Professor Emeritus Hiromu Shimizu of Kyoto University passed away on February 22, 2025. CSEAS extends its deepest condolences to his family.

After completing his master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, the University of Tokyo, in 1976, Professor Shimizu studied abroad at the Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines and conducted fieldwork there for over two years. After returning to Japan, he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo’s College of Arts and Sciences and the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, before becoming an associate professor at Kyushu University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts in 1985. During this time, he also worked as a visiting researcher at Harvard University and Ateneo de Manila University and as a visiting professor at the Beijing Center for Japanese Studies. He was appointed as a professor at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University, in 2006 and served as the director from 2010 to 2014, working to enhance research at the Center, education at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, and the management of the university. After retiring from Kyoto University in 2017, he served as a specially appointed professor at Kansai University until 2021.

Professor Shimizu specialized in cultural anthropology and conducted research in the Philippines. His work was characterized by a “thick ethnography” that emerged from his painstaking participant observation based on long-term fieldwork. He also actively participated in interdisciplinary research and promoted collaborative research on natural disasters based on his experience and knowledge of being deeply involved in emergency and reconstruction support for the victims of the 20th century’s largest volcanic eruption, Mt Pinatubo. His research style, which always tackled pressing issues and explored ways to deal with and resolve them with local people, had a significant impact and inspired cultural anthropologists, Southeast Asianists, and people involved in development aid and disaster response. His practical, interdisciplinary, and original research was highly acclaimed, and he received the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology Award in 2016, the Japan Academy Award in 2017, and the Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon in 2024.

He mentored many students and young researchers at Kyushu University, Kyoto University and Kansai University, and sent many outstanding students out into the world. Thanks to his broad perspective and warm, sincere personality, Professor Shimizu fostered friendships with researchers throughout Asia, and during his time as Director, he helped established the Consortium for Southeast Asian Studies in Asia (SEASIA) and oversaw the launch of the English journal Southeast Asian Studies, cultivating the Center and helping it to grow as a forum for open academic exchange.

March 2025

Fumiharu Mieno
Director,
Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University

List of Books by Professor Hiromu Shimizu^*

Hiromu Shimizu, Pinatubo Aytas: Continuity and Change, Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1989; reprinted in 1991.
────, The Orphans of Pinatubo: Ayta Struggle for Existence, Solidaridad Publishing House, 2001.
────, Grassroots Globalization: Reforestation and Cultural Revitalization in the Philippine Cordilleras, Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press, 2019.

^*Only English titles included. For Japanese titles, see the Japanese page.