monasteries, or not. It is apparent especially through the expansion of Buddhist practice of releasing of living things kept in captivity called tsethar and the spread of excessive repulsion against slaughter of cattle within the country. In the presentation, the spread of religious practices after democratization was described through the process of the organization of tsethar practiced in society. Furthermore, the possibility of re-politicization of "religion" through recent public discussion over the construction of abattoirs and people’s practices of meat consumption are discussed.
	5. Sou Yamane 　　This presentation outlines a discussion of how arguments have been raised about the religious legitimacy of the nation state of Pakistan. Although Pakistan became independent in 1947 as a Muslim majority state, political leaders such as Muhammad Ali Jinnah intended to establish a secular Muslim state at the time of independence. Some other religious leaders sought to establish the Islamic state on religious discipline. Since then, debates have arisen between the rather secular political leaders and religious leaders or ulama about what kind of state Pakistan should be. In the multi-ethnic state of Pakistan, Islam has functioned as the bonding force for the nation. However, at the level of law and administration, secularism has been maintained with consistency. The Pakistani government has occasionally propitiated Islamists. Legally modern representative democracy was provided assurance in the framework of Islam. Arguments about religious legitimacy were reflected deeply by domestic and international relations. Pakistan received huge political and financial support from the international community during the jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and anti-terror war in 2000s. Such an atmosphere supported Islamization in Pakistan. People in Pakistan have therefore fallen into a dilemma. Although they do have sympathy for other Muslims fighting for jihad, they are compelled to follow political influences exerted by non-Muslim states such as the USA. This dilemma is highlighted by the tendency by which people cannot criticize those who assert jihad. 　　However, in January 2015, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a public school in Peshawar, the Pakistani government amended the Constitution to wipe out and eradicate terrorists from the country and set up a military court against the terrorists acting in the name of religion. Although Pakistan received greater assistance during the war, after the assassination of Usama bin-Laden in 2011, the international community has devoted less attention to Pakistan. Nevertheless, the 21st amendment to wipe out extremism from the country was executed with no reference of international community support. As Pakistan continues to confront difficulties attributable to religious extremism, the international community must devote greater attention to regional stability.

Workshop Report
MINDAS 2017 the Study Group on Intimate Spheres, the 1st Workshop
“Intimate spheres and Social transformation in South Asia”

Date：	Monday, 8th May, 2017. 13:00-18:00
Venue：	National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka
Presenter：	1. Mizuho Matsuo (National Museum of Ethnology) “Introduction: Intimate spheres and Social transformation in South Asia”
	2. Misako Kanno (National Institutes for the Humanities/ Center for South Asian Studies at The National Museum of Ethnology) “My family and me: Women’s work and identity”
	3. Mizuho Matsuo (National Museum of Ethnology) “Outlining the Relation between the State and Religion(s) in Nepal with Emphasis on Protestantism”
Summary：	1. Mizuho Matsuo 　　The “Intimate spheres and Social transformation in South Asia” unit examines the changing phenomenon of intimate spheres in South Asia. Intimate spheres here include wider social as well as personal networks of family, kinship, neighbourhood, and friendship, in which a person belongs and into which a person is related. 　　When one speaks about the basic concept of intimate spheres in South Asia, studies of kinship and family structures such as traditional extended family systems, marriage alliances, personhood, and substance-codes, are those which are mainly discussed. However, social transformation led by globalization and economic growth has strongly influenced not only the public sphere, but also intimate spheres across South Asia. Norms and practices of traditional family and gender, or what is regarded as traditional, are fluctuating as people strive to progress to new situations while coping with uncertainty. Furthermore, their life experiences are influenced profoundly by regional variations, by urban–rural dichotomies, by age and generation, by class and caste, by education, by employment and work experiences, by family composition, and by other factors. Keeping a close eye on contemporary developments and transformations, this unit was designed to explore diverse features of relatedness and belonging and people’s lived experiences in contemporary South Asian society. 　　The issues of interests are explained below, although the issues are not limited to them. 　　Gender and family: changing roles and behaviours of gender in family, such as outsourcing of care for children and senior parents, separation of family households, modes of new household management and chores, and education of children. 　　New forms of relatedness: recent changes in relatedness such as family creation through new reproductive technologies (NRTs) and adoption (not like traditional practices of adoption within kin groups), practices of inter-caste, inter-religion and inter-cultural (interracial) marriages, and changing relations with neighbours and domestic servants.
	2. Misako Kanno 　　This presentation raised the fundamentally important question of “What is the meaning of household chores (ghar ka kam) in women’s lives?” while analyzing narratives of women in rural North India. The targeted informants were women in their 40s to 70s from different caste groups such as Brahman, Thakur, Bind, and Chamar in rural communities of eastern Uttar Pradesh. These women are engaged in numerous chores every day, including not only cooking, cleaning, washing, and rearing children but also farming, cattle breeding, making cow-dung fuel, repairing mud house walls, preparing foods such as pickles and dried vegetables for storage, and even worship and preparation for annual ceremonies and rituals. These drudgeries frequently cause women pain and fatigue. Women occasionally complain about their own lives with painful and exhausting roles on one hand, but they also accept life as it is while lamenting that they are directed by karma, kismet, and naseeb, all of which mean fate and fortune, on the other. Furthermore, they do not do the work merely reluctantly for their survival. They attempt to construct and strengthen relationships with specific others in their intimate spheres such as family, kin, and neighbors in their communities. They assert their presence and values among them through coping with chores. Therefore, this presentation demonstrated that women’s daily routine can be regarded as a device for women to assert their identity in a relationship with others and to situate themselves in the most comfortable space in their respective living spheres.
	3. Mizuho Matsuo 　　This presentation describes the meaning of the public world and its experiences for high-caste senior women, particularly addressing Chitpavan Brahmin living in Maharashtra and Karnataka. The Chitpavan Brahmin sub-group is spread throughout Maharashtra, Goa, and Karnataka. Its members achieved upward social status after 1713, when Bajirao Balaji Bhat became the Peshwa (prime minister) of the Maratha kingdom. They occupied important social positions in these regions and produced numerous outstanding figures in political, social, and cultural fields during the 19th to 20th century. Although they held privileged social status until the mid-20th century, their social positions were gradually threatened because of anti-Brahmin movements and social uplifting of other groups. Subsequent land reform policies (Kul Kayda), which made tenants land owners, dealt a heavy blow to these communities. Many absentee landlord families lost their lands during that era. 　　This presentation specifically explains the experience of older women (60–80 years; mean age 67.5 years) residing in Pune, Mumbai, and Bangalore. They were influenced directly by social reform movements, led by their fathers’ generation, which promoted girls’ education. Considering their age and gender, they are exceptionally well-educated: most interviewees are college graduates. The prominent public world they encountered included schooling experience at a young age. Their next encounter with the public world for them included work experiences. Most had secure jobs as government employees, bank employees, teachers, and doctors, which were regarded as “appropriate” jobs for them. Most of them were the first generation to work outside of their families as women. This study examined their school and work experiences, but also the family structures which enabled them to have such experiences, as well as current changes affecting their daughters’ or daughters-in-laws’ generations to assess social transformations affecting particular social groups in the post-independence era.