Research Database
Environmental Culture Creation Program: Towards a Global Environmental Culture by Articulating Science with Indigenous Knowledge
Basic Information
Basic information
| Research Program | Environmental Culture Creation Program: Towards a Global Environmental Culture by Articulating Science with Indigenous Knowledge |
| Program Director | MATSUDA Motoji |
| URL | https://www.chikyu.ac.jp/rihn/activities/project/program/01/ |
Progress and Results (2022 Year)
Research purpose and content
Program Object
To clarify the complex processes of interrelating and coupling forces acting on sites of global environmental problems using interdisciplinary and trans-disciplinary methods. Specifically, to realize a new interrelationship between humanity and nature for a sustainable future society with a focus on the role of culture in its scope.
Program outline
How can we confront the global environmental problem, and how can we take steps toward solving it? This program is to respond these questions from the perspective of changes in culture and cosmology of everyday life world. Firstly, there is a need to be “aware” of the kind of “problem” that global environmental issues manifest themselves as. To accomplish this, we will analyze a massive amount of complex data through collaboration between various fields in the natural and social sciences, and “visualize” the actual crises. Such research will enable us to “recognize” environmental crises and “share” our awareness of them. By using the power of science to “visualize,” “recognize,” and “share” crises, we can prepare for solutions to global environmental problems.
However, this is not the overall purpose of this program. We must go further and clarify how we, as well as society, are changing our behavior and values in response to the awareness of global environmental crises that were “shared” in this way.
The starting point for developing such discussions is by exploring how we can incorporate the perspective of “culture” into the field of global environmental studies and discussing how we can build a sustainable future society. The perspective of culture is not only at the global or national scale. Rather, it emphasizes the unity of people who live together in a more familiar and intimate space and places. This includes values that are different from scientific knowledge. For such values, there will be a need to create a mutually transformative, convivial (i.e., how different things are connected by making use of each other’s characteristics), and creative perspective that is neither unilaterally corrective nor approving. This program will bring together research projects that create these perspectives.
Program Mission
The Anthropocene is an era of crisis wherein increased human activities show worrying signs of a large-scale catastrophe in the global ecosystem. A scientifically proven universal conceptualization that transcends individual societies, cultures, and values is essential to recognize this crisis accurately and respond effectively. The increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and the rapid clearing of tropical rainforests, which serve as treasure troves of biodiversity, are urgent issues that should be recognized and addressed globally.
However, such universal conceptualizations have become dogma at sites of global environmental problems, scientism and technologism (the worldview that science and technology can solve all problems) has reigned supreme, and conflicts occur without respect for the knowledge and values of the people living in local communities. Cultural perspectives, in a broader sense, whereby a new relationship between humans and nature can be built, need to be incorporated into these global environmental problems. Such perspectives differ from anti-scientism and cultural conservatism, and will enable us to realize a dynamic and creative relationship between science and culture by combining the two goals of pursuing “universality” (science) and respecting “diversity” (culture). Solutions to global environmental problems should be identified not only by recognizing them from the perspective of science/technology and numerical goals but also by fundamentally reviewing the ideals and ways of life of the societies in which people live. This practical program intends to contribute to the deepening and development of comprehensive global environmental studies by exploring this creative relationship between humanity and nature.
Specifically, the following issues are addressed while incorporating a broad range of humanities and social science perspectives based on natural science data and knowledge:
1) Targeting the complex connections and conflicts between the diverse and heterogeneous elements that emerge at local sites of global environmental problems, with the generation of a global environmental culture aimed at environmental preservation and halting deterioration through dialogue of the indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge.
2) Clarifying how a new interrelationship between humanity and nature can be created by having diverse actors (e.g., local residents, scientists, governments, NPOs, international organizations) face conflict, build self-reliant and co-existing relationships, and collaborate with each other.
