Interview article with Dr. Hashiya Kazuhide
Interviewer: Akira Takada and Dr. Tebogo Thandie Leepile
Interview date:February 20,2024
Takada : Thank you very much for taking time after the dinner (laugh). This is for the website, so let me first ask your name and your specialty, Hashiya-san.
Hashiya : Yes. I’m Hashiya, working in Kyusyu University, basically as a developmental psychologist. I’m experimental psychologist and my theoretical background maybe evolutionary theory. I started my career with this experimental study of chimpanzees but after post-doc, I changed my target species to Homo sapiens from Pan troglodytes. The basic interest of mine is evolutionary and developmental origins of communication and human mind itself. That’s my self-introduction.
Takada: Yeah, great. And Tebby?
Tebby : My name is Tebby Leepile from Botswana. I recently finished my PhD in 2023, that is last year, around January at the University of British Colombia in Canada and following that I did post-doc with Tufts University through a program called IMMANA where I was looking at the history and cultural underpinnings of intermittent fasting among the Indigenous San people in Botswana and Namibia. Prior to that, for my PhD project, we had looked at household food security and anemia prevalence among young children and women of childbearing age. Currently, I had returned to Botswana with hope to assist in establishing the country’s first nutrition and dietetics training program in a public university, and it’s something that we are looking into, I don’t know how things are going to unfold, so right now I’m in Japan at the invitation of Takada-sensei at Kyoto University. Thank you.
Takada: Yeah, thank you. This is a special kind of the combination because the project I’m running is about the child socialization from the ecological approach and my particular focal area is Africa and particularly contact zone between foragers and agro-pastoralists. My focus is also on the young children from the birth up to five years old kids, so both Hashiya-san’s specialty and Tebby’s specialty are kind of an ideal combination as one of the focuses is the health and in that ecological condition, so I would like to chat about the several topics in relation to the theme (Photo 1).
First of all, we focusing on the socialization but the socialization definitely has a universal and also culturally distinctive aspects, so I wonder how we can draw a boundary between the universal and the cultural specific, so I wonder what kind of topics you studying about the young children and then ask what to ask if that can be applicable to the society in Botswana.
Hashiya: Yes, but it’s a long story (laugh). Basically, I started my developmental research with an infant before the language acquisition. For example, we focus on the gaze perception or the reinforcement value of the eye gaze in the infancy, or their music perception. But, we’ve got to notice that the story may not be so simple. We had limited the target ages from zero up to five-year-olds, but with accumulating the data, we noticed one quite natural fact that the development never stops at the age of five. At around the age of five, children get ready to use language and communicate with others at a certain level, but still, some aspects of communication of social cognition differ from those in adults (Photo 2). For example, the belief or their explanation about unnatural, I mean out of expectation things, may differ between children and adults.
Hashiya: For example, we are focusing to the perception or cognition or belief about the karma, or karmatic belief. Beyond different religions, adult people tend to expect, or hope, something good for the good person who acted in line with the moralistic standards or norms, and in the same way, expect bad things or unhappy endings to happen for the bad people, who deviated from the norms. We tested whether or when in the development such kind of beliefs would come out and have found interesting results. We presented stories to the participant, in which the main character did something good or bad, and then the participant are requested to select the ending of the story from 2 alternatives, happy or unhappy ending. Even children at five-year-old understood the whole story, though, the children preferred to choose the happy ending irrespective of the act of the behavior of the actor. But the adult, as you may agree, expect unhappy ending for the bad person.
Takada: I see, I see. If you do the wrong thing.
Hashiya: This kind of expectation starts, according to our study, at around seven-year-old.
Takada: Uh-huh. Ah, that’s interesting.
Hashiya: Thanks. So, this after the acquisition of the fluent communication based on language.
Takada: I see, I see.
Hashiya: Given in other cases, many things or many developmental changes occur, even after the year of five.
Takada: Uh-huh.
Hashiya: So, we are expanding the target ages of our study from “0 up to 5”, to “0 up to 10”-year-olds. I currently hypothesizing that, there may be at least two major steps in the development of socialization. As you may know, the children tend to pass the false belief task at around the year of 4, though may depends on culture, but even after that, some important changes could be observed. The first psychological set as a basis for socialization development, that is to say, early knowledges, may be observed before the age of his or her first birthday, and universal in humans and other social animals. This aspect is definitely very important, of course, but at the same time, we have to focus on the ages after the five-year-old, to fullu understand the whole process of human socialization.
Takada: I see, I see. But that’s quite interesting, that I agree with that your research result, but still I wonder that the perception of causality come much earlier.
