Exploring 50 Years of Livelihood and Landscape Change in Wadi Fatima, Saudi Arabia: Ethnographic Collections of Motoko Katakura, a Japanese Female Cultural Anthropologist

摘要

The exhibition examined the 50 years of livelihood and landscape changes experienced by people living in arid land oases in the Arabian Peninsula. Wadi Fatima is an attractive oasis in western Saudi Arabia blessed with water and green vegetation. In the late 1960s, a period of rapid social change, the Japanese female cultural anthropologist (Professor Emeritus, National Museum of Ethnology), Motoko Katakura (1937–2013), conducted intensive field surveys over a period of more than two years, an endeavor that seemed impossible at the time. Through her encounters with “veiled” women, she realized that the women were uncomfortable with “being seen” but enjoyed “seeing” on their own initiative. The exhibition traced 50 years of change, particularly in women’s livelihoods, focusing on unique material cultures, and was based on Katakura’s valuable ethnographic collections of photos, maps and other materials, as well as the results from our follow-up studies half a century later. The exhibits offered an insight into the environmental and social changes affecting the daily life of women in Saudi Arabia.