Challenges and achievements for this year
Program Achievements of FY2022
This year's "Creation of Environmental Culture" program includes two Full Research (FR) projects both in the FR fourth year, three Feasibility Studies (FS), and five Incubation Studies (IS), each with its own unique research achievements. The outstanding achievements of the two FRs are reported in another section, so here we report on the contributions they have made to the program. The first contribution to the Supply Chain Project (Mapping the Environmental Impact Footprint of Cities, Companies, and Households) was as follows the critical importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions for the global environment is a premise for policy and lifestyle creation today. However, sounding scientifically correct alarm bells about carbon emissions does not immediately lead to a change in people's behavior or a modification of their values. This project will focus on the supply chain of such products and services in order to understand the environmental impacts of the vast accumulation of the purchase and use of a wide variety of products and services as we continue our daily urban consumption. Companies and local governments intervene between scientific findings and individual consumer behavior, and play a role in transforming scientific findings into behavioral change based on their own agendas, interests, and philosophies. The project's major contribution to the program was to focus on the middle ground of the "Dialogue between Science and Culture" and to look at the creation of an environmental culture.
The next contribution of the SRIREP project (Co-creation of Sustainable Regional Innovation for Reducing Risk of High-impact Environmental Pollution) is as follows. It is well known that small-scale gold mining with mercury causes significant environmental and health damage. In reality, however, there are many areas around the world where small-scale gold mining continues to be one of the few valuable sources of cash income and continues to evade regulations. In this project, researchers are not simply "enlightening people with correct knowledge" or "providing them with alternative means," but they are working to create many TDCOPs (Trans-Disciplinary Communities of Practice for social implementation) at various levels, where they work with people to find ways to realize the underlying values of their society in a collaborative manner. It is in this direction that the program's potential to explore the "Dialogue between Science and Culture" is demonstrated.
Each of the three FSs also made significant contributions. First, the " Food Life History of Cold Storage of the North Using Natural Freezing Energy" FS continued the unique research and investigation of global warming, a central issue in global environmental problems, in the northern regions. Global warming destabilizes the foundations of the affected societies and damages their sustainability. This FS focuses on the food culture that people have created in the frozen soil region straddling Alaska and Siberia as such a society, particularly the ideas and technologies of preservation and storage. Underground storage using frozen soil naturally faces many problems due to recent global warming, and not only that, the former traditional ecological knowledge and practices have been shaken by social changes such as modernization and marketization experienced by ethnic minority societies in the areas. In addition to accurately understanding these environmental changes, this FS explores the multiple roles of ice cellars and other devices used for cryopreservation with local communities, and from the meaning of these devices, attempts to look at the nature of future human society (the maintenance and utilization of multiple systems for knowledge and life). In this respect, it represents one possible direction of "Dialogue between Science and Culture.
The next FS, "Conversion from Traditional Knowledge to Future Collective Impact with the Fusion of Science and Arts," considers the question of how local communities have coped with and survived catastrophic changes that once occurred in a certain community (e.g., great earthquake, tsunami, heavy rain, famine, war). To this end, this FS reconstructs past catastrophic events through rigorous dating of old corals and reconstructs past hardships from old documents and collective memories. We then use our imagination to derive how people and researchers living today collaboratively tried to overcome these hardships. An important means of exercising imagination was the theatrical method employed by this FS. The process of objectifying large-scale environmental change by transforming questions and issues into "personal (his or her own matters" through theater goes to the heart of this program, which looks at the prospect of behavior change and the creation of values from scientific knowledge.
The last FS of the program, " Building up Biomass Circulation System among City and Rural Area" focuses on the circulation of garbage (waste). Especially today, when global urbanization is progressing and consumer culture is polarizing, the disposal of urban household waste is one of the most important global environmental issues. In this FS, researchers approach this problem by rethinking garbage not as waste but as circulating matter. In reality, urban household waste covers a wide range of content, but this project will first explore the possibility of converting it from waste to recyclable material on an experimental basis in areas where it is easier to target it as recyclable material. In Niger, West Africa, where long-term experiments have already been conducted, urban waste is disposed of in the suburbs to create green zones, thereby preventing pastoralists' livestock from encroaching on farmland. The project is an attempt to create a symbiotic environment by breaking the cycle of conflict between urban residents, farmers, and pastoralists, and to extend this experience to other areas. The project is making a significant contribution to this program in its attempt to re-create local cultures (values) by utilizing scientific findings.
Lastly each of the five incubation studies (IS) has been experimentally and theoretically examined in a manner connected to the achievement of the program's mission, and these results were shared at the program debriefing session to establish a foundation for the next steps. In addition to the seminars and research meetings organized by FR, FS, and IS, workshops were held three times this year to share the results and confirm the direction of the program, and "Program-Project Roundtable Meetings" were held eight times with each research representative and core members with experts in the humanities and social sciences.