Hashiya: That’s right.
Takada: So, what’s the differences between infancy or toddler’s perception of causality and cause and effect and…
Hashiya: The important thing, in our Karma study, is there is NO causal relation between the act of the person and the event after waiting for them.
Takada: Yeah, that’s more like reasons and the consequences.
Hashiya: So there’s no reasons even the bad persons have no reason to face with the unhappy event, but somehow we connected to separate things together based on something like the social norms or the moralistic concerns. I think this is the most interesting part. You asked me about the connection between the causality, the important thing is that there’s no causal relationship between them.
Takada: Ah, that’s interesting way. If we associate this topic to the culture in Botswana, you know, there is a kind of the beliefs about like, among the San, there’s the belief that, we call that “qx’aba,” it’s also come from the Kalahari, so I have some similarity to Botswana culture, too. Someone curses other people, and that cause disease others. Those kinds of things can be a very traditional way of thinking. But still have practices like a rituals and medicine to that. You learned sciences from the perspective of the nutrition about the health both from physical health and the mental health, so how do you think the socialization in Botswana can be different from your experiences in Canada or Japan?
Tebby: Thank you so much for the question and your insights, sensei. As you know, my area of focus is nutrition, but particularly the interactions between food systems and public health nutrition. In most cases, the nutritional outcomes that people often experience are largely determined by the environment that we live in. So, when it comes to socialization, unfortunately the cultural beliefs that we hold combine with other socio-economic factors , and the outcome, can go either way. Socialization can either help promote health, but also holds the potential to hinder best practices that can support people’s health. So, unfortunately I have noticed that in Botswana, we possesses rich and diverse Indigenous knowledge or traditional knowledge which in some cases mean we hold different cultural views about different things (Photo 3). Unfortunately, our Indigenous Knowledge is not structured, so in that way, it can be, fuel bad practices that can be detrimental to people’s health. Moreover, there is limited dialogue around this topic, particularly around the potential value of strengthening the relationship between our traditional ways of knowing and western science. At the moment, our health care system is western-science oriented. Since there is currently no consensus, the area seems to be neglected a bit hence is really hard to understand what is going on. Now let’s look at socialization as it relates to the San people, our target communities in the Ghanzi district where there is a big problem of malnutrition. One of the interesting revelations is the San’s traditional beliefs that people hold about malnutrition that associates malnutrition with the mother’s bad sexual behavior of having multiple partners, you know. This cultural belief is contrary to western science which describes malnutrition as a function of poor or suboptimal dietary intake. So, because of these divergent views, the communities’ beliefs and western science on health practices, are running parallel, so there’s a need to come together. You asked me I have picked any differences in Canada and in Japan. I can’t really say much about Japan, but I can say at least when it comes to Canada, I know that they do have something called a “doula system.” So, a doula system, I guess this may be an equivalent of what we would hold as a traditional midwife, in our context in Ghanzi.
Takada: Yeah, yeah.
Tebby: So, I think in Canada, there’s been an intentional effort to integrate the “doulas” within the system that mothers officially know they have options. One can choose to go with the doula, midwife or they can work alongside me in this journey. Our socialization is grounded on culture. The cultural beliefs shape who we are I as people, what we do, what advice we choose to take on even against health care messages. It’s our culture the end of day that most of the time dictates, what the communities agree to take on and choose to ignore. So I think it’s important that we look more deeply into socialization, to explore the role that is plays in nutrition. Thank you.
Takada: I see. The doula system also it’s quite interesting for me, too.
Hashiya: Doula system?
Takada: Yeah. It’s a kind of the intimate care but it’s also integrated in the medical system. Because our daughter was born in the U.S., so it was one of the options to take the doula system and they claim that “OK, you can have a very intimate care from the doula,” and we asked how much it cost and they said that it about 2000 U.S. dollar in the month and it’s not humane (laugh).
Hashiya: (laugh)
Tebby: (laugh)
Takada:But it touches very important part of the modernity, I think. You know, in the local society, like in Botswana, people know each other and people help each other. So at the time of pregnancy, there are many caretakers around that pregnant women, so it’s a kind of integrated in the your daily life. But in the modern system, many system are very specialized and during that many works, house works becoming invisible, it didn’t integrated into the economic bases, so Ivan Illich call that “shadow work.” With a rise of the modernity, some works become a very economic activity and some works are hidden behind that. So, in that case, it’s important to put in the foreground those works. It should be appreciated.
Tebby: Yes, yes.
