IPSI Case Study (Kanazawa University) as of Dec 2011

I met with Kanazawa-U’s Satoyama Satoumi Project head the other day to catch up with their recent developments. Mighty thankful to this super-busy professor for sparing a couple of hours on a fellow who has spent most of her fiscal year on her own research. With my current standing I have no intention to serve mouthpiece to the project. Good news is that a new portal seems to be in preparation, so you’d all know where to look for project updates in the near future.

Meanwhile let me guide you to a case description of the project submitted to IPSI over a year ago that appeared on their site last summer. The piece had been compiled as part of the university’s application procedure to IPSI as founding member (hence the second-person plural). With the rapidly evolving, multi-faceted nature of the project’s approach to rural revitalization, in partial response to the shifting political economy surrounding Japan and its academic institutions including recent developments in the CBD regime, any such description is bound to become obsolete in a few months’ time. I hope at least to have captured some of the larger institutional settings that have framed the development of the project as well as the less frequently acknowledged actors that have shaped its organizational learning process. Many thanks to all those who have contributed information to the then project newbie. (The smiley? I think that was "Fig eight)" 8) ) 

Edited 20140331: renewed link to the IPSI case study; smiley has been fixed ;)

Here's a flyer for KU's latest event on the "global" front: (PDF)

I'm not involved but if you're interested, contact details are available at the very bottom. The seminar's scheduled 14 Jan* and requires preregistration. Not sure if doors are still open but flyer came in late last night, so...

(*Date corrected from 14 Feb to 14 Jan.)

Belated Season's Greetings 2012/2013

Hi everyone!

First of all, my sincere apologies for the hiatus. I was pleasantly surprised at the considerable views the blog enjoys 21 months after the last update. Thank you all for your visits.

I had started this blog as a personal project that went alongside my previous employment: a university-run regional revitalization program at the tip of Noto Peninsula. After the program’s successful termination in March this year, I left to resume life as ABD and unpaid fellow. I had then thought to abandon this blog imbued with references to my previous work arrangement. (ETA: the program site linked in past articles has been taken over by a successive program launched in Oct 2012 for which I did not apply.)

Nine months on I still have no idea what I will be doing next spring except that I finish my dissertation as soon as possible. I do enjoy life in Noto nonetheless, writing up while observing Noto’s “satoyama-satoumi phenomenon” from a slightly different angle. It was my interest, after all, in the political ecology of biodiversity conservation and value-creation at the rural periphery that ran through my doctoral study in anthropology / area studies on Malawi that had brought me to Noto. As I dedicate nearly all my waking hours to dissertation writing, I may stumble upon a few points here and there relevant to the blog theme that I might like to share.

I thank you again for the many visits.  

Have a wonderful New Year & hope to see you more in 2013!

The Satoyama Satoumi Project Portal (in English, tentative) is up!

It's been nearly two months since I mentioned our need for an English language portal for the Satoyama Satoumi Project, Kanazawa University. I am pleased to announce the launch of 

The English Portal for the Satoyama Satoumi Project, Kanazawa University.

http://adm.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/satoyama/en/ -> http://www.adm.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/satoyama/en/

The site is at its evolving stage as are our projects. We plan to replace it with something more comprehensive in the future, but since it's taking forever with the thesis supervision and the fiscal year-end and whatnot,, Meanwhile we've uploaded the Web version of our “turning the world from its tip” themed leaflet from COP10 Nagoya. Hats off to the Satoyama Meister students who have assisted in the work:

• COP10 theme design … Yuki Hagino
• Web design … Takaaki Kobayashi
• English text edit … Rachel Olanoff (auditor)

If the site image does not accurately reflect the individual designers' work, the blame goes to the coordinatior (me). We did this bit of work in a hurry to meet  the First Global Conference on the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), 10-11 Mar. I'm writing this from Nagoya right now as Kanazawa University will be presenting at the Public Forum on the morning of the 11th.

See you there!

Satoyama in Swedish

I just received two copies of the Swedish Magazine "Natur" from Mats Hellmark. They ran a coverage on Noto satoyama and the COP10 Nagoya. Some of it can be seen here:
http://sn.snf.se/sveriges-natur/artikel.cfm?CFID=21089&CFTOKEN=26919258&id=1593
As we are barely getting used to having Noto's satoyama being covered in English, now we have something in Swedish.
Thanks, Mats, for the great work!