Future tasks
Future Challenges
Based on the achievements of the FY2022, the following three points can be raised as future challenges for this program:
1) Conceptualization of the convivial relationship between Science and Culture.
Establishment of a new "environmental culture" should be based on a dialogue between "scientific knowledge" and "indigenous-local knowledge. Though there is a strong tendency to take up and evaluate the relation only when they are complementary to each other, they are frequently in conflict with each other in reality. Theoretical consideration of what is the last resort to judge the relationship between the two must be needed.
2) Establishment of organic collaboration between FR, FS and IS.
Although there have been ongoing close consultations and discussions between the Program Director (PD) and each team leader/core members of FR, FS and IS regarding what contributions each team has made to the mission of the program, the dialogue and discussions between FRs, FSs and ISs have been limited to a few times a year at the program. No channels were provided other than Q&A and comments/replies at the seminars. In the future, it is necessary to enable PD's initiative to build horizontal collaboration.
3) Pursuit of dialogue and collaboration building across Programs.
The second program, "Combining Knowledge for a Fundamental Innovation of Land Use to Combat Global Environmental Challenges" was launched this fiscal year, and preparations for the third program are underway, In order to realize the mission of the entire RIHN through collaboration among various research teams, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for FR, FS, and IS belonging to different programs to mutually communicate and share achievements and challenges.
Progress and Results (2023 Year)
Research purpose and content
Research Objectives and Content
The "Environmental Culture Creation Program" uses interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods to uncover the complex processes of interactions and combinations of forces at work in the field of global environmental problems. In particular, the program aims to explore the role of culture in this process and to envision a new relationship between humans and nature in a sustainable society of the future.
If one asks how we can face the serious challenges facing modern society in terms of global environmental problems and how we can take steps to solve these problems, one would assume that the answer would be to provide scientific evidence based on accurate and rigorous measurement and analysis of the environmental crises facing the Earth (global warming, deforestation, air pollution, etc.). We can correct the way people think and lead to behavioral change. However, while the acquisition of scientifically accurate knowledge is a very important element, it alone does not automatically change people's values and behaviors. This is because there are cultural factors at work that shape people's lifestyles in both positive and negative ways. Therefore, in order to solve global environmental problems, it is necessary to address the issue of culture head on. The essence of this program is to rethink the creative power of culture from this perspective and to create an environmental culture that is linked to the solution of global environmental problems. This perspective can be described as an "equal dialog between science and culture". In the past, research on global environmental issues has been dominated by a discourse that unconsciously assumes the ultimate absoluteness (superiority) of scientific knowledge, even though it advocates interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. In this discourse, conventional and traditional knowledge that conforms to scientific knowledge is "re-evaluated", while those that do not are considered "unscientific" and "superstitious" and evaluated negatively. Under these circumstances, what is needed is neither a scientific supremacism that absolutizes science, nor a traditionalism (anti-science) that places cultural values above all else, but a relation in which both sides can engage in dialogue on an equal footing and both sides can transform themselves together. The environmental culture that this program seeks to create is the result of such a relationship.
Mission Statement
To create a comprehensive environmental culture to conserve the environment and halt its degradation through dialogue, collaboration and mutual transformation with the "indigenous knowledge" generated by each society, based on the recognition and analysis of scientific knowledge, targeting the complex interconnections and conflicts among diverse and heterogeneous elements that appear in local sites of global environmental problems. The vision is to create a comprehensive environmental culture to preserve the environment and stop its degradation. We will clarify how different actors (local residents, scientists, government officers, NPO activists, international organizations, etc.) can face conflicts, build self-reliant and symbiotic relationships, and cooperate with each other to create a new mutual relationship between people and nature.
To achieve this mission, this program will explore how to bring a "cultural" perspective to the discussion of global environmental issues and the building of a sustainable society. A cultural perspective means focusing not only on the global or national dimension, but also on the more familiar and intimate group of people living together, and emphasizing the value (way of life) of how people can live better there. This includes values that are naturally alien to scientific knowledge. It is necessary to create a mutually transformative, convivial and creative perspective that neither corrects nor endorses such values that are in conflict with scientific knowledge. This program will contribute to the creation of a new culture (we call it "environmental culture") that deals with the environment and environmental issues by focusing on and utilizing such convivial relationships among diverse knowledge about the environment.
