An Affair with a Village: Wrapping up 45 Years of Research in a Kyushu Community

Wednesday 19 February, 18.30 - 19.30 

In 1975-6 Joy Hendry did a year's fieldwork in a village in Kyushu, Japan, collecting all kinds of materials including a huge village/family tree, which she is hoping to take back in Autumn 2019. Having visited several times over the years, keeping in touch and updating her published work, the talk will describe the long-term relationship an anthropologist can have with the occupants of a village. The 'affair' suggests the kind of illegitimacy one may sometimes feel about 'interfering' in people's lives in this way.