Kanazawa University's Satoyama Satoumi Project Page

Yesterday I mentioned Kanazawa-U's need for a web portal for non-Japanese readers interested in our satoyama-satoumi related activities. Here's our current portal in Japanese: http://www.adm.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/satoyama/

At the time of the launch of this portal, we were representing ourselves as an aggregate of various ongoing projects including our "Noto Satoyama Meister" Training Program. By fall last year the "metaproject" has been integrated into the formal organizational structure of Kanazawa University. Now we have the "Kakuma Satoyama Headquarters" at the University Main Campus, and "Noto Operating Unit" at our Noto Gakusha, reflecting our bifocal approach to satoyama research and revitalization.

Getting Kanazawa University into the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative and whatnot

If you've followed the Japanese Satoyama movement, you couldn't have missed CBD COP10 Nagoya and its decision to support the Satoyama Initiative. COP10 saw the launch of the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI) with Kanazawa University as one of its founding members.
Getting KU into IPSI and serving its contact person have, in fact, been part of my side assignments since last fall (and poor excuse for not updating). Now that the IPSI site is up, we're faced with the fact that KU has yet to construct a web portal to introduce its satoyama-related activities to the non-Japanese speaking world (hence its outgoing link to the exchange students' portal). Here comes the new side assignment.
Spreading new ideas across the globe is a painstaking task. First came the brochures, the exhibit panels, the novelty goods we have prepared for COP10. Prior to that we had next to nothing to hand to non-Japanese visitors eager to learn about our projects. We've actually come quite far in several months, and we're getting there -- almost. So again, do stay tuned.

ETA: Creating a website may be a good excuse to try and post those months-old articles

Wake up, yellow tails!

Hail. Hail. Hail.
Yesterday we had them in torrents that it almost sounded like somebody up there knocked over a pail of rice crackers. (Note: small rice crackers are called arare-mochi, or hail rice cakes) Winter is rapidly approaching in Noto. Short storms like these accompanied by thunder are called "buri okoshi", meaning to wake up yellow tails that are sleeping in the Japan Sea -- or rather, to alert fishers for the yellow tail fishery. Crab season started last Saturday and now the sky is calling yellow tails. It's going to be a busy winter.

Hansei-kai

What kind of words can explain the kind of lessons I have learnt during the past ten days? One of the privileges of anthropological fieldwork, I believe, is that one is encouraged to relive the growing and learning process again, to unlearn in order learn, to do the 3 yr old again in a particular setting. Instead of climbing the ladder in that place, one matures through the abstractions made possible through such repetitive learning and unlearning. If you cannot withstand the pain of growth, perhaps you're not cut out for the profession.
The festival in Shoin is over. More precisely, it is about to be over, as the float members have yet to finish their final round of sake. Every social event here is never complete without a 反省会　"hanseikai" or a drink among close circles after the main event. This is where core members get together and discuss points to be improved as well as select committee members for the coming year. Normally the party takes place immediately after the event. This time they have waited for me to return from my work trip. What an honor.
Now for some sake. More to come after the Hansei-kai.

ETA: oops, the Hansei-kai has been postponed. meanwhile stay tuned for more on the main festival.

First time feast, first time host

"Why don't you do it then?"

__"Me? The host?"

That's how it began. I am going to play host at a festival I don't even know, the biggest annual event in the area. It's time for Kiriko, a tall float that people carry through every nook and cranny of the neighborhood. Our ward happens to be one of the most rapidly aging communities in the area, and is in dire need of young people to pull the float. Last year, there were only three people and nobody ever had time to go to the loo. Imagine the situation when the procession could take until 4 a.m. 

Saturday morning I was asked by a neighbor to find "young people" where they are: our "Noto Satoyama Meister" Training Program which enrolls trainees under 45. I sent message in the morning and by afternoon was joined by four from the school. Together we went to meet the group in charge of the float, perhaps for the sake of good sushi. And thus the Meister Crew was formed over abalone and shrimp -- without much talk on the logistics as to where to stay, eat and drink during the all night event. And here was the solution given to me later by the ward lord: I play the host. Crazy? Yes. But this may be the one chance to try...