Challenges and achievements for this year
Issues and Results of This Year
In this fiscal year of the Environmental Culture Creation Program, the two Full Research (FR) programs that are entering their final year, the two Pre-Research (PR) programs that are scheduled to begin FR in the following fiscal year, and the four Feasibility Study (FS) programs that are scheduled to begin PR in the following fiscal year, each produced unique research results and continued their activities to contribute to the mission of the program. The two FS continued their activities to contribute to the program's mission. The outstanding results achieved by the two FRs over the past five years are described in the respective project accomplishment sections.
First, his contribution to the Supply Chain Project (a study on the environmental impact assessment of cities, businesses, and households through global supply chains) was as follows; the critical importance of reducing carbon dioxide emissions for the global environment is a premise of today's politics and lifestyle. However, sounding scientifically correct alarm bells about carbon emissions does not immediately lead to changes in people's behavior or values. This project uses big data from different regions of the world to analyze and visualize the vast accumulation of the act of purchasing and using a wide variety of products and services in our daily urban consumption, and to make it easily accessible on a map. In this process, corporations and local governments intervene between scientific evidence and individual consumer behavior, playing the role of translating scientific evidence into behavioral change based on their own agendas, interests, and philosophies. The project's main contribution to the program was to focus on the middle ground of the "science-culture dialogue" and to explore the creation of an environmental culture.
The contribution of the next SRIREP project (Co-creation of Sustainable Regional Innovations for High Burden Environmental Pollution Problems) is as follows. It is well known that small-scale gold mining using mercury is extremely harmful to the environment and health. In reality, however, there are many areas around the world where small-scale gold mining remains one of the few valuable sources of cash income and continues to evade regulation. In this project, we are not simply "providing correct knowledge and education" or "providing alternative means with top-down support", but rather we are working to create many TDCOPs (communities of practice for social implementation) at various levels where we can work together to find ways to realize the underlying values of their societies. The work of creating a number of TDCOPs (social implementation communities of practice) at various levels, where they work together to find measures to realize the underlying values of their society, has been built with the active participation of local community members, and many of them have been successful. This direction shows the potential of the program to explore the "dialogue between science and culture".
Two PRs also made significant contributions to the program.
First, the research project "Conversion from traditional knowledge to future collective impact with the fusion of science and arts: a lesson from resilient communities with global environmental changes" is highly interdisciplinary and longitudinal. Not only natural scientists, who are internationally at the forefront of rigorous time-measurement research using ancient corals, but also humanities and social scientists, who have studied the culture, memory, and identity of local communities, play an important role in this project. In addition, performers and artists who express their sensibility and intellect through their bodies, as well as members of the local community, are active participants. As these members work together as a whole, they transform the foundations on which they stand, realize a dialogue between science and culture on a common ground, and achieve a challenging attempt to integrate science and art. As a result, this project has greatly inspired the program by showing the difficulties of the dialogue between science and culture and the possibilities of overcoming them. Until now, the two have been fixed in an asymmetrical relationship, with one as the main actor and the other as the means to an end. In the field of environmental issues, science has been the protagonist, and theater and art have been used as tools to disseminate the results. In this project, however, we are constantly experimenting to create a relationship in which both parties assert and transform themselves together. The results are promising.
The other PR, "Building up biomass circulation system among city and rural area: Improving urban sanitation and restoring rural livelihood base", focuses on the circulation of garbage (waste). Especially today, when global urbanization is progressing and consumer culture is polarizing, the disposal of urban household waste is one of the most important global environmental problems. In this study, we approach this problem by rethinking garbage not as waste, but as a circulating material. To this end, for example, we are continuing experiments to compost food waste generated in large cities in Japan using dry composting instead of throwing it away, and we are also starting experimental trials to apply the results to Uganda and other countries. This is also a shift from the concept of "incineration" of unwanted materials to the concept of "fermentation" to convert them into useful materials. At the same time, the project has a long history in West Africa, where urban waste is dumped in suburbs to create green spaces that prevent cattle from encroaching on farmland. The project also attempts to extract the basic ideas of the practice of creating an environment for symbiosis by breaking the chain of conflict between urban dwellers, farmers, and pastoralists through the introduction of a waste recycling system and apply it to other regions. As described above, he has made a significant contribution to this program by attempting to recreate local cultures (values) through the use of scientific knowledge.
