Germany: The Global South Studies Center Cologne, University of Cologne

University of Cologne is a university with one of the longest histories in Europe and is designated as the excellence initiative in Germany. Currently, this university has the largest number of students within the Federal Republic of Germany. The Global South Studies Center was established in 2014 by bringing the disciplines, which had produced outstanding achievements at this university, such as social/cultural anthropology, African studies, history, linguistics, and media sciences. This center is expected to promote activities in multiple fields as an excellent research institute, advance interdisciplinary area studies under the global conditions and attract international attention.

Germany: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Unit, German Primate Center

The German Primate Center established a field station in western Madagascar in 1993 and has been using it as the base for the biodiversity conservation research in the tropical dry forest in the area. Prof. Peter Kappeler, the host researcher, promotes comprehensive research on the conservation of biodiversity in Madagascar as the operations representative of the field station. Prof. Kappeler holds the concurrent post of professor at the Department for Sociobiology/Anthropology,
Johann-Friedrich-Blumenbach Institute for Zoology & Anthropology,
University of Göttingen, which has approximately 25 research staff including doctoral candidates and an annual budget of approximately € 220,000. Prof. Kappeler receives a total of €1,500,000 in funding from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and has been working on a large-scale three-year project since last year.

Scotland: Center of African Studies, University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh is one of the most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom and is the highest regarded research institution in Scotland. The School of Social and Political Sciences is known for its excellent education and research achievements, which has led social sciences in the United Kingdom. The Center of African Studies, which is a sub-organization of the School of Social and Political Sciences, was founded in 1962 and has produced many researchers and practitioners as one of the most outstanding bases of African Studies in Europe. Dr. Barbara Bompani, who is the host researcher of this project, currently serves as the director of this historic Center of African Studies.

France: School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), National Center for Scientific Research

EHESS is the leading institution of social sciences research in France. Many of the philosophers from francophone countries who are also well-known in Japan such as Claude Levi-Strauss and Pierre Bourdieu used to be members of the EHESS or its predecessor, the sixth section of the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). The research on francophone Africa conducted at the EHESS receives extremely high evaluations worldwide. ASAFAS, so far, has invited visiting fellows in area studies-related disciplines such as history and anthropology from the EHESS and jointly held a panel session at an international conference.

Ethiopia: College of Social Science and Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa University is the oldest and most prestigious comprehensive national university in Ethiopia, which has produced outstanding talents that are successful in academia, industry, and politics both within and outside of Ethiopia. Dr. Gebre Yntiso Deko, who is a collaborative researcher on this project and currently serves as the Head of the College of Social Sciences, learned the methods for area studies and fieldwork developed by ASAFAS after he had gained a degree in cultural anthropology from the University of Florida and introduced these methods to Addis Ababa University. He is the person with the most appropriate qualities in terms of promoting joint research on the utilization of local knowledge in various areas in Africa and future images in respect of the development of local areas in Africa.

Cameroon: Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, University of Yaoundé I

Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences at the University of Yaoundé I is the top institution of humanities and social sciences in Cameroon. The university has continued to have research cooperation with the researchers at Kyoto University over the past two decades. In 2003, an MOU was signed between ASAFAS and the University of Yaoundé I. Dr. Mbonji Edjenguélé, who is a collaborative researcher of this project and serves as the head of Cultural Anthropology Department in the Faculty of Arts, Letters and Social Sciences, is the leading expert in cultural anthropological studies in Cameroon. He has been conducting his research concerning medical anthropology surrounding life and death for a long period of time.

South Africa: Centre for African Language Diversity (CALDi), University of Cape Town

University of Cape Town is the research and higher education institution representing the African Continent. It continues to produce excellent talents who also have an influence on the identity of the people in Africa. The CALDi at this university, which will be a counterpart of this project, holds valuable and important research materials for the development of the research in this project. In particular, it is noteworthy that the CALDi stores a large amount of materials collected by Wilhelm Bleek (1827-75), the pioneer of the studies on the languages and folklore of the San, and others. Dr. Matthias Brenzinger, who currently serves as the director of the CALDi, is a renowned linguist for the Khoisan language family. He has been conducting research on physical and linguistic communication, which is the same theme as the applicant has been working on, with a focus on the Kue-||Ani and ‡Khomani San in contemporary Namibia and South Africa.

Madagascar: Animal Biology Department, Faculty of Sciences, University of Antananarivo

University of Antananarivo is the university with the longest history in Madagascar and is the center of higher education and research in the country. Particularly, the Department of Animal Biology at the Faculty of Sciences has been leading animal biology in Madagascar where the endemism of the flora and fauna is significantly high. In recent years, the department has engaged in research activities more and more actively as the base of biodiversity conservation research in cooperation with the German Primate Center. Prof. Hajanirina Fanomezantsoa Rakotomanana is an up-and-coming zoologist who was appointed as the youngest professor in the country’s history after he had obtained a doctoral degree from the Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University in 1998. He works in the disciplines of behavioral ecology and conservation ecology with a focus on avian and other animal life in Madagascar. Prof. Hajanirina has successively held important positions such as a scientific adviser at the Wildlife Conservation Society and is one of the leading figures in conservation studies in Madagascar.

Canada: Department of Anthropology, McGill University

McGill University is one of the representative research universities in north America, and is called as the most international university in Canada. Among the various faculties and departments, the Department of Anthropology aims to pursue the cultural diversity of humanity and has promoted anthropological researches based on the fieldwork in diverse areas in the world including north America and Africa. Consequently, it has accomplished worldly excellent research outcomes. Associate professor, John G. Galaty, who is appointed as the main collaborating researcher in the “Network formation for reconstructing the paradigm of African Area Studies in a globalizing world” project, has enthusiastically promoted researches regarding land right and conflict, ethnicity and identity, legal anthropology, and so on in Kenya and other areas of African continent. Along line with these research activities, he is working as the representative of “the Institutional Canopy of Conservation (I-CAN)” project, which aims to strengthen the partnership between McGill University and African Conservation Centre.