Hashiya: It reminds me of the Negayama-sensei’s work, about “Ane-mori”, a systematic form of allomothering. In the islands of Okinawa, each newborn babies form a (often) non-kin sistership in the community. I am not very sure about the exact system but one girl is decided to be his or her elder sister. And, she forms a bond to the baby and she takes care of her or him as the elder sister. Though it is a kind of labor, it’s not a paid work, so, in a sense, outside the economic system. As you may agree, the co-parenting or shared parenting within the community is one of a human feature as a species. When you put such system in the economic basis, it may cost unbelievably a lot….
Takada: Yeah, yeah.
Tebby: But I think that even that some of these systems that you are talking about appear to be neglected, undervalued and underrated for a very long time. The world has the so called “superior” systems have been enjoying the benefits of the economy over others. Personally, I have a problem with the current status quo, particularly when a system that elevates certain ways of knowing over others. For example, trained midwives from Kyusyu University whose profession and practices have been legitimized by the government have a set cost and economic benefits something which is not the case for traditional midwives; this is a true reflection of the existing knowledge biases and hierarchies in our society. We need to be intentional about creating spaces for Indigenous knowledge in health and other sectors, we should treat all knowledge as equal.
Takada: Yeah, true, true. That can be the other way around, too. The medical doctor, very specialized about the medical scientific knowledge, but still nowadays, more and more emphasis are made on the communication between the doctor and patient. And so, the doctor not just providing scientific knowledge, people claim that they should understand the emotional aspect of the patient and so show the empathy.
Hashiya: But I afraid it’s too much to require everything to the medical doctor.
Takada: Yeah.
Tebby: Hmm.
Hashiya: Tebby-san, what do you think about the possibility of coexistence of the local belief to the community and such kind of natural scientific knowledge?
Tebby: I support that, I support the coexistence of Indigenous knowledge and science. More than that, I assume there might be other ways of knowing out there that we might not know that are yet to be discovered and explored. I am a proponent of diversity especially of perspectives. We should hold a holistic approach to child development. In Ghanzi expectant and nursing mothers receive a lot of support from their communities alongside the services from health care centers. For example, their social contexts provide for the other practical supports from the community; the traditional midwives sometimes offer physiotherapy, emotional support through counseling and many others. I think that all that is needed is to make the traditional midwives’ work easier, by legitimizing their services. And also, to economize it as much as it has been saving at the people so it can empower women economically. We also need to change our mindsets, the existing approach that assumes that health care services deserves to be paid while traditional services deserves no compensation needs to be challenged. I think that we can train ourselves to be inclusive of traditional knowledge-oriented services and to equally recognize their value.
Takada: I see. Yeah. That kind of recognition from the society. That’s quite important.
Tebby: Yes, recognition is important even by governments.
Hashiya: Maybe again in Okinawa, for example, I happen to hear a phrase in Okinawa, “Isha hanbun, Yuta hanbun.” The half of the things could be asked or they inquire to the medical doctors, but another half should be approached to… how do you say “yuta,” … the traditional spiritual practitioner.
Tebby: What do you think about it, sensei? I wanted to say that this also is in line with the approach of the indigenous people in Canada when it comes to health. It’s a holistic view that they hold about someone’s health, so they something called the “the Wheel of Health”, the belief that our health is more than physical.
Takada: Yeah, yeah. The “yuta” could be divination or divine.
Tebby: Divine?
Takada: Yeah.
Tebby: Ah.
Takada: Like a… not like a fortune telling, but still…
Tebby: Fate?
Hashiya: Yeah.
Takada: The fate or hope or… so, it’s a kind of very spiritual thing.
Tebby: Yeah. I am of the view that there is need for coexistence.
Hashiya: I don’t know the exact situation in Okinawa, but at least in their society, there is the room for such kind of belief and it coexist with the so to say the modern scientific belief.
Tebby: Science is OK, but science need to not to be regarded as the only way of knowing?
Hashiya: That’s right.
Tebby:I think that we need to communicate. Another point that I wanted to bring on board was communication. We need to recognize and acknowledge science and other ways of knowing. Even though we are seeking for them to come together in harmony, it’s not going to be smooth or seamless. As I said earlier, in child development, there are some cultural beliefs that can be viewed as hindering or promoting health. Communication is, therefore, the only vehicle that will give us access into the dynamics available out there. We would know where frictions and the low-hanging fruits are and we would even know where to put our energies. Unfortunately, we continue to work in silos; in most cases we don’t recognize or even some context disrespect each other’s expertise. This is only proving to be detrimental to our societies. For example, in Ghanzi the emphasis is on western-health care, however, there is a disconnect so while the San communities are also knowledgeable in traditional medicines. We seriously need to improve our communication.
