Hiroki Takakura

• Professor
• Professor (Full) at Tohoku University

In the course of the ideological shift to Soviet ethnography linked to the Soviet cultural revolution of 1928-31, the Communist Party targeted the old guard in the academic disciplines as "enemies of the people." Among those suppressed were three distinguished Sakha (or Yakut) ethnographers and political leaders. These three intellectuals managed t...

Horse breeding is well-known to be one of the traditional means of subsistence for the Sakha (Yakut) of Siberia. Existing research, however, lacks clear descriptions of the reproductive process of the horse-bands and the role which herders play in that process. The objective of this paper is to clarify these issues. Currently the peoples of Norther...

Earthquakes that cause extensive damage occur frequently in Japan, the most recent being the Noto Peninsula earthquake on January 1, 2024. To facilitate such a recovery, we introduce a community-based participatory research program implemented through cooperation between universities and local communities after the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake....

On January 1, 2024, Japan was hit by the Noto Peninsula Earthquake. While the victims are receiving assistance, Japan must also begin to recover from the disaster. To facilitate recovery from the Noto Peninsula earthquake, we introduce a community-based participatory research program, implemented in cooperation between universities and local commun...

This paper provides an insight into the framework employed to revisit Mongolian modern history. The term “environmental disaster” signifies the social process of entanglement in human-environmental interactions, emphasizing the failure of human actions. The Mongolian pastoral society is vulnerable to various kinds of disasters, among which the most...

Purpose This study examines fisheries affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011 to explore how the collectivism appears during the recovery process. Design/methodology/approach The author questions the context of collaboration after the disaster among independent small-scale fishers in Miyagi by conducting semistructured inte...

This paper examines the Russian concept of “indigenous” and its effects. Using an accidental encounter with someone who avoids using the term indigeneity as an introduction to the topic, I investigate the question, under what conditions might the indigenous concept function positively or negatively in the political arena in Russia Federation? The r...

This book is an attempt to understand the impact of Climate Change on the Arctic human societies from the indigenous perspectives, by focusing on the peoples living in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) of the Russian Federation. Historically, and also today, the livelihood of the Sakha people is closely related to permafrost. Scientific evidence show...

Introduction: Health professionals and support staff need to be prepared for disasters and know how to respond. This study aimed to examine a one-day “Conductor-type disaster healthcare management personnel” training course and its effect among healthcare professionals. Tohoku University and Fukushima Medical University are experienced in disaster...

This paper explores the value of visual records from natural disasters in assisting reconstruction, including photography, single-shot videos, and documentary movies. It considers three types of visual records related to the Great East Japan Earthquake: 1) raw data, 2) edited educational videos, and 3) commercial documentary films. It also consider...

This study aims to deepen the understanding of the impact of climate change on human societies in arctic areas, and to consider their adaptation. Previous studies focus on local perceptions, which should be a key to finding the process and solutions, by taking into consideration all stakeholders in order to integrate with scientific knowledge. We a...

Semi‐domestication is a concept indicating the degree to which plants and animals exist on a spectrum between wild species and breeding stock in relation to human societies. Unlike the dominant perception of a dichotomy between hunter‐gatherers and pastoralist‐agriculturalists, human history and ethnography describe a certain range of semi‐domestic...

Recent natural disasters, including the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, have caused tremendous widespread damage and disruption around the world, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) has become a global priority. Tohoku University established a core research cluster, thus creating a new area of “disaster science” that consolidates four different s...

This book is an attempt to understand the impact of global warming on human societies in the Arctic/North in terms of the local peoples and cultures, or from the indigenous perspectives, by focusing on the peoples living in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) of the Russian Federation. Different lifestyles exist in the modern Arctic: the indigenous peo...

How should an anthropologist respond to a disaster that has occurred in his or her hometown? When one is simultaneously a researcher of a disaster and a victim of that same disaster, the range of reaction may be limited, but on the other hand, one may be privy to a deep insider’s view. Takakura describes some of the practical difficulties faced by...

Paddy Field Farmers after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 This article explores the role of paddy field farmers' local knowledge in the context of adaptation to a post-disaster setting. The Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 2011 heavily damaged the northeast coastal region and swept away virtually all human spaces, including agricultural fie...

The Lena River in Russia at its intersection with the Arctic Ocean is subject to spring floods such as those caused by ice jams. In such cases, snowmelt occurs at lower latitudes and river water freezes at higher latitudes. That snowmelt is blocked by the frozen river water, which induces ice-jam floods every year. Full-polarimetric parameters obta...