Four other FS have also contributed to the development of the program through their unique achievements.
The Ote FS, "The Value of Forests: A vision of the future for people and society living in harmony with forests", focuses on the value of forests. In modern society, forests have become disconnected from the world in which people live, and as a result, people are no longer aware of forest loss and degradation. Therefore, it is important to have practices and ideas to reconnect the disconnected relationship between forests and people. In order to realize this, this FS aimed to create a new relationship, in other words, a new environmental culture. The theme of the Kubota FS "Creation of passive architectural culture among urban houses in the Monsoon Asia" is a focus on passive architecture for Indian cities. In order to promote a decarbonized way of life in the modern world, it is important to transform the consumption lifestyles of the rising Asian urban middle class, and to do so it is necessary not only to promote the development and diffusion of urban low-carbon housing from above, but also to promote low/decarbonized ways of living and living in existing housing, which is the quintessential perspective of this FS, and it has made a significant contribution to the creation of an environmental culture.
The Yamada FS "Grasping the base values of "sustainability" and cross-cultural comparison of cognitions and practices on global sustainability concerns" focuses on the concept of "sustainability," which has been unconditionally accepted by governments and corporations alike as a theme to be promoted in recent years, including the SDGs. This project focuses on the concept of "sustainability," which has been unconditionally accepted by governments and businesses alike as a goal to be promoted in recent years, including the SDGs. The project to explore the concept of "sustainability" rooted in the fundamental values of society is based on the awareness that this concept has been disseminated as a dogma of absolute justice from the context of the values underlying each society, and that this may hinder the recognition of environmental problems. It is also important as a sociological study of knowledge about global environmental issues. The last project, the Hongo FS "Coproduction Research with Local Practice and Science for Sustainable and Fair Hunting of Forest Wildlife", is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research project on how fair and sustainable hunting of wildlife in tropical forests can be made possible through collaboration between scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge. In the modern world, the destruction of tropical forests and the decline of wildlife are remarkable, and this calls for the conservation of forests and wildlife, but it is also important to ensure the livelihoods of people living in forests, who are increasingly marginalized in society. To resolve this aporia, this project seeks to answer the core question of the program, which is to explore the creation of knowledge based on a true and equal relationship between scientific knowledge and indigenous knowledge.
Three roundtables were held this year to discuss each project with experts, and three roundtables were held with Prof. Bin Wong, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and project representatives and directors.
Future tasks
Future Issues
Based on the results of the FY2023 program, the following three issues can be raised as future challenges for this program.
1) Establishing a theoretical perspective that comprehensively understands the relationship between two heterogeneous types of knowledge (scientific knowledge and conventional knowledge).
The foundation of a new "environmental culture" is the establishment of a dialogue between "scientific knowledge" and "indigenous/local knowledge", but it tends to be focused on, evaluated, and praised only when the two are smoothly connected in a complementary manner. In particular, the ideal relationship between the two is often focused on the case where the efficacy of indigenous knowledge is verified by scientific knowledge. In reality, however, there are many cases where the two are seemingly irreconcilable opposites. In such cases, it is usually either scientific knowledge or conventional knowledge that makes the final judgment. It is important to explore a third possibility theoretically. Preliminary work on this through analysis of each case will be the subject of next year's project.
(2) Establish organic links between FRs and PRs associated with the program.
The coming year will be the first year in which all three FRs of the program (PRs before the FR transition) will be in place. Therefore, it will be necessary to define how the three will work together and what each can contribute to the program, and to try to collaborate on projects to that end. The challenge will be to create a forum for the three projects to discuss how they will carry out the program's mission and how their perspectives will be transformed in the process.
(3) Pursuing cross-program dialogue and coalition building
With the new second program "Combining Knowledge for a Fundamental Innovation of Land Use Program" launched this year and the preparation of the third program underway, it is necessary to establish a mechanism for FR, PR, FS, and IS, which belong to different programs, to realize the mission of the entire Institute of Earth Sciences through collaboration among various research organizations without closing research within a single program.
Progress and Results (2024 Year)
Research purpose and content
The “Program for the Creation of Environmental Cultures” uses interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods to elucidate the complex interplay and combination of forces at work in the field of global environmental issues. In particular, it aims to take into account the role of culture in this process, and to envision a new relationship between people and nature in a sustainable future society.