Takada:I see. Yeah. I agree with you that scientific knowledge, it’s a very cautious way to accumulate knowledge and I really appreciate that, but some attitude such as religious and cultural beliefs to the sciences could be problematic.
Hashiya: Yes. Maybe the core of science education is to know the process of scientific thinking, as many philosopher and scientist have noted. So, it’s a kind of skill, the set of skill to think. Science is something like that, not just the accumulation of knowledge. What is important in science education or the science itself should be to know the process, although, of course, the knowledge, outcome, is also very important in a pragmatical sense. You may ask whether a tablet of medicine is effective on your disease or not. The medical doctor or scientists would say “At the 90% probability, it works”. But everybody cannot stop thinking about remaining “10%”. The most critical point for the patient should be whether he/she is in the 90% or the 10%.
Takada: Yeah.
Hashiya: But nobody knows this, even the scientists know nothing about it. Knowing science may be, at the same time, knowing the limit of science.
Takada: Yeah, yeah, it’s true.
Hashiya: The same thing could be said to the other beliefs like religion or in some other ways of beliefs.
Takada: In relation to the sciences, the concept of the health, one of the targeting concept in this project, too, is quite interesting. The health is very difficult to define, it can be defined negatively out of the illness, but it’s also associated with ethical or moral attitude to the life, so how do you think learning the nutrition? It’s definitely related to the health, but how do you think about it?
Hashiya:Tebby-san, could I raise the similar question as Akira-san. When we had a chat with you two yesterday, I was really interested in the point that even if the data show that the children are not in the best condition, but the mother sometimes says that there is no problem there. Actually, the mother may be right and the data may be right at the same time. It’s directly connected to the definition of health by the mother or the other people. “Nothing happened, so he/she is healthy”. So it may related to the stereotype or in other words, idea or images of the children or the development. Your talk makes me think about their body image embedded in a specific culture about the childhood; how he/she is, or looks like. They have their own knowledge about what children or babies are. But maybe, such kind of images changes depending on the history. The history changes food availability, other economic situations, and natural-ecological environments. I am just curious how the image of a child, a baby or development has changed during the history of the rural people, or San people, in Botswana.
Tebby: I am still trying to digest all the information, so I’m trying to converge everything so that I can just give a well-thought-out response.
Takada: Simplifying the question, what is the healthy life from your perspective?
Tebby: I think a healthy life is the one that takes into consideration the different dimensions that we talked about earlier; a holistic view. So now, when it comes to the example that I gave about that young boy and the mother, I think that this example shows as that we need to take few steps back, when we approach communities. Sensei, you talked about the accumulation of knowledge. So let’s consider this scenario of a hunter and gatherer who has spent their life in the wild and eventually gets exposed to a new environment and western way of defining health. In a practical sense, this will require them to learn the standard approach of describing sickness through symptoms and signs. In addition, they might feel pressured to frame their remedies or their interventions according to the western ways of knowing which ignores their pre-existing knowledge. The question here is, what happens to the knowledge they have been holding all along? Does it get replaced and discarded?
Hashiya: That’s right.
Tebby: We had a situation in one of the villages in Ghanzi where we encountered a child who was severely anemic. This diagnosis was based on the standard cut-offs determined through western science. What was interesting was that the mother was genuinely shocked because she hadn’t noticed that her child was not well, so I was the one informing her. In that moment, her traditional knowledge met with science. Can you see that we continue giving priority to western ways of understanding, particularly in health? We seldom seek to learn and find a common ground on issues. Maybe I could have engaged in dialogue to better understand her traditional knowledge on blood health. It was a missed opportunity indeed, I could have learnt more about the San people’s cultural understanding of anemia. Thank you so much.
Hashiya: As clinical psychologist and other medical persons have agreed, a diagnosis should be coupled with care for it. It might be important to translate the scientific knowledge into the mother’s belief system. I understand that it should be a hard work, but such a kind of adaptation or translation is a part of the works that’s scientists have to do.
Takada:I see, I see. That can be applied to Japanese situation, too. I once saw the data that the occurrence of the developmental disorder increased, like ASD almost triple comparing to a few decades ago. So that I think that can be a trick, I was in the clinical field and had the impression that the in actual occurrence rate not much differ but it’s a society that changing. So, in one sense, that can be related what is a social norm that are expected for the children, in the other point is if the society provides the enough care system without that the triple of the occurrence rate could be a burden for many caretakers.
Tebby: Uh-huh.
Hashiya: Uh-huh.
