| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
ODA Masanori Hitotsubashi University, Phd.Course Student of the Department of Sociology, 社会学部・大学院(研究協力者), 博士課程
KEIDA Katsuhiko Kyusyu Kyoritsu University, Associate Professor of the Department of Economics, 経済学部, 助教授 (10195620)
HAMAMOTO Mitsuru Hitotsubashi University, Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology, 社会学部, 助教授 (40156419)
UEDA Fujiko Kyusyu Kokusai University, Professor of the Department of International Commerci, 国際商学部, 教授 (70213361)
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| Research Abstract |
This project has been based on the concept of 'illness' as culturally constructed experience, and has attempted to elucidate how such experiences are related to various socio-cultural practices among Mijikenda, a Bantu speaking people in Coast Province of Kenya.
We conducted intensive field research among the three of the nine sub-groups of the Mijikenda ; the Digo, the Duruma and the Giriama. They are culturally closely related and share the same tradition of origin, and whose languages are mutually intelligible. Nevertheless each differs strikingly in its social institutions(the formerly matrilineal Digo, the patrilineal Giriama, and the double unilineal Duruma),in its ecological environment(the Digo living in the narrow fertile coastal strip rich in cash crops, the Giriama covering wide varieties of ecological environment ranging from fertile coconut belt to the semi arid bush land where cattle husbandry is the main subsistence, and the Duruma cultivating mainly maize in the dry bush
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forest just behind the coastal strip), and in its religion(the totally Islamized Digo, the partly Christian and partly Islamic Duruma, and the largely traditional Giriama).
Sufficient ethnographic data have now been compiled by each researcher, which enable one to describe and analyze the illness-related belief systems and cultural practices among the respective sub-group(Oda and Yoshida among the Digo, Keida and Ueda among the Giriama, and Hamamoto among the Duruma). Their findings are to appear in separate publications. Such detailed description and analyses would make it possible to estimate the similarities and differences among these sub-groups and to correlate their differences with particular socio-cultural and environmental variables in each sub-group.
Sufficient ethnographic data have now been compiled by each researcher, which enable one to describe and analyze the illness-related belief systems and cultural practices among the respective sub-group (Oda and Yoshida among the Digo, Keida and Ueda among the Giriama, and Hamamoto among the Duruma). Their findings are to appear in separate publications. Such detailed description and analyses would make it possible to estimate the similarities and differences among these sub-groups and to correlate their differences with particular socio-cultural and environmental variables in each sub-group.
In the course of the research it was already found that although almost the same set of terms are used, among any sub-group, to categorise illness, to describe the various symptoms, to identify the possible sources of illness, and to denote the possible cures, the semantic contents of these terms are sometimes widely different in each sub-group. It was also noticed that though the same varieties of agents are recognized as causing illness and various misfortunes, what agent are more commonly attributed as a cause of illness differs contrastively in each group. Among the Giriama witchcraft is the most salient feature, while among the Digo the possessing spirits are the main agents of illness. Among the Duruma, though the possessing spirits are common, transgressions of order of the homestead are quite often attributed as the cause of various misfortunes. Though final analyses to correlate these similarities and differences with the other socio-cultural variables are yet to come, it will appear in our joint publication in the near future. Less
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