Documentation and Digital Archiving of Oral Tradition in Palau, West Pacific Islands

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K13283
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Area studies
• Research Institution: Ochanomizu University
• Principal Investigator: KONYA Akari お茶の水女子大学, 理学部, 学部教育研究協力員 (90757593)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: オーラリティ / ことば / 口頭伝承 / 相互行為 / 無形文化 / 言語継承 / デジタルアーカイブ / パラオ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As a part of achievements of this research project, I published paper “Textualization of Palauan Oral Tradition: A process involved in the Materialization of Words”, Journal of Cultural Anthropology 20, 60-82 in 2019.
Besides, based on the data which I collected by fieldwork conducted since 2017-2019, I did work for filming and recording digital archive videos regards to Palauan oral traditions (village history).This is an explanation of nine types of village histories in Airai State (Babeldaob islands) both in Palauan and English.This digital archive videos will be used by several institutions in Palau (Belau National Museum, Airai State Office etc.) for various purposes such as Palauan language education, cultural tourism or museum exhibitions.

Free Research Field

オセアニア地域研究

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の成果は、固有言語の次世代継承ツールとして当該地域に還元されるものである。また、当該地域に限定されず、ひろくオセアニアの他地域においても同様にみられる現代的課題である、無形文化の保護という文脈において、具体的手法を示した点において、その社会的・学術的意義が見出される。