Masao Okabe, A-bombed tree, Eucalypt, Approx. 740m from hypocenter, 27 Aug 2010 (detail)

The Anthropological Institute of Hiroshima—Welcome

私たちのアプローチ

Our Philosophy

The Anthropological Institute of Hiroshima (TAIHI) serves as an intellectual and practical hub for transnational networking aimed at updating anthropology as a resource for knowledge and wisdom about humanity.

The name of the project, TAIHI, entails a wordplay that reflects on our core commitments to creativity, empathy, and multiplicity. The Japanese word, taihi, has at least three homophones—taihi in the sense of “contrast” as a reflexive process to embrace the differences, conflicts, and tensions inevitably associated with the diversity and plurality of human existence and identify the loci of transformative encounter; taihi in the sense of “shelter” as a safe space or asylum for sharing sensibilities and orientations that might otherwise be marginalized and erased in a world overflowing with division, fragmentation, violence, inequality, and indifference; and, finally, taihi in the sense of “compost” in which various organic matters accumulate, mix, and metamorphose. In this hopeful and playful spirit, we aspire to cultivate and sustain rich “soil” for intellectual and human growth.