When we are asked how we can face the serious issues facing modern society in the form of global environmental problems, and how we can take steps towards solving these problems, one possible answer would be to provide scientific evidence based on accurate and rigorous measurements and analysis of the environmental crises facing the planet (global warming, deforestation, air pollution, etc.), in order to correct people's thinking and lead to a change in behavior.
However, while the acquisition of scientifically correct knowledge is an extremely important factor, it will not automatically lead to a change in people's values or behavior patterns. This is because there are elements of culture at work that define the way people live, both positively and negatively. Therefore, in order to solve global environmental problems, it is necessary to address this issue of culture head-on. The essence of this program is to re-examine the creative power of culture from this perspective, and to aim to create an environmental culture that is linked to the solution of global environmental problems. This perspective can be rephrased as “an equal dialogue between science and culture”.
In the past, even though research on global environmental issues advocated interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, the mainstream style was ultimately based on an unconscious assumption of the absoluteness (superiority) of scientific knowledge. In this context, indigenous knowledge and traditional knowledge that matched scientific knowledge were “re-evaluated”, but those that did not match were regarded as “unscientific” or “superstitious” and given a negative evaluation.
In this situation, what is needed is a relationship in which both sides can engage in dialogue on an equal footing and both sides can undergo transformation, rather than a situation in which science is absolutized in the form of scientific supremacy, or in which cultural values are placed above all else in the form of traditionalism (anti-science). The environmental culture that this program aims to create is one that will give rise to such a relationship.
Mission
With the aim of creating a comprehensive environmental culture that will preserve the environment and halt its degradation, this program will focus on the complex relationships and conflicts between the diverse and heterogeneous elements that appear in local sites of global environmental problems, and will seek to create a dialogue and collaboration with the “traditional knowledge” that has been generated by individual societies, based on recognition and analysis through scientific knowledge, and through mutual transformation. We will clarify how diverse actors (local residents, scientists, government, NPOs, international organizations, etc.) can face up to conflicts, build mutually beneficial relationships, and work together to create new relationships between people and nature.
In order to achieve this mission, this program will explore how the perspective of “culture” can be incorporated into the discussion of global environmental issues and the construction of a sustainable society. The perspective of culture is not limited to global or national dimensions, but also emphasizes the unity of the people living together in a more familiar and intimate setting, and it means that it emphasizes the value of how people can live better (how to live). This naturally includes values that are different from scientific knowledge. In order to deal with such values that are in opposition to scientific knowledge, it is necessary to create a convivial (a way of connecting different things by making the most of their characteristics) and creative perspective that is not corrective or approving, but can be mutually transformed.
This program focuses on the convivial relationship between diverse knowledge of the environment, and by utilizing this, it contributes to the creation of a new culture (which we call environmental culture) that addresses the environment and environmental issues.
Challenges and achievements for this year
From 2024, the “Creation of Environmental Culture” program will finally begin with all three FR projects in action (Fashlocs starts on July 1st, SceNe and OMC Projects on April 1st). This program was launched in 2022 with a call for IS and FS projects based on a mission statement, and after holding a number of research meetings, seminars and debriefing sessions, the three projects were selected by an internal and external selection committee.
As mentioned above, the problem awareness of the Environmental Culture Creation Program was that scientific knowledge alone is not sufficient for solving global environmental problems, and that in order to delve into people's values and way of life, it is necessary to have an equal and convivial (coexisting and mutually beneficial) partnership and cooperation with knowledge and practices that are different from scientific knowledge.
It goes without saying that in order to change people's behavior, it is also necessary to rely on laws and systems. However, this program is based on an “approach from the bottom up” that takes the everyday world as its starting point. Simply giving scientifically correct knowledge or politically correct instructions from above and from the outside will not change the reality of the situation on the ground. This is the importance of culture for global environmental issues, and this year, in line with this idea, the three FRs have started to contribute to the aims of this program by exploring the possibilities of joining, fusing and collaborating with other forms of knowledge and practices, in addition to scientific knowledge, by demonstrating their individual strengths.
