Announcement:「Roots in a New Land: Visualizing the Lives and Cultural Continuities of Ethiopians in Japan Writer: Itsushi Kawase (National Museum of Ethnology, Japan)」

This talk reflects on the author’s years of participatory, reflexive ethnographic filmmaking in northern Ethiopia, before turning to recent film projects in Tokyo.

Japan is home to people from many cultures, yet African immigrants remain little known to the wider public. In Tokyo’s Katsushika and Sumida wards, Ethiopian immigrants have formed a close-knit community, connected through gatherings such as Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Faith, and engaging neighbours through music, dance and food.

Countering the dominant framing of immigrants as “foreign human resources” for labour shortages, the film portrays them as individuals and active community members, following the Adeyabeba Ethiopia Association. It invites reflection on Japan as a society that thrives through cultural diversity.

Itsushi Kawase is a professor at the National Museum of Ethnology and the Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Japan. Combining ethnographic filmmaking, poetry, fiction, and performance, he researches music cultures in northern Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora in Tokyo. His acclaimed films include Azmari: The Feast of Voices (2023), When Spirits Ride Their Horses (2012), and Room 11, Ethiopia Hotel (2007). He has served as a guest professor at universities across Europe, Ethiopia, and China, and as a juror and selection committee member for international ethnographic film festivals. In 2025, EHESS hosted a symposium in Marseille dedicated to his film and literary work.

This event is organized by Megha Wadhwa (Assistant Professor, DES, Sophia University) for the ICC Research Unit Visual Studies and Displacement in/to Japan and for SORW 2026.

Visual Anthropology, Multimodality, Creative Works, Decolonialism, Collective Graduate Students, Manifestos and Professor Dada Docot...

Recently posted by Professor Dada Docot, a great filmmaker, researcher, writer, visual anthropologist and teacher who is always willing to share. I am grateful (and so are my students!).

The ALab: https://www.the-alab.com/

Docot, Dada. 2026. “Teaching a Decolonial Visual Anthropology: An Introduction to a Collective Student Manifesto for Producing Creative Work.” American Anthropologist website, October 6. https://www.americananthropologist.org/online-content/teaching-a-decolonial-visual-anthropology

Borgelt, Taylor, Rebecca-Eli Long, Rebecca Martinez, Hanna Newell, Olivia Palepoi, Jayvaughn Peter, David Tortolini, and Juan Manuel Arévalo Viveros. 2026. “Dimensions: An Ephemeral Manifesto on Creativity.” American Anthropologist website, October 6. https://www.americananthropologist.org/online-content/dimensions-an-ephemeral-manifesto-on-creativity

Bobus! Dada Doco's website: https://dadadocot.wordpress.com/

Hanshin Tigers Clinch the 2026 NPB Central League Championship! ・ 阪神タイガースが2026年NPBセントラル・リーグ優勝を決定!

Image: https://hanshintigers.jp/

The NPB Climax Series Schedule:

「Sunday scaries!」・ I don't get to do many (socio-)linguistics posts, and this one is not about Japanese or JSL, but my Sociolinguistics students have been inspiring me this semester...

From The New York Times: The World, September 17, 2026.

For more: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/16/us/merriam-webster-new-words-looksmaxxing-yacht-rock.html

Please don't get the Silver Week Scaries...

「Africa bigger and U.S. smaller: U.N. adopts new map」

Image and text from The Japan Times, 9/5/26.

United Nations – The United Nations General Assembly voted Friday to adopt a new world map that makes the African continent bigger while shrinking North America and Europe, drawing ire from Washington.

Aimed at “a more accurate representation” of continental landmasses, the resolution was supported by 164 countries while the United States voted against it and six other states abstained.

The new map — known as the Equal Earth cartographic projection — improves “the accuracy of the cartographic representation of the world,” the resolution said.

It urges member states to use the new map in place of the traditional Mercator projection, which was designed for maritime navigation by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator in 1569.

Foreign Minister Robert Dussey of Togo, which sponsored the resolution, said maps “guide education, nourish the imagination, and influence collective perceptions.”

“They are therefore never neutral; when they present a distorted image of our planet, they risk perpetuating inaccurate representation that is passed down through generations.”

The United States however slammed the resolution, saying such moves are “the reason this institution is losing its credibility.”

“Instead of focusing on genuine problems ... this body is debating map projects from the 16th century and their role in promoting reparations and cognitive justice,” U.S. representative Yaryna Ferencevych said ahead of the vote.

