RIHN 11th International Symposium
Asia’s Transformations to Sustainability:
Past, Present and Future of the Anthropocene
| Date & Hours: | Friday, March 10, 2017, 9:30 - 17:20 Saturday, March 11, 2017, 9:00 - 18:30 |
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| Venue: | Lecture Hall, RIHN( →Access) | |
| Language: | English | |
| Participation: | Contact the address shown below. | |
| Contact: | International Affairs Subsection Tel: +81-75-707-2152 Fax: +81-75-707-2106 Email:  |
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| → Go to Program (You can download abstract) |
PREAMBLE
During the last fifty years Asia has gone through a remarkable transformation from a largely rural, agricultural and protoindustrial region underpinned by Monsoon Asia’s resource and ecosystem characteristics, to the global center of economic growth driven by massive imports of fossil fuels and the policy directives of the developmental states. Beginning from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and diffusing to Southeast Asia, China and to some extent even to South Asia, a series of industrial clusters were created along the coasts of Pacific and Indian Oceans. Political and economic forces reorganized Asia’s resource base by combining locally available endowments of labour, land, water and eco-system services with imported capital, oil, natural gas and mineral resources. Manufacturing labour productivity rapidly rose, and urbanization was accelerated. A 1983 World Bank Survey The Energy Transition in Developing Countries spoke confidently of the transition from biosphere-based to fossil-fuel-based energy as a global trend.
Today the energy transition refers to a transition from fossil-fuels to cleaner and renewable energy. The term Anthropocene is used to express deep concerns for human impact on the planet. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a UN initiative, include a number of indicators relating to sustainability and resilience to disasters, along with socio-economic ones such as poverty reduction and inequality. Thus the entire ‘economic miracle’ projects, which dominated Asia and were underpinned by growth ideology, are under serious scrutiny. Yet how to absorb the legacy of such a history back into the more natural and sustainable resource base of Monsoon Asia is not in sight.
In 2016 the Research Institute of Humanity and Nature (RIHN) started its third term research program (2016-2023) with a new organizational design under three programs of social transformations under climate change, resource management and the creation of the ‘lifeworlds’ beyond the ‘economic miracle’ perspective. In this symposium, we present frontier knowledge directing these programs, to discuss the future of Asia’s transformations to sustainability.
Friday, March 10
Plenary Session
- - Keynote Address 1
- - Keynote Address 2
- - Impact of Climate Change on Social Transformations in Japan and Beyond
- - On Climate, Demography and Social Change in the Japanese Archipelago
- - Monsoon Asia, Industrialization and Urbanization: The Making and Unmaking of the Regional Nexus
- - Carbon Forests and Rivers of Conflict: Reflections on South Asian Environmental History in the Epoch of the Anthropocene
- - Land Tenure and Degradation of Peatlands in Sumatra, Indonesia
- - Roundtable Discussion
- - Concept of Wise Governance of Resources and Ecosystem Services in Asian context
- - Evidence-based Deliberation for Some Issues in Local Nexus Structure: Some Participatory Approaches towards Adaptive Governance
- - Considering Ecosystem Service Tradeoffs including Biodiversity and Culture in the Water-energy-food Nexus
- - The Adaptive Watershed Governance: Biodiversity, Nutrient Cycling and Human Well-being
- - Valuing Forest Ecosystem Services and Disservices - Case Study of a Protected Area in India
- - Roundtable Discussion
- - Program 3 and Future Design
- - Seeking Sustainability through Asian Values and Culture
- - Lifeworlds as Pedagogy for Socio-cultural Change: Sensuous Food Futures, Practices, and Meaning in Everyday Experience
- - Sanitation Value Chain: Its Concept and Element Technologies
- - Roundtable Discussion
- - Session summaries and discussion across all sessions
Anthropocene and Transhumanism
Augustin Berque (École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS), France)
Does Chinese History Suggest a Sustainable Growth Trajectory?
Kenneth Pomeranz (University of Chicago, USA)
Session 1:
Impact of Climate Change, Water and Energy on Long-term Socio-economic Changes
This session discusses the impact of environmental changes on socio-economic development in comparative historical perspective. Data on temperature and other indicators of climate change are now becoming available over a long period of time, and new findings are being communicated to socio-economic changes. In Monsoon Asia temperature changes and the availability of water and local biomass energy were important determinants of population growth, economic development and sustainability. They induced labour-intensive and energy-saving technology in East Asia and water-intensive agriculture in South Asia. We report recent findings on these topics, and suggest their relevance to the understanding of the present.
Takeshi Nakatsuka (RIHN)
Osamu Saito (Hitotsubashi University)
Kaoru Sugihara (RIHN)
Rohan D’Souza (Kyoto University)
Kosuke Mizuno (RIHN and Kyoto University)
The above speakers, Mark Metzler (University of Texas at Austin, USA), Takahiro Sato (Kyoto University), Kohei Wakimura (Osaka City University), and Roy Bin Wong (University of California, Los Angeles, USA)
Saturday, March 11,
Session 2:
Wise Governance of Diverse Resources
This session will discuss on research perspectives towards wise and fair resource management systems considering inter-linkage of multiple resources by various stakeholders in different special scales. Recently, nexus structure among energy, water and food became a hot issue, though we need more comprehensive understandings and governance including other issues such as ecological resources which provide ecosystem services and local culture.
Tohru Nakashizuka (RIHN and Tohoku University)
Kenshi Baba (Tokyo City University)
Kimberly Burnett (University of Hawaii, USA)
Noboru Okuda (RIHN)
Karachepone N. Ninan (Centre for Economics, Environment and Society, India)
The above speakers
Session 3:
Building Lifeworlds of Sustainability and Wellbeing
Our “lifeworlds” are composed of the physical spaces and socio-cultural spheres of our everyday lives. They are continually reproduced, reimagined, and evolving through an interactive and reflexive relationship with society, culture, and nature. Session 3 focuses on research aimed at illuminating reciprocal linkages between diverse rural and urban lifeworlds and contributing to the solution of sustainability problems by working with various societal partners such as governments, companies, and citizen groups. Special emphasis is placed on envisioning sustainable futures that improve wellbeing and gauging their feasibility.
Tatsuyoshi Saijo (RIHN and Kochi University of Technology)
Rakesh Kapoor (Alternative Futures, India)
Steven McGreevy (RIHN)
Naoyuki Funamizu (RIHN and Hokkaido University)
The above speakers, Ueru Tanaka (RIHN) and Satoshi Ishikawa (RIHN)