Tebby: Yeah, even the way sensei to appointive in the way more nutrition right now is a beyond just their definition and how is understood. Even when you look at the traditional approaches that a guardian sends mothers used to evaluate a child’s progress. They are different, right? Yes, I know that in our field focusing on, the weight and the height, right? But I think that now we because we do recognize that the communities, the traditional knowledge hold as play a critical role also in contribute in recent these children up that we need to see how they themselves within their homes, how do they evaluate a child progress. You know how like sometimes they use just the these, you know, around the child ways, you know. Yeah, that is just beyond aesthetics, you know. It’s also used to gauge like a child school then all that, and I think we need to pay attention to that like we need to begin to document those things, we need to recognize them that they are critical, we need to fit them somehow within our systems.
Takada: I see. Similar thing can be said to the obesity. Among that Glui and Gllana, if you have the fat, it’s a kind of the compliment (laugh).
Tebby: Hmmm.
Hashiya: Uh-huh?
Takada: They say that it’s you and you become big, but it’s in a very positive sense. And if you become thin, zayanha, and it’s a kind they are afraid about you are suffering from the sickness, so now another indicator like a high blood pressure or diabetes and other many diseases associate with the fat, so it’s very complicated issue how we integrate into the belief system, without scientific knowledge.
Tebby: Yeah. Sensei, I don’t know where we discuss this further, but do you remember we once talked about the power of language in one of our meetings with Umino sensei. Malnutrition scientifically is a very broad term that means an imbalance of nutrients in the body. One important example is our language around obesity, an area I’m interested in because of the ongoing destruction of our food systems as they gradually get westernized which has detrimental health impacts (Photo 3). Unfortunately, our in Botswana, we have developed negative stereotypes and language around obesity which can be demeaning. Let me give you an example, when I was at the university of Botswana, doing undergrad, I was a little bigger. I remember one time meeting a former classmate from junior high school I and she said to me “Oh! You are so big! OMG, you are like a pig.” I was devastated. Unfortunately, these negative remarks are also directed at women even after giving birth.
Undernutrition in children is scientifically defined using 3 indices; underweight, wasting and stunting which holds different health implications. However, in the Ghanzi district, child undernutrition is commonly referred to as underweight. It would be helpful to research further so we can understand the narrative around underweight, to investigate whether it is a cultural construct or not, where the language was acquired and the meaning behind it. This is particularly important because putting clumping all the indices together and referring to them as “underweight” might inadvertently downplay the detrimental impact of stunting and wasting.
Hashiya: How was changing the angle like…, for example, more food is necessary for children. And less food is necessary for the overweighted. But maybe the “less” food is not the positive word…. How about the “balanced” food?
Tebby: Ah.
Takada: Uh-huh.
Hashiya: The food should be balanced. More food is necessary. For example, the enough food is good but if it is too enough…
Tebby: Like maybe shift the language and focus to food.
Hashiya: To the matter of food. That’s right.
Tebby: Not necessarily like to their body, to say that the body is underweight, the body’s wasted but maybe to say I encourage you to, is that obscene to you are overweight, maybe I say you need to reduce your…
Hashiya: Reduce your food or select the one low calorie.
Tebby: (laugh)
Hashiya: Low calorie should be selected for him.
Tebby: (lauth) Yes, yes, yes. I don’t know, as I always say like me and sensei have lot of work to do, I’ve been thinking about that like how can we reform our language, you know, to make it more accurate while remaining respectful and kind.
Takada: I see.
Tebby: In the way that is supporting of people to take care the necessary steps like you are saying.
Hashiya: Yes. Or they prepared the list or recommendation for food for the overweight people. The more vegetables are listed in the recommendations.
Tebby: That’s a very powerful intervention that can be so beneficial.
Hashiya: Uh-huh. I see.
Tebby: As I said, I think the language that the society has around some of these our conditions needs to be looked into. For example, in our society back in Botswana, there are some derogatory remarks or phrases such as “ you look like a legwinya” which means a fatcake. We cannot go on like this.
Takada: (laugh)
Takada: That’s interesting. Yeah, I also had G|ui and G||ana the phrases sometimes very shocking for me (laugh). Like a… for example soothing the child, but sometimes just say “fuck all” for something. (laugh)
Hashiya: (laugh)
Tebby: Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah.
Takada:But still, it’s not the fuck off in the western sense.
Tebby: hhh not in Western sense.
Takada: The way to express yourself and emotion is a very important part of the peacing your mind (laugh). Ultimately, it related to the health, I think. I see. Maybe it’s time to…
Tebby: Maybe it’s time. Thank you so much for the discussion (Photo 3).
Hashiya: Thank you.
Tebby:It’s always wonderful to learn from both of you. Have a good night.