The Mercator projection focused on accurate depictions of the shapes and angles of land masses, but their relative sizes were often inaccurate — largely due to the challenge of rendering a three-dimensional globe onto a two-dimensional map.

It inflated northern regions and compressed equatorial ones, making Europe and North America appear much larger, while shrinking Africa and South America.

A group of cartographers launched the Equal Earth projection in 2018. It makes Africa, Latin America, South Asia and Oceania appear much larger.

“Equal Earth preserves the relative surface areas of continents and, as much as possible, shows their shapes as they appear on a globe,” one of the cartographers, Bojan Savric, said in 2025.

France — which co-sponsored the resolution in support of the new map — announced Friday that it would abandon the Mercator projection.

In that map, “the United States, Russia and China take on a disproportionate visual prominence compared to Africa, Latin America or southeast Asia,” while “Greenland appears almost as big as Africa,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said.

“Changing maps obviously doesn’t change the world,” he said. “But correcting a distorted representation is already an act of truth.”

The initiative comes as France is seeking to improve relations with Africa, particularly in former colonies with which it has prickly ties.

Source: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2026/09/05/world/un-adopts-new-map/

Hanshin Tigers vs. Yomiuri Giants @ Koshien Stadium 8/28/26 ・ 阪神タイガース対読売ジャイアンツ @ 甲子園球場 2026年8月8日

There were thunderstorms threatening to cancel the classic contest between the beloved Tigers and the dreaded Giants. But the rain stopped right before the ball game started and it remained cloudy. It was also very hot and humid. Baseball is a dangerous game. I am not so much talking about the players getting injured (but injuries seem to be increasing in number and severity) but the hot and humid conditions in a cramped stadium (42,644 people attended that eveving; maximum seating capacity is 47,803) during the games. A beer girl passed out due to heat exhaustion (the beer dispensers they carry up and down those horrible stairs are typically 10-18 kilograms, or 22-40 pounds) direclty behind me. Later in the game an older man had to be taken out of the bleachers on a stretcher, again due to the heat. I hard two Giants fans joking about how weak Hanshin fans are. This was hardly funny. And, sorry to spoil the game results so early in this post, it was the Giants who were weak, losing 4-1.

https://shop.hanshintigers.jp/goods/?ggcd=37718

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NPB game stats: https://npb.jp/bis/eng/2026/games/s2026082801397.html

Sportsnavi game stats: https://baseball.yahoo.co.jp/npb/game/2021039343/top

YouTube game highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSkmz5jha1s

Hanshin Tigers Official Website: https://hanshintigers.jp/

(Related) Recent Farm Team Game: http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/2026/08/hanshin-tigers-farm-team-game-against.html

Osaka Day Trip pt.3 (25 August 2026, early afternoon) @ Umeda Hanshin Department Store Tigers Shop ・ 大阪日帰り旅行 パート3（2026年8月25日、午後早い時間帯 @ 梅田 阪神百貨店 タイガースショップ

Please note that the Tigers Shop has moved from the 8th floor to the 1st floor just outside the main building. Apparently they made the move two years ago; I didn't know.

Osaka Day Trip pt.2 (25 August 2026, early afternoon) @ Umeda Hanshin Department Store 8th Floor Exhibition Area ・ 大阪日帰り旅行 パート2（2026年8月25日、午後早い時間帯）＠梅田・阪神百貨店 8階催事場

Disney Twisted Wonderland Exhibition │ Seasonal Memories information:

https://dcc.disney.co.jp/tokuten/bf-event-twistedwonderland.html 

More information:

https://matsuya-exhibition.com/twst-exhibition/outline/

When I reached the 8th floor of the Hanshin Department Store, something looked very different. I inquired about the whereabouts of the Tigers Shop and was told it was moved the the first floor "a long time ago." But in its place, more or less, was a temporary exhibiton for a Disney video game (!?!) I had never heard about before... with a long line of (mostly) young women waiting to get inside...

Osaka Day Trip pt.1 (25 August 2026, late morning) @ Umeda Hanshin Department Store Pop-up Tigers Shop ・ 大阪日帰り旅行 パート3（2026年8月25日、午後早い時間帯 @ 梅田 阪神百貨店 タイガースショップ

Pop-up Shop Information: https://hanshintigers.jp/news/topics/info_11107.html