DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

Research and Teaching interests

Sociocultural Anthropology, economic anthropology, anthropology of money and finance, philosophical anthropology, hope and futurity, peace, gifts and exchange, art and material culture, citizen and city diplomacy, nuclear weapons, nuclear energy, the Pacific Islands (mainly, Fiji), Japan, and the U.S. 

Biography

Hirokazu Miyazaki was born in Tokyo and was originally trained in anthropology in Japan and at the Australian National University, where he earned a Ph.D. as a specialist of Fiji and the Pacific Islands. Miyazaki subsequently contributed to the formation of the interdisciplinary field of the social studies of finance. His current research focuses on the history of citizen diplomacy for peace and a world without nuclear weapons. In February 2018, Miyazaki was appointed by Mayor Tomihisa Taue of Nagasaki as a Peace Correspondent for Nagasaki. Miyazaki also serves as a Research Associate at the Center for Peace, Hiroshima University. 

Before joining the NU Department of Anthropology as the Kay Davis Professor, Miyazaki taught anthropology at Cornell University for sixteen years. From July 2015-June 2018, Miyazaki served as the Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies at Cornell.

Miyazaki’s research has long been driven by a very simple question: how do we keep hope alive? Miyazaki has investigated the question ethnographically in several different field sites: Suva, Fiji, Tokyo, Nagasaki and Rochester, N.Y. 

Miyazaki’s first fieldwork project (1994-1996) focused on Suvavou people, descendants of the original landowners of Suva, Fiji's capital. His first book, The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge (Stanford University Press, 2004), is a study of Suvavou people's long-standing hope to regain their ancestral land. In that book, drawing on extensive archival and field research, Miyazaki examines how Suvavou people have kept hope alive over the last hundred years. His analysis draws attention to the capacity of Suvavou people to create hopeful moments across different facets of their life ranging from petitions to the government to gift-giving rituals, Christian church services and business activities. The book is also a critical assessment of well-known philosophical texts on hope such as Ernst Bloch's book, The Principle of Hope, and represents an effort to carve out a space for a new kind of anthropological engagement with philosophy. 

Miyazaki’s second fieldwork project (1998-2013) focused on a team of Japanese derivatives traders at a major Japanese securities firm. The focus of this project was on these traders' career changes in the midst of Japan's economic slump. In his second book entitled Arbitraging Japan: Dreams of Capitalism at the End of Finance, Miyazaki examines these traders' hopeful (and sometimes utopian) visions animating their daily trading and life decisions. In particular, he investigates how these traders have sought to extend economic assumptions such as the efficient market hypothesis, trading strategies such as arbitrage and tools of trade such as the Excel spread sheet program to facets of life beyond the market narrowly defined. The aim of this investigation is to explore the extent to which theories and techniques of finance have served these Japanese traders as an intellectual resource for developing critiques of capitalism and expanded visions of humanity. Underlying this project is a view of traders and other financial market experts as thinking subjects engaged in dialogue with various intellectual traditions. 

Miyazaki’s third ethnographic project (2017- ) focuses on the history of citizen diplomacy and inter-municipal cooperation for peace in Japan and the U.S. Miyazaki is currently completing a book about a variety of forms of peace activism in Nagasaki. The book examines a broad range of Nagasaki-based efforts to promote a vision of a world without nuclear weapons, from friendship doll exchange to the Kids Guernica peace mural project, atomic bomb literature, the Catholic Church’s peacebuilding programs, and the city mayor’s diplomatic efforts. 

In all of these projects, Miyazaki’s ultimate goal has been to construct an ethnographically informed theory of hope that is also hopeful. 

Selected Publications

Books and Edited Volumes:

2022 Kinyu-jinruigaku eno sasoi: Toreda tachi no Nihon to yume no owari (An Invitation to the Anthropology of Finance: The End of Japan and Its Dreams as Traders See It). Hirokazu Miyazaki, Shuhei Kimura, Juntaro Fukada, Mayu Hayakawa, and Sayaka Takano, trans. Tokyo: Suiseisha.

2021  Nuclear Compensation: Lessons from Fukushima. Evanston: Northwestern University Libraries (https://nuclear-compensation.northwestern.pub)

2019  Heiwa wo ikiru Nichi-Bei ningyo koryu: Shidoni Gyurikku to Shibusawa Eiichi no koryu kara Kizzu Gerunika e [Living in peace through the U.S.-Japan doll exchange: From Eiichi Shibusawa’s friendship with Sidney Gulick to Kids Guernica]. Co-edited with Hiroaki Koresawa and Jun Inoue. Yokohama: Seori-shobo.

2017 The Economy of Hope. Co-edited with Richard Swedberg. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press). 

2013 Arbitraging Japan: Dreams of Capitalism at the End of Finance. Berkeley: University of California Press. 

2009 Kibo toiu hoho (my own translation of The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge, with a new preface). Tokyo: Ibun-sha. 

