Author: Peter Hawkes

Masahiro Hirata is a professor in the Department of Human Science, Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Japan. As a graduate student at Kyoto University, Japan, he worked at the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Syria in the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) program, where he conducted research into the human ecology of pastoralists in Syria. Since then, for more than 25 years, he has carried out fieldwork in arid regions of the Eurasian continent, focusing on subsistence of pastoralists. His research interests include processing and uses of milk worldwide, subsistence strategies of pastoralism, and the origin and spread of pastoralism. He has published many papers and several books in the field of pastoralism and milk culture and is the chairperson of the Hokkaido Ethnological Society, Japan.