Yamaguchi, Toru

ヤマグチ　トオル

Yamaguchi, Toru

Faculty of Letters Department of Humanities and Social Science (History)/Professor

Basic Information

Specialty

Geoarchaeology, Historical and Museum Anthropology in Oceania

Researcher Number

90306887

Laboratory Information

〒108-8345

Message from Faculty

I am interested in landscape history of island Oceania, which needs transdisciplinary perspective, and so I am going on discussions with many scholars from other domains. Some of them are worked with me in the present research project of Pukapuka Atoll, the Northern Cooks in Polynesia. We are now concerned with social resilience of Oceanic atolls from climatic disasters, and I focus on the past tropical cyclones hitting Pukapuka from historical and archaeological perspectives.

Biography

Researcher profile

I am studying 'landscape history,' a transdisciplinary perspective articulating historical ecology with historical anthropology, which can explore historical entanglement within a present landscape of island Oceania that has continually and contingently been changed. One of key aspects is entanglement between two agencies, human and nature, which will be challenged by geoarchaeology along with paleobotany, paleo coral studies, zooarchaeology and physical anthropology, within the long timescale of 100 to 1000 year order. Another aspect is encounter and entanglement of various social groups, in particular which should have frequently arisen within the past 300 years of the colonial and the post-colonial settings. Archaeology will play a role of intermediary, which has been long in concert with geoscience, cultural and historical anthropology, and it can cooperate with modern art history of artists visiting and viewing insular landscapes of Oceania and south-sea's carvings inspiring their creative urges.

General introduction

Other Information

I am also organizing and studying Melanesian ethnographic objects held in Keio University at present, which were collected in the early 20th century. Some of results are published as a web-database.

Research experience

2000.03 - 2004.04

Chiba University of Commerce Faculty of Policy Informatics Associate Professor

1998.04 - 2000.03

慶應義塾大学環境情報学部助手

1997.04 - 1998.03

慶應義塾大学文学部（講師）

View all Research experience

Education

Degree

Research

Reseach overview

I have been concerned with geoarchaeological studies of Oceania and the Yaeyama Islands, Japan, to disentangle dynamic interactions between two agencies, natural and human, in the island landscape. My research project of Pukapuka Atoll, Nothern Cooks, is now in progress. I'm also interested in historical and museum anthropology of the Oceanic arts collected in the colonial period from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century.