2004 The Method of Hope: Anthropology, Philosophy, and Fijian Knowledge. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Journal Articles, Book Chapters, and Commentaries:

2024 The Bishop’s ‘Fine Tact’: The Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Relationality of Catholic Peacebuilding from Hiroshima and Nagasaki to Flores, Indonesia during the Asia-Pacific War. War & Society 43(1) https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/V3JGYTIX9CC3ZQTHV7SM/full?target=10.1080/07292473.2023.2282811

2023 “Anthropology and Nonviolence: A Reflection on Peace from Nagasaki.” Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence 1(1): 76-90.

2022 “Exchanging Expectations: Abenomics and the Politics of Finance in Post-Fukushima Japan.” Economy and Society 51(4): 610-629 (co-authored with Annelise Riles).  https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/JSXJMFP2REA6GSHYTNP6/full?target=10.1080/03085147.2022.2108621

2022 “Theorizing Intergenerational Justice in International Law: The Case of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.” UC Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law 7: 122-145 (co-authored with Annelise Riles).  https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucijil/vol7/iss1/6/

2021 “Hiroshima and Nagasaki as Models of City Diplomacy.” Sustainability Science 16(4): 1215–1228. https://rdcu.be/ck1cu

2021 “A Call for Transnational Citizen-Expert Engagement in Nuclear Compensation” (with Annelise Riles). Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 11, 2021 (https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/a-call-for-transnational-citizen-expert-engagement-in-nuclear-compensation/).

2021 “A Fukushima Lesson: Victim Compensation Schemes Need Updating.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 10, 2021 (https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/a-fukushima-lesson-victim-compensation-schemes-need-updating/).

2021 “Nuclear Compensation: An Introduction.” In Nuclear Compensation: Lessons from Fukushima. Hirokazu Miyazaki, ed. Evanston: Northwestern University Press (https://nuclear-compensation.northwestern.pub).

2020 “Artifact of Hope: The Journey of a Cross across the Pacific.” Berkley Forum (Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University), May 8th, 2020 (https://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/posts/artifact-of-hope-the-journey-of-a-cross-across-the-pacific).

2020 “Nagasaki no kyokai, heiwa, kibo: Yamaguchi Aijiro shikyo no senso-taiken” [The Catholic Church, peace, and hope in Nagasaki: Bishop Aijiro Yamaguchi’s war experience]. Nagasaki Shimbun, August 12, 2020.

2020 “Kakkinjoyaku hijun wo motomeru Beikoku nai no ugoki” [Calls on the Federal Government to sign the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nulcear Weapons in the U.S.]. Nagasaki Shimbun, February 24, 2020.

2019 “Hajimeni” (Introduction). In Heiwa wo ikiru Nichibei ningyo koryu: Shibusawa Eiichi to Sidoni Gyurikku no shinko kara Kizzu Gerunika e [Living in peace through the U.S.-Japan doll exchange: From Eiichi Shibusawa’s friendship with Sidney Gulick to Kids Guernica] (co-edited with Hiroaki Koresawa and Jun Inoue). Pp. 1-14. Yokohama: Seori-shobo.

2019 “Ningyo toiu okurimono: kyodosagyo toshite no ningyokoryu” (Dolls as gifts: doll exchange as collaboration”) (co-authored with Xavier Miyazaki). In Heiwa wo ikiru Nichibei ningyo koryu: Shibusawa Eiichi to Sidoni Gyurikku no shinko kara Kizzu Gerunika e [Living in peace through the U.S.-Japan doll exchange: From Eiichi Shibusawa’s friendship with Sidney Gulick to Kids Guernica] (co-edited with Hiroaki Koresawa and Jun Inoue). Pp. 79-98. Yokohama: Seori-shobo.

2019 “Tokyo, Nagasaki, Rochesuta: Minkangaiko nokonnichi-teki igi”(Tokyo, Nagasaki, Rochester: The contemporary significance of citizen diplomacy). In Heiwa wo ikiru Nichibei ningyo koryu: Shibusawa Eiichi to Sidoni Gyurikku no shinko kara Kizzu Gerunika e [Living in peace through the U.S.-Japan doll exchange: From Eiichi Shibusawa’s friendship with Sidney Gulick to Kids Guernica] (co-edited with Hiroaki Koresawa and Jun Inoue). Pp. 131-142. Yokohama: Seori-shobo.

2018 “Hope versus Optimism.” Peppermint 39 (Spring 2018): 59.

2017 “Heiwa no kyodosagyo e michibiku: Nichibei ningyo kokan 90 shunen ni yosete” [Working Together for Peace: On the 90^th Anniversary of U.S.-Japan Friendship Doll Exchange]. Nagasaki Shimbun, December 21, 2017.

