Report on the Dispatch to the United States of America: Collaboration with UCLA and UCSD

Akira Takada
Professor
Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies
Kyoto University

I visited Los Angeles and San Diego, U.S.A., from December 27, 2022 to January 15, 2023. Although it was a short visit, it was a worthwhile one, as described below. 

During this period, the U.S. was hit by a record cold wave. The cold wave not only caused many deaths, but also had a major impact on economic activities due to large-scale power outages and flight delays and cancellations. In California, where I visited, it was not so cold (although the temperature was still considerably lower than usual), but we were hit by rain almost throughout my stay (Photo 1). In a region with almost no rainfall, being rained on a daily basis was an unprecedented experience, even for the reporter who has lived in California for many years in total. In Los Angeles particularly, I saw more homeless people than ever before, probably due to the widening economic disparity. While electric car stations, which had never been seen before, were everywhere, the sight of homeless people sheltering from the rain from late at night to early in the morning under the eaves of buildings or at bus stops seemed to symbolize the lights and shadows of the United States, where high inflation is continuing. 

In Los Angeles, I visited the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on a daily basis (Photo 2). I had been a visiting researcher at the Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture (CLIC) at UCLA several times before, but this was my first visit in these several years, partly due to Covid-19 pandemic. So I was somewhat nervous. However, my fears were dispelled when I met again with my old colleagues. Professor Emeritus Marjorie Harness Goodwin, who specializes in linguistic anthropology and linguistic socialization, is a researcher who hosted me with her late partner, Professor Emeritus Charles Goodwin, when I stayed at CLIC as a visiting researcher before. This time too, she welcomed me with the same kindness. After we reported each other’s recent activities, I gave her an overview of the Scientific Research (S) “Ecological future making of childrearing in contact zones between hunter-gatherers and agro-pastoralists in Africa”, and she gave me very useful suggestions on how to proceed with the project and who to contact for the project. 

Professor Tanya Stivers, who specializes in sociology and conversation analysis, is a leading researcher in CLIC. I’m currently conducting joint research with her group regarding cross-cultural comparisons of interactional behavior in encounter situations, and we first exchanged views on the progress of the project. I also reported on the results of analysis of the G|ui/G||ana data from Botswana that I am currently working on, and received advice on the interpretation and further analysis. I also explained the outline of the above-mentioned Scientific Research (S), and confirmed that the research collaboration would be further developed. As a part of this, I plan to invite Prof. Stivers to Kyoto in the first half of FY2023, as well as to hold a panel presentation jointly with Prof. Stivers and her colleagues at the International Conference on Conversation Analysis (ICCA2023) to be held at the end of June 2023. In addition, I attended a CLIC seminar held during my stay in LA, where Dr. Natasha Shrikant (Department of Communication, University of Colorado, Boulder) presented “Categorization as a Personal and Political Analysis. Categorization as a personal and political act: Membership categorization analysis and “race talk” in institutional context”. I enjoyed discussing the presentation together with the participants. 

At UCLA, I also had a research meeting with Professor Brooke Scelza, who specializes in anthropology and behavioral ecology, together with Ms. Risa Teramoto, an ASAFAS graduate student and collaborator of this project, who was visiting UCLA at the same time. Professor Scelza has been conducting excellent research on sexual relations and child rearing among Himba in Namibia and other human populations. She also serves as a facilitator of the Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture (BEC), a world-class center for research on hunter-gatherers, animal behavior, and behavioral ecology, with which I plan to collaborate in the near future. In this study, we were able to obtain important and up-to-date research findings on sexual relations, parental care, and reproduction in small groups in Africa. In addition, I participated in a BEC seminar held during my stay in Africa, where Dr. Marina Davila-Ross (Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology, University of Portsmouth) presented a paper titled “Laughter and Smiles: Toward a New Approach to the Study of Sexual Relationships and Reproduction in Small Populations in Africa”. Incidentally, I am also an external reviewer for the doctoral dissertation of Dr. Marina Davila-Ross’s graduate student, and has been in close contact with their laboratory. Through this seminar, we had a fruitful exchange of views on the latest techniques and theoretical knowledge on the analysis of communication being developed in their laboratory. 

In San Diego, I visited the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) (Photo 3) and had a meeting with Associate Professor Federico Rossano of the Department of Cognitive Science, with whom I am collaborating in research. Associate Professor Rossano is a long-time friend of mine and has been actively promoting cutting-edge research on communication, especially on human infants and primate interactions. In FY2021, Associate Professor Rossano (at that time Assistant Professor) was invited to Kyoto University as a short-term foreign faculty member in the Multi-Hierarchical Network Research Unit of Kyoto University, and we have started research collaboration on comparative cognitive science, cognitive development, and interactionism with other researchers at Kyoto University. In this visit, I explained the progress of the Scientific Research (S), especially my recent research on language socialization in the contact zone of hunter-gatherers and agro-pastoralists in Botswana from September to December 2022. We also exchanged the latest information on the research that Associate Professor Rossano is conducting in Africa. We left San Diego with a promise of further research collaboration with Professor Rossano and his laboratory.