About
Launching an Online Journal TRAJECTORIA
The National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) was established in 1974 as an Inter-University Research Institute in the field of cultural anthropology and ethnology. It is equipped with museum facilities as well as post-graduate educational facilities. Around 60 members of the academic staff carry out field work in various parts of the world. Minpaku currently holds 345,000 artifacts in its collection, which makes it one of the largest collections of ethnographic materials that has been built since the late 20th century. As for the scale of the facilities, Minpaku is now the largest ethnographic museum in the world.
As an international hub of anthropology and museology, Minpaku has decided to launch an international online journal entitled TRAJECTORIA to promote exchange of ideas and discussions among anthropology, linguistics, musicology, museology, heritage studies and arts through multi-media information system. It welcomes non-textual forms of representation like ethnographic films as well as combinations of textual and non-textual presentations. We do hope that the journal may provide us with fresh insights into multi-sensory aspects of the world and generate new forms of knowledge concerning humanities.
Scope of Journal
TRAJECTORIA is an international multimedia peer-reviewed journal situated at the intersection of anthropology, heritage studies, museum studies, and the arts. It is published by the National Museum of Ethnology (Minpaku) in Osaka, Japan. Since its establishment in 1974, Minpaku has endeavoured to disseminate its research findings to scholarly circles as well as to the general public by means of various channels and methods. Some of the recent projects to develop as an “Info-Forum Museum” have reconceptualised the museum as a platform for the multilateral exchange of ideas and information concerning the diversity of material culture as well as other forms of human mediation housed in museum collections.
The present journal provides a formal channel for continuing this exchange by focusing on the entangled, multiple trajectories of artifacts, knowledge and actors through time and space, both within and beyond the museum. We particularly welcome contributions that discuss anthropological practices, artistic challenges, and performances that transcend norms. We also welcome contributions that cannot be realised through text-oriented journals that explore non-verbal or sensorial realities of a given life-world. We solicit submissions that experiment with non-textual forms of knowledge creation and storytelling, ranging from audio-visual works, such as ethnographic films and animation, to different combinations of textual and non-textual media, including still/moving images, illustrations, maps, and sound. We also encourage contributions that experiment with digital media and VR, such as in virtual reconstructions of exhibitions or “reality.”
The journal has the following key objectives:
- 1
to examine the multi-sensory aspects of objects and material environments and to generate and disseminate new forms of knowledge;
- 2
to share knowledge with source communities (the groups of people in whom research outputs and museum collections originate), stimulating multiple creative collaborations and cross-fertilisations between researchers and those who are represented or studied;
- 3
to explore the innovative uses of multi-media and other exhibition techniques that allow a variety of museum audiences to participate in the ongoing process of knowledge production.
The journal is published annually and offers open access to scholarly circles around the world and members of the wider public with an interest in discussions of anthropology, museum, heritage, and art. The journal serves as both a gallery and an archive for the topics under discussion, and we aim to provide the highest possible technical support for the presentation and preservation of the journal’s content.
Editorial Team
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
- Kenji Yoshida
- Director-General of National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
- Itsushi Kawase
- Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
- Rossella Ragazzi
- Associate Professor, University Museum UMAK, The Arctic University of Norway
- Inge Daniels
- Professor, University of Oxford, UK
- Kaoru Suemori
- Associate Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
Former EDITORS-IN-CHIEF
- Shota Fukuoka
- Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
CONSULTING BOARD
- Anthony Shelton
- Professor, The University of British Columbia, Canada
- Atsushi Nobayashi
- Professor, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
- An van Dienderen
- Filmmaker and Lecturer, KASK&Conservatorium, School of Arts, Ghent, Belgium
- Mouadjamou Ahmadou
- Lecturer and Researcher, Director of Visual Anthropology Laboratory, the University of Maroua, Cameroon
- Toshiaki Ishikura
- Associate Professor, Akita University of Art, Japan
OPERATIONS MANAGER
- Kai Kagitani
- Technical Assistant, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF
- Tomoko Taniguchi
- Office Clerk, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan
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