In the Organic Material Circulation Project (OMC), we aimed to create a foundation and take preliminary and experimental approaches to creating new knowledge and culture in relation to global environmental issues through the collaboration of everyday knowledge and scientific knowledge, in the SceNE Project, we aimed to create a foundation and take preliminary and experimental approaches to creating new knowledge and culture in relation to global environmental issues through the fusion of art and scientific knowledge, and in the Fashloks Project, we aimed to create a foundation and take preliminary and experimental approaches to creating new knowledge and culture in relation to global environmental issues through the co-creation of indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge.
In the OMC project we made some changes to the original plan, and decided to expand the African sites and downsize the sites in other regions outside Japan, based on the scale of urban household waste and the high level of organic waste recycling in Africa. In addition to the existing Niger and Zambia sites, we are preparing to establish bases in Uganda, Ghana, and Djibouti, and have already started collecting and composting organic waste specific to each site, and the preparation and examination of experimental sites for their utilization have already begun to produce results. In Japan, the creation and dissemination of the RIHN Dry Compost, which aims to recycle household waste and food waste, is also producing results. At elementary schools in Kyoto Prefecture, it has become clear that the flexibility and adaptability of practical knowledge, which is centered on the necessities and conveniences of living, transcends diverse actors such as zoos, hotels, companies, farmers, and citizens, and has qualities that are also shared with practices in African society.
The SceNE project furthered its experimental practice based at the Coral Reef Research Center on Kikaijima Island, focusing on dialogue and fusion between art, particularly theater, and science. Last year, we conducted an experiment through the production and performance of “Yurau”, which depicted the interweaving of people, society and coral, based on a specific day in 1953, the year of the return of the Amami Islands, including Kikaijima, to Japan. This year, we produced “Ocean Serenade” in collaboration with Seinendan/Ehara Riverside Theater as “a play in which coral sings, moving between Kikaijima 50,000 years ago and Noto today”, and performed as part of the events of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa's RIHN’s Days. The work, which depicted people, society and nature transcending the order of time through theatrical imagination based on the latest knowledge of coral reef science, left a deep impression on participants from Japan and overseas.
Fashloks project explored preliminary findings in the area of the project's main goal of sustainable management of wildlife in tropical rainforests, with a focus on co-creation of local and scientific knowledge. While building research systems and developing bases in the main sites of the project, namely the hunting and gathering communities of the African tropical rainforest (the Baka of Cameroon) and the indigenous communities living in the rainforest of the Amazon basin in South America (the Colombia Amazon), we were able to confirm the complex and diverse relationships between local and indigenous knowledge and scientific knowledge. This clarification shows that the horizons opened up by this project go beyond knowledge and technology for estimating the population of wild animals, and also delve into the overall picture of the modern reorganization of society, including cultural values and consumption trends surrounding bushmeat and changes in distribution systems.
Future tasks
Based on the results of the 2024 fiscal year, the following three points can be raised as future issues for this program.
1) Establishing a theoretical perspective that comprehensively captures the relationship between science, which is the dominant form of knowledge in the modern world, and other forms of knowledge, such as everyday knowledge, art, and traditional knowledge, including their connection, fusion, collaboration, and co-creation.
The foundation of a new “environmental culture” lies in the construction of a dialogue between “scientific knowledge” and these other forms of knowledge, but the two do not simply complement each other and smoothly connect. In some cases, the two sides are in apparent irreconcilable conflict or opposition. In such cases, it has generally been scientific knowledge that has made the final decision. It is important to consider the theoretical possibility of a third option. The task for the coming year will be to conduct preliminary work to this end through analysis of each case.
2) Identification of the difficulties that arise in the articulation (OMC), and fusion (SceNE), coproduction (Fashlicks) of the three projects' approaches to Scientific Knowledge, and exploration of ways to overcome these difficulties.
Determination and implementation of a theoretical framework and specific solutions to resolve the issues identified in the activities of 2024, as indicated in 2) above.
3) Pursuing the creation of a system of dialogue and mutual complementarity within the program
In order to achieve the common goal of bringing about a transformation in people's values and way of life through the fusion of scientific knowledge and another form of knowledge, while sharing the missions of the three projects within the program, it is necessary to pursue the mutual collaboration and complementation of alternative forms of knowledge, such as practical wisdom, art, and indigenous knowledge. To this end, we plan to hold a program seminar early next year to create a space where the three projects can cross paths and engage in in-depth discussions and dialogue.