Do places influence human behavior?
In everyday thinking, spaces and places are generally seen as empty vessels where human activity occurs. Digging a bit deeper, we can distinguish spaces from places: places are spaces that have meanings attached - an empty room becomes a classroom or a bedroom depending on what people do in it. Focusing on the Japanese concept ba - usually translated as ‘place’ - these studies recognize that places imbued with social meaning influence human behavior. Ba takes into account the social context, the norms that dictate behavior, the mood of a place, and the individual’s feelings about it. Conceptualized as ba, places limit and direct what we can do, and in the process, shape who we are. Drawing from a wide array of ethnographic studies, this collection illustrates various ways in which place and human agency co-emerge

　「場所」とは，ただ，人の活動が行われる空の容器ではない。何もない部屋が，人の行動によって教室になったり寝室になったりするように，人によって何らかの意味が付加されることで，「空間」は「場所」となる。しかもその「場所」は，ただ社会的な意味が込められた「空間」というだけでない。日本語の「場」という概念は，「space」や「place」の持つ，より深い作用を表現する。すなわち「場」とは，社会的な背景，行動を規定する規範，雰囲気，個人の感情などを含めた，人間の行動に影響を与える人を取り巻く何かであり，このように概念化されたとき，「場所」は，私たちができることを制限し，指示し，その過程で私たち自身を形成する空間であることが分かる。
　日本の暗黒舞踏や世界中の伝統音楽，伝統舞踊への参与型の民族誌を通し，場所と人間のエージェンシーがいかに共に立ち現れるのかに迫る，気鋭の人類学者による挑戦。
Figures
Tables
Photographs
Contributors

Preface
Introduction: An Anthropology of Ba
Gaku Kajimaru, Caitlin Coker, and Kazuhiro Kazama

Part I: Co-emergence of Ba and Actor
1. Butoh and the Cabaret:
How the place of striptease fueled avant-garde performance
in Japan Caitlin Coker
2. Space for Competition and Place for Participation:
Two Contrasting Sides of a Japanese Folk Song Contest
Gaku Kajimaru
3. Ritual Performance and Agency of Ba:
Hierarchy and Mood at Ceremonial Feasts in
Pohnpei, Micronesia Masaharu Kawano

Part II: Performative Translocality
4. Performing Turkish Culture:
The Inclusiveness of the Largest Y ru k Festival in
Contemporary Turkey Ulara Tamura
5. Creating Oceania:
Place and Ba of the Festival of Pacific Arts Fumi Watanabe
6. Performers' Two Bodies/ Double Consciousness:
Performers and Traditional Repertoire in Tibetan
Refugee Society Tatsuya Yamamoto
7. Conflicts Create Ba and Agency:
How E.A.B.I.C. Rastafarians Occupy the World Shuji Kamimoto
8. After Fieldwork:
Vestiges in/from a Fieldworker Eriko Kawanishi

Bibliography
Index