About the photographs

The National Museum of Ethnology houses several thousand photographs of study groups from the Nihon Minzokugaku Kyokai (later Shibusawa Foundation for Ethnological Studies), which organized the Synthetic Research of the Culture of Rice-cultivating Peoples in Southeast Asian Countries. These were acquired and previously stored by the former Ministry of Education Archives (Monbusho Shiryokan).

The photographs have been digitised at Minpaku and comprehensively sorted together with notes and information recorded about them at the time they were taken. However, in many cases there is no record of the date the photographs were taken, or who the photographer was, and there is often insufficient explanation about the content of the photographs. The location and date, in particular, are essential pieces of information for sorting the photographs, but as they are film negatives which have yet to be digitised, we will have to supplement this missing information from the new research carried out through this project.

During the First Synthetic Research of the Culture of Rice-cultivating Peoples in Southeast Asian Countries (1957-58) nearly 800 photographs were taken in Thailand, and these are the focus of this project. We cannot provide an exact number at this point, as there are many whose location and date are unknown, and some of them were taken along the Mekong River which forms the border between countries.

According to the remaining records, the photographers in Thailand were the research group members Hideo Hamada, Jukyu Cho, Toshio Kawabe, Keiji Iwata, Tsuneo Ayabe and Ichiro Yawata. Kawabe and Ayabe were also Thailand researchers, and there are more photos from them than the others. The locations of the photographs span the central (excluding the south), northern and northeastern regions of Thailand, and include Bangkok, Ayutthaya, Lopburi, Sukhothani, Lamphun, Lampang, Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Chiang Saen, Measai, Aranyaprathet, Nakhon Ratchasima and Nakhon Phanom. A large proportion of these photographs are from Chiang Mai, Chiang Saen and Measai.

The main subject of the photographs is scenes of rice farming, as well as people and agricultural equipment related to rice farming. However, the study was conducted while travelling by jeep, truck, boat and airplane, and the wide variety of subjects captured in the photographs reflects this. For example, there are photographs of the scenery shot while on the move, and the people and buildings the research group encountered along the way. There are also photographs relating to agriculture other than rice farming, as well as scenes of religious activities and entertainment.

By carrying out new follow-up field and literature studies into the photographs taken in Thailand during the First Synthetic Research of the Culture of Rice-cultivating Peoples in Southeast Asian Countries, this project aims to create a platform for academic research and educational activities through archives which are available to researchers, the source community and society in general.