Vita
I was born in the suburbs of Tokyo, in a somewhat typical milieu of the 1960s' urban Japan. In my first years in the university I was absorbed in mathematics (dynamical systems, topology, etc.), and then I turned to anthropology (most probably, my early passion in Béla Bartók's music, and the impact of Lévi-Strauss's Tristes tropiques, influenced me to take that decision). I remember that anthropology seemed to me something similar to mathematics in its great unrestrictedness of thinking. I went to Peru (Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Trujillo, Pucallpa), to Spain (Madrid, Galicia), then again to Peru (Pucallpa) and to Chile (Araucanía). In those places I met many important persons - some are reknowned and others not - to whom I feel I owe immensely. After finishing my Ph. D. thesis on Mapuche society, I stayed three years and a half in Barcelona, reading books by Bergson, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc., apart from Deleuze's books I began to read passionately some years before. I also went to the Filmoteca de Catalunya almost everyday. Since then, anthropology, philosophy and movies are the three things I have always in my mind.
Nací en los suburbios de Tokio, en un ambiente más bien típico de Japón urbano de los años sesenta. En mis primeros años de la universidad estuve absorbido en las matemáticas (sistemas dinámicos, topología, etc.), pero luego pasé a la antropología (muy probablemente tomé esta decisión por culpa de mi juvenil pasión por la música de Béla Bartók y del impacto de Tristes tropiques de Lévi-Strauss). Recuerdo que la antropología me parecía algo similar a las matemáticas en su gran libertad de pensar. Fui a Perú (Cuzco, Madre de Dios, Trujillo, Pucallpa), a España (Madrid, Galicia), otra vez a Perú (Pucallpa) y a Chile (Araucanía). En esos lugares conocí a muchas personas importantes para mí (algunas conocidas y otras no) a quienes siento que debo muchísimo. Después de terminar mi tesis sobre la sociedad mapuche, viví tres años y medio en Barcelona, donde leí libros de Bergson, Spinoza, Leibniz, etc., aparte de los de Deleuze que ya había empezado a leer, con pasión, algunos años atrás. También fui casi a diario a la Filmoteca de Catalunya. La filsofía, el cine y la antropología son, desde entonces, los tres elementos que tengo siempre en mí.
1962 Born in Tokyo.
1984 Received B.A. (Cultural Anthropology), University of Tokyo
1986 Received M.A. (Cultural Anthropology), University of Tokyo
1986-1987 Research Student at the Complutense University of Madrid with Spanish Government Scholarship.
1989 Visiting Researcher, Catholic University of Peru.
1990-1992 Visiting Researcher, Catholic University of Chile at Temuco.
1993-1996 Research Fellow, Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science.
1996 Received Ph.D. (Cultural Anthropology), University of Tokyo.
1995-1997 Doctoral course, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Barcelona.
1997 Visiting Professor, Department of Geography and History, University of Barcelona.
1999-2005 Associate Professor, Faculty of International Cultural Studies, Tenri University.
(2000-2002 Some courses in Computer Engineering at the Open University of Catalonia.)
2005- Associate Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo.
2013- Professor, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo.
