Kayak and Land Journeys in Ainu Mosir takes the reader into Japan's northernmost island, Hokkaido. The native inhabitants called this island Ainu Mosir, which means People of the Quiet Land. Guy de la Rupelle after having been to Hokkaido several times by motorcycle and meeting furtively these Ainu decides to take a longer look at who they are exactly and their current situation. To give a sense of purpose to his journey he packs two folding kayaks in his car, all his camping gear and spends six weeks meeting as many Ainu as he can, camps and paddles in the lakes, rivers and along the coastline of this amazing island, certainly the last wilderness left in Japan. It has been said that a good travel book is one in which the reader will discover new things as he travels with the writer. This is certainly the case. The reader will get a better sense of who the Ainu are through their voices as well as read about a part of Japan seldom written about by Westerners.

This book is about the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, living in and around Tokyo; it is, therefore, about what has been pushed to the margins of history. Customarily, anthropologists and public officials have represented Ainu issues and political affairs as limited to rural pockets of Hokkaido. Today, however, a significant proportion of the Ainu people live in and around major cities on the main island of Honshu, particularly Tokyo. Based on extensive original ethnographic research, this book explores this largely unknown diasporic aspect of Ainu life and society. Drawing from debates on place-based rights and urban indigeneity in the twenty-first century, the book engages with the experiences and collective struggles of Tokyo Ainu in seeking to promote a better understanding of their cultural and political identity and sense of community in the city. Looking in-depth for the first time at the urban context of ritual performance, cultural transmission and the construction of places or ‘hubs’ of Ainu social activity, this book argues that recent government initiatives aimed at fostering a national Ainu policy will ultimately founder unless its architects are able to fully recognize the historical and social complexities of the urban Ainu experience.

Showcases seventy recipes for creating family-friendly, authentic Japanese meals at home, including such dishes as tonkatsu, crispy pork cutlets in a tangy sauce; gyoza, pan fried dumplings; onigiri, rice balls stuffed with salmon; and ramen.

Once thought of as a 'vanishing people', the Ainu are now reasserting both their culture and their claims to be the 'indigenous' people of Japan. Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan is the first major study to trace the outlines of Ainu history. It explores the ways in which competing versions of Ainu identity have been constructed and articulated, shedding light on the way modern relations between the Ainu and the Japanese have been shaped.

In 2008, 140 years after it had annexed Ainu lands, the Japanese government shocked observers by finally recognizing Ainu as an Indigenous people. In this moment of unparalleled political change, it was Uzawa Kanako, a young Ainu activist, who signalled the necessity of moving beyond the historical legacy of “Ainu studies.” Mired in a colonial mindset of abject academic practices, Ainu Studies was an umbrella term for an approach that claimed scientific authority vis-à-vis Ainu, who became its research objects. As a result of this legacy, a latent sense of suspicion still hangs over the purposes and intentions of non-Ainu researchers. This major new volume seeks to re-address the role of academic scholarship in Ainu social, cultural, and political affairs. Placing Ainu firmly into current debates over Indigeneity, Beyond Ainu Studies provides a broad yet critical overview of the history and current status of Ainu research. With chapters from scholars as well as Ainu activists and artists, it addresses a range of topics including history, ethnography, linguistics, tourism, legal mobilization, hunter-gatherer studies, the Ainu diaspora, gender, and clothwork. In its ambition to reframe the question of Ainu research in light of political reforms that are transforming Ainu society today, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in Indigenous studies as well as in anthropology and Asian studies. Contributors: Misa Adele Honde, David L. Howell, Mark J. Hudson, Deriha Kōji, ann-elise lewallen, Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Hans Dieter Ölschleger, Kirsten Refsing, Georgina Stevens, Sunazawa Kayo, Tsuda Nobuko, Uzawa Kanako, Mark K. Watson, Yūki Kōji.

This book is a beautiful and moving personal account of the Ainu, the native inhabitants of Hokkaido, Japan's northern island, whose land, economy, and culture have been absorbed and destroyed in recent centuries by advancing Japanese. Based on the author's own experiences and on stories passed down from generation to generation, the book chronicle

This book is an unprecedented collection of 29 original essays by some of the world’s most distinguished scholars of Japan. Covers a broad range of issues, including the colonial roots of anthropology in the Japanese academy; eugenics and nation building; majority and minority cultures; genders and sexualities; and fashion and food cultures Resists stale and misleading stereotypes, by presenting new perspectives on Japanese culture and society Makes Japanese society accessible to readers unfamiliar with the country