The Institute for Japanese Studies presents:
"Finessing Ecology: Experiments in the (N)ature of Post 3.11 Japan"
Michael Fisch
University of Chicago
Abstract: Climate change appears to be unstoppable, putting our future under an increasing threat of global ecological collapse. Thus, it is no surprise that in recent years ecology has become a matter of central concern for anthropologists. Despite the flurry of publications on the topic, many with ecology in the title, there has been little reflection among scholars on the nature of the guiding presuppositions behind the term. My talk examines the conceptual and technological possibilities of ecology through an exploration of various ecological projects underway as part of the post 3.11 disaster reconstruction in Northeast Japan. Moving from massive concrete seawalls to efforts to re-establish vibrant coastal communities within a dynamic environment, I question the way in which the state and local residents are mobilizing ecological thought for new coastal futures. Only by reconceptualizing ecology, I argue, will we be able to establish a viable future framework for ecological governance. Download the PDF flyer here.
Michael Fisch is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His research is situated at the intersection of sociocultural anthropology and science and technology studies and is concerned with shifting conceptualizations and practices around nature, culture, and technology. He is the author of An Anthropology of the Machine: Tokyo’s Commuter Train Network (University of Chicago Press June 2018) in which he develops a technography of collective life constituted in the interplay between humans and machines within the Tokyo’s commuter train network. His current research explores the emergence of “experimental ecologies” in Japan, Israel, and the United States as sites of speculative articulations of ecological governance for an era of increasing climate crisis.
