Research Theme :
Nature in a Cultural Perspective
MATSUI Takeshi is Professor of Human Geography. He is attempting to investigate all aspects of the interrelationship between man and "nature" from an anthropological and geographical perspective. Nature is given to a people as the physical environment in which they must live, but at the same time, people recognize their natural world and give order to it through a culturally peculiar cognitive process, and use its elements to convey symbolic meanings. Prof. Matsui attempts to open new aspects on a research design of 'culture embedded in nature'. To pursue his theoretical interests, he has been accumulating data on the Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan (1972-), and on Southwest Asia, especially Afghanistan, western Baluchistan in Pakistan, and Rajasthan in India (1978-).
Prof. Matsui has published ten books, all written within the theoretical framework described above, including New Ethnography of the Ryukyu Archipelago (Kyoto: Jinbun-shoin, 1989, 281pp.); Semi-domestication (Tokyo: Kaimei-sha, 1989, iv + 244 pp.); Reflections in Cognitive Anthropology (Kyoto: Showa-do, 1991 ix + 243 pp.); Anthropological Perspectives on the Concept of Nature (Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press, 1997, xviii + 218 pp.); Cultural Properties of Southwest Asian Pastoral Nomads: Migration and Strategy of Politico-economic Adaptation (Tokyo: Yoshikawa-Kobunkan, 2001, 213 pp.); and Limits and Potentialities of Cultural Studies: A Critical Study (Yoju-shorin, 1998, vi + 232 pp.). Prof. Matsui's research papers on desert peoples of Southwest Asia include "Agriculture and Society in Makran Baluchistan, Pakistan" in Studies on Millet Cultivation and its Agro-pastoral Culture Complex in the Indian Subcontinent , ed. S. Sakamoto (Tokyo: Gakkai-shuppan-center, 1991), 279-343, and "Conditions of Political Autonomy of Peripheral Peoples: The Cases of the Pashutun and the Baluch of Afghanistan and Pakistan" in Peripheral Peoples Today , ed. A. Shimizu (Kyoto: Sekai-shisosha, 1999), 109-127.