Challenges
Facing Anthropology in Terms of Representation
• Closeness of the Social Sciences and the
Humanities
• Whose representations are they?
• Problem of form
• The politics and ethics of representation

What happens the anthropologist becomes the other?

Joy Hendry
Who is representing whom? Gardens, theme parks and the anthropologist in
Japan (1997)

Two Cases:
• Japanese self-representation
• Nikko site
• Japanese representing the other
• Tobu World Square

Nikko 1

Nikko 2

World Square

Japanese Theme
• Natural world inseparable from supernatural
• Representation of the outside in a safe form
• Outside: potential danger
• Inside: security safety

Discussion Questions
What can we learn from selfrepresentation and representation that does not come from anthropologists?

Is self-representation more valid than other types of representations?

What are the differences between
Japanese representations of
Western symbols and anthropological representations of these?

What are the differences and similarities between Japanese self-representations (Nikko) and the self-representations of
Indigenous peoples?