Intangible Spaces: A Social History of Survival in the Mekong Delta.
（Kyoto University Press,2021）
Hisashi Shimojo
（Associate professor, Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University）
I am very happy and honored to receive the traditional Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Foundation, the Foundation’s Management and Selection Committee, the Kyoto University Press, and all those who have provided invaluable support for the publication of this book.
This book covers the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, which was subject to international conflict in the latter half of the 20th century. The discussion focuses on the village where ethnic intermarriage among the Khmer, Chinese, and Viet (Kinh) people was particularly prevalent. I spent one year and three months living and researching there, documenting ethnographic and oral histories as well as literary sources such as monographs, official documents, reports, and statistics to examine the arts of survival that these people have adopted since the 20th century.
Specifically, I examined how the local people, in their search of survival, had been reorganizing the local order by relying on old and new social relations as they were inevitably caught up in changes brought about by decolonization, the establishment of nation-states, international conflicts, socialism, and market economies. Through this study, I clarified how “intangible spaces” were created. These “intangible spaces” emerged from places where it was difficult for states to intervene. These include Buddhist temples, that enabled draft evasion, black marketplaces, and undocumented border crossing routes which were indispensable to people’s survival.
My research began with a simple question: “How did people live during the Vietnam War and under socialism?” I am convinced that the villagers’ experiences can offer valuable insights into issues pertinent to the global economy and migration, which have accelerated in many parts of the world since the end of the Cold War and have become more visible through various media.
In order to better understand the background of social division, friction, confusion, and conflict, I intend to continue focusing on the process of documenting the everyday activities of people who have had to come to terms with different others while being tossed around by repeated changes, and pursue ethnographic histories that can be connected to larger academic issues.
Encouraged by this valuable award, I would like to further advance my research.

Profile
Hisashi Shimojo, who was born in 1984 in Tokyo, is an associate professor at Graduate School of Intercultural Studies, Kobe University, who specializes in Historical Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies. He obtained B.A. in Economics from Keio University (2007) and Ph.D. in Area Studies from the Kyoto University (2015). Before joining in the current position in 2021, he was a researcher at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University (ASAFAS), a research fellow at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University (CSEAS), and an assistant professor at the Graduate School of International Relations, University of Shizuoka.