Introduction : Material Culture Related to Fishing and Boats in Southeast Asia ＜Special Theme : Material Cultural Studies on Boats and Fishing Tools Based on the Museum Collections and Fieldwork＞

This special theme comprises several papers for the past two international workshops and significant outcomes of the Info-Forum Museum Project titled “Maritime Adaptation and Material Culture in Maritime AsiaBased on the Museum Materials from Southeast Asia” (2019–2022) headed by Rintaro Ono. The first international workshop was held onsite at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan (Minpaku) on 18 and 20 February 2020, just before the worldwide pandemic of COVID–19 occurred. The second was held by online on 27 February, 2021, during the pandemic. The primary purpose of this project is to create an open access database (in Japanese and English) of the Minpaku collections related to human maritime adaptation and culture. We have particularly emphasized materials related to fishing, voyages, and boats in Southeast Asia and Oceania. We also conducted field surveys in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia to record usage and information related to fishing and boat materials particularly collected by Minpaku. Five papers are also introduced in this special theme.