2017 “Japanese Doll Exchanges Offer Lessons on Peace, Understanding” (Essay) Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, September 30, 2017 (https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/opinion/guest-column/2017/09/29/essay-japanese-doll-exchanges-offer-lessons-peace-understanding/716920001/).

2017 “Lessons We Can Learn from an Exchange of Dolls” (Op-Ed column) Japan Times, February 8, 2017 (https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/02/08/commentary/japan-commentary/lessons-can-learn-exchange-dolls).

2017 “The Economy of Hope: An Introduction.” In The Economy of Hope. Co-edited with Richard Swedberg. Pp. 1-36. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

2017 “Obama’s Hope: An Economy of Belief and Substance.” In The Economy of Hope. Co-edited with Richard Swedberg. Pp. 172-189. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

2016 “Hope in the Crack of the Social: Reading the Book of Job in Post-Fukushima Japan.” In Hope. Ingolf U. Dalferth and Marlene A. Block, eds. Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck.

2015 “Hope in the Gift—Hope in Sleep.” In Trust and Hope: Negotiating the Future: Dialogues between Anthropologists and Philosophers. Sune Liisberg, Esther Oluffa Pedersen, and Anne Line Dalsgård, eds., eds. Pp. 209-218. Oxford: Berghahn.

2014 “Insistence and Response: On Ethnographic Replication.” Common Knowledge 20(3): 518-526.

2014 “Hope.” In To See Once More the Stars: Living in a Post-Fukushima World. Daisuke Naito, Ryan Sayre, Heather Swanson and Satsuki Takahashi, eds. Pp. 248-249. Santa Cruz: New Pacific Press. 

2014 “Saving TEPCO: Debt, Credit and the ‘End’ of Finance in Post-Fukushima Japan.” In Corporations, and Citizenship. Greg Urban, ed. Pp. 127-140. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

2013 “The Gift in Finance.” NatureCulture 2 (http://natureculture.sakura.ne.jp): 38-49. 

2013 “Japan at the ‘End’ of Finance” (as part of “Opinions: The Anthropology of Finance”). Journal of Business Anthropology 2(1): 60-62.

2012 “The End of Finance?” (as part of “Theorizing the Contemporary: Finance”). Cultural Anthropology Virtual Issue. 

2010 “Gifts and Exchange.” In The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Dan Hicks and Mary Beaudry, eds. Pp. 246-264. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2010 “The Temporality of No Hope.” In Ethnographies of Neoliberalism. Carol Greenhouse, ed. Pp. 238-250. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

2008 “Barack Obama’s Campaign of Hope: Unifying the General and the Personal” (In Focus Commentary), Anthropology News, November 2008, pp. 5, 8. 

2007 “Arbitraging Faith and Reason” (Commentary on Jane Guyer, “Prophecy and the Near Future: Thoughts on Macroeconomic, Evangelical and Punctuated Time”). American Ethnologist 34(3): 430-432. 

2007 “Between Arbitrage and Speculation: An Economy of Belief and Doubt.” Economy and Society 36(3): 397-416. 

2006 “Documenting the Present.” In Documents: Artifacts of Modern Knowledge. Annelise Riles, ed. Pp. 206-225. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 

2006 “Economy of Dreams: Hope in Global Capitalism and Its Critiques.” Cultural Anthropology 21(2): 147-172. 

2005 “Failure as an Endpoint” (co-authored with Annelise Riles). In Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Aihwa Ong and Stephen J. Collier, eds. Pp. 320-331. Malden, MA: Blackwell. 

2005 “From Sugar Cane to ‘Swords’: Hope and the Extensibility of the Gift in Fiji.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (N.S.) 11(2): 277-295. 

2005 “Keeping Hope Alive in Anthropological Research” (essay contribution to a discussion forum entitled “The Research Object and the Subjectivity of the Researcher”). Forum for Anthropology and Culture (Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography [Kunstkamera], Russian Academy of Sciences) 2: 51-55 [The Russian version published in Antropologicheskii forum 2 (June 2005)] 

2005 “The Materiality of Finance Theory.” In Materiality. Daniel Miller, ed. Pp. 165-181. Durham: Duke University Press. 

2004 “Delegating Closure.” In Law and Empire in the Pacific: Fiji and Hawai‘i. Sally Engle Merry and Donald Brenneis, eds. Pp. 239-259. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. 

2003 “The Temporalities of the Market.” American Anthropologist 105(2): 255-265. 

2000 “The Limits of Politics.” People and Culture in Oceania 16: 109-122. 

2000 “Faith and Its Fulfillment: Agency, Exchange and the Aesthetics of Completion.” American Ethnologist 27(1): 31-51.