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Social Sustainability in Coastal Communities

Coastal people have a connection to the places they live and work. The environment informs their culture, just as their cultures impact the manner in which they relate to their local environment. To understand coastal communities and cultures, one has to know history, economics, and the local environmental conditions, in addition to their cultural attributes. I conduct long-term, ethnographic fieldwork in coastal Japan and research