‘FROM THE FAROE ISLANDSTO THE OKI ISLANDS’
フェロー諸島
隠岐諸島
Presentation at the 28th European Association of Japanese Resource
Specialists (EAJRS) Conference ‘Digital Strategies for Japanese Studies:
Theories and Practices’
University of Oslo, Norway, 13-16 Sept. 2017
Firouz GAINI – University of the Faroe Islands – firouzg@setur.fo©Firouz GAINI2017

It is my hope that this presentation, illustrating somefacets of Faroese/Japanese relations, with focus on
my own ethnographic project from a Japanese island
community, can, as proposed in the EAJRS Charter(October 1989), foster “the development anddissemination of information […] on Japan inEurope”. My aim is, so to speak, to bring EAJRS’mission to a semi-independent country in the North
Atlantic Ocean, which historically has had quite
limited interest in and contact with Japan.

©Firouz GAINI2017

Few days ago, just before I left the Faroe Islands, theinfluential ‘Trade and Industry Committee of theFaroese Parliament’ returned home from a week-longvisit to Japan, which had been organized with theoverall aim of establishing closer ties between the twocountries.

©Firouz GAINI2017

Taiji and Klaksvík, says the Japan Times (10 August 2017)
in a news release, “are the only communities in the worldthat practice the controversial drive-hunting ofcetaceans”. This is slightly incorrect, because this kind ofwhale hunting is actually common all over the Faroe
Islands, not only in Klaksvík.

©Firouz GAINI2017

Sigrun Gunnarsdóttir,
Exhibition in Japan©Firouz GAINI2017

Tadahito Iko and Poul Michelsen
Gift: sweater from Guðrun & Guðrun,Faroe Islands©Firouz GAINI2017

Manga - with
Faroese motives©Firouz GAINI2017

Oki Islands
Part of Shimane Prefecture, Japan
Total area of 346 km2
Approx. 24.000 inhabitants (2011)
Four main municipalities:
Okinoshima-chố (Okinoshima-town)
Chibu-son (Chibu-village)
Ama-chố (Ama-town)
Nishinoshima-chố (Nishinosh.-town)©Firouz GAINI2017

FAROE ISLANDSOKI ISLANDS©Firouz GAINI2017

The Faroese are descendants of Vikings from Western Norway who
settled the Faroe Islands in the Ninth century.
The Faroese lived in towns and small village communities spread out
on seventeen of the eighteen islands comprising archipelago until
the modern era.

©Firouz GAINI2017

Oki Dozen Senior High School, Ama-Town©Firouz GAINI2017

‘The Oki Islands, some forty-fivemiles from the mainland of Hoki
Province, were for centuries thescene of strife, of sorrow, and ofbanishment, but today they are
fairly prosperous and highly
peaceful […] They are a weird, wild
and rocky group, difficult to access,and few indeed are the Europeans
who have visited them’(Smith 1918)©Firouz GAINI2017

An island can be both paradise and prison, bothheaven and hell. An island is a contradiction
between openness and closure, between roots
and routes, which islanders must continuallynegotiate (Baldacchino 2007: 165)

©Firouz GAINI2017

FAROE ISLANDSOKI ISLANDS©Firouz GAINI2017

‘[G]azing around at the forested
hillsides glistening in the softmorning sunshine, I couldn’t
help feeling that, as banishings
go, this wouldn’t have beensuch a terrible punishment’(Powell 2013)

Sun-dried fish,Nishinoshima©Firouz GAINI2017

Faroe Islands

Oki Islands©Firouz GAINI2017

Robert JoensenFróðskaparrit 1963

FaroeseFowler’s Pole

©Firouz GAINI2017

Robert JoensenFróðskaparrit 1963Japanese
Fowler’s Pole

©Firouz GAINI2017

Thank You©Firouz GAINI2017