The previous post looks awfully like a badly written thesis objective. What I really want to blog here is about swimming in the ocean before work, exchanging veggies with neighbors, how a house in the countryside is never exclusively yours but that's enjoyable too, how my friends are trying to make their dreams come true and by only listening to them I feel part of the process, etc. Or what I just had for breakfast.

Hi All,

I am Setsuko Nakayama, an ABD in anthropology/area studies stationed as an assisstant professor at Noto Gakusha, Kanazawa University, under the "Noto Satoyama Meister" Training Program. This blog is about my daily encounters and musings as I slowly accommodate myself into life at the tip of Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

大きな地図で見る
Why am I keeping this blog in English when it's not my mother tongue? Well i said so in my job app so i have to;) While the term Satoyama Satoumi seems to attain international recognition, very little has been written over the topic in languages other than Japanese outside academic, international organizations or civil society movement circles. Those who seek information about Satoyama or Satoumi will invariably run into somewhat romanticized images of Japanese rural life that has been or is about to be lost -- and occasionally, critiques of such representations. Such representations -- and their critiques -- do capture certain aspects of life in rural Japan and their production landscapes; however, they elide for the most part the complex realities of life itself or the larger political, economic situations they are placed in. Moreover, they seldom foreground the creative, innovative endeavors that are currently unfolding on site. 
In hope for a more balanced coverage I am going to add my voice --and later on, my friends'-- on this blog from the Noto Satoyama Satoumi area of Japan.

Three months

It's been three months since I joined this workplace, and two months(!) since my last post. Can't say "I'm new" anymore, can I? 
High time I "launched" the blog. So here I go:

Konchan

Konchan is the name of our idol, the peridot-eyed redhead that haunts our neighborhood. This morning at 4:30 I saw her harassed on the beach by a gentleman on patrol. She came running my way, through the narrow gap between my house and the next, and onto her rumored home behind the temple. "She comes for the salt water," the neighbors say, "I have seen her with her cub." The corridor must have been her favorite since the two houses had been vacant before I moved in a month ago.
Foxes had been introduced into this area for vermin control; now they have propagated to become the new vermin. Whatever Konchan has done to receive this kind of treatment, she always jerks me out of the "Haidarii". Bright-eyed bushy-tailed we are, leaping from the sea of green.

Run, Konchan, run! (Where is she?)

"Haidarii"

"Haidarii" is what you say here when you have done everything you could-nothing has ever worked nor ever will-you feel destined to live in eternal lethargy.

... is what you say when you have toiled over the forest floor trying to get those red pines and mushrooms growing again, and when, after so many years of work, all you have is a bed of pale pink lilies on the hill overlooking the pond.

When the view is magnificent enough to well you up, you give in to the "Haidarii".

Mushiokuri in Sutta

Last night was the mushiokuri event in Sutta, Wakayamamachi, Suzu City.

Mushiokuri (虫送り) is an agricultural rite that had been widely practiced among Japanese rice cultivators to chase away (送るokuru) bugs (虫mushi) that infest the paddies at this time of year. With the spread of agrichemicals and recent changes in socio-economic arrangements in rice production, however, the significance of the event has faded away. The Sutta version is said to be the closest to the original form in the area.
Nevertheless, local 5th and 6th graders were called in to join the torch procession led by the lantern, the nusa carrier, the drum and the Shinto priest.

(will add pics and texts)

The children thus sung:

Unkamushi, unkamushi, tondeike
Sadono shimamade tondeike

Fly away, (unka bug),
Fly away to Sado Island.



--Why Sado?

Soyogo (Ilex pedunculosa)

Default

Kusakizome themes

Kusakizome (草木染め) is a collective term applied to Japanese natural dyeing technology. As the word "kusaki (草木herbs and trees) + zome (染め dye)" implies, most of the dyes are taken from plants.

A single material could yield various colors depending on the fixative and fabric. The resultant combination of hues are striking yet harmonious, bold yet subtle, and simply mesmerizing to the eye.

We are currently trying to develop a web color theme based on materials available within the Noto area, as an alternative expression of biological diversity observed in the Noto satoyama-satoumi landscape.

The kusakizome color theme project is in collaboration with a thesis program for Mrs. Ayumi Ie (家　安祐美さん) enrolled at the "Noto Satoyama Meister Training Program" by Kanazawa University, under the funding of JST.

Testing out design templates

Testing out formats and designs prior to the launch of the Satoyama Satoumi Blog.