Riparian regions in Siberia have experienced extreme floods in the last decade because winter precipitation has increased. However, detailed statistical information about spring floods is lacking. Remote sensing is an ideal tool for collecting data over large areas. The objective is to evaluate the relative usefulness and limitations of multiple sa...

This chapter explores the cultural ecology and feasible methods of adaptation used by the Sakha people in response to spring river flooding. Flooding or overflow occurs during every spring thaw of the Lena River, primarily because of the breakup of ice jams. The Lena flows from the Baikal region in the south and discharges into the Arctic Ocean in...

Spring flooding of Arctic rivers is an important yet largely unexplored issue in climate change research. Owing to their complexity, scientific data on how climate change is altering the freshwater ice process and its impact on human societies remain unclear. This chapter explores the process of spring flooding on the Lena River in Siberia. We desc...

Ice jams are common winter hazards in rivers. In this study, ice-jam-related disasters were predicted at fixed points on a river based on air temperature data alone to develop a simple prediction method. Specifically, data were collected regarding disasters caused by ice jams in two major municipalities along the Lena River of Russia, Lensk and Yak...

This book describes the current environmental changes due to global warming in northern Eurasia, especially focusing on eastern Siberia. Spring flooding, ice-jam movements, and monitoring using remote sensing are included. Additionally, current reindeer herding of indigenous peoples in Siberia and related environmental changes such as waterlogging,...

In a context of scientific and public debates on permafrost degradation under global climate change, this article provides an integrated review and analysis of environmental and socio-economic trends in a subarctic region. It focuses on Sakha (Yakut) animal husbandry as an example of indigenous land use. Within Sakha-Yakutia’s boreal forests, anima...

This article focuses on the pastoral practices of the Sakha people in eastern Siberia to explore the impact of climate change on human livelihood in permafrost regions. Sakha use grassland resources in river terraces and the alaas thermokarst landscape for cattle-horse husbandry. Although they practice a different form of subsistence than other ind...

The Sakha – traditional cattle and horse pastoralists and one of the largest ethnic minorities in Siberia – hold a unique position in human adaptation. This book focuses on the cultural history, productivity, and flexibility of the human–nature relationships long cultivated by the Sakha, and studies the lives of the Sakha in post-socialist Russia....

This study examines ethnographic findings concerning a group of Siberian Evenki people living in the arctic forest tundra region of northwestern Yakutia. The group is of particular interest because of the changes that took place after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whereby its basic subsistence pattern shifted from reindeer herding to hunting. A...

http://www.cneas.tohoku.ac.jp/staff/takakura2/pub/NEASS11/Cover.html

This article analyzes the family relationships of the Sakha people with particular focus on the concept of the father, both in a historical setting and in a contemporary context. The aim of this article is to shed light on alternative aspects of the life of Sakha pastoralists and to examine them within the broader historical and cultural perspectiv...

This paper is a comparative review on the recent historical studies on the indigenous trading of the North. The purpose is to reconsider the significance of 18th and 19th century economic activities of the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido and Sakhalin within a regional framework of Maritime Northeast Asia, which refers to the Sea of Japan, the Sea of...

Arctic Anthropologists have conducted theoretical studies in order to understand methods of reindeer herd control in Siberia. However, little is known about how herders actually manage herds of reindeer in pasture on a day-today basis. Based on data collected through fieldwork in Northern Yakutia, Siberia from 1994–1997, this paper examines the con...

論文 Article

Anthropologists and historians, recently, have developed the historical analyses of repressed Russian anthropology from the 1920s and 1930s in the former Soviet Union. They discuss the theoretical and institutional changes in anthropology or the implications of the transition from Russian Ethnology to Soviet Ethnography. The interest is also develo...

北方先住民交易史に関わる近年の文献史学及び人類学研究動向について展望する。特に18-19世紀における北海道及び樺太先住諸民族の経済活動の意義を、日本海・オホーック海・ベーリング海にひろがる形で構成される東北アジア海域という参照枠組みにおいて再考することが目的である。従来、蝦夷地近世史における場所請負制の問題は日本史、アムール・樺太先住民交易史およびベーリング海峡交易は人類学、といった専門領域毎に扱われてきた。これらの歴史叙述を、先住民と国家との関係性という観点において翻訳=再記述・比較検討し、さらに当時の国際関係をも視野にいれることで、先住民交易の発展と衰退の特徴を浮き彫りにする。19世紀の北太平洋世界においては、近代国家による「領土化」過程が最後の段階を迎えるが、当時の日露関係はそうした文...

Good to Eat, Good to Live with: Nomads and Animals in Northern Eurasia and Africa / edited by Florian Stammler, Hiroki Takakura. 2010 (Northeast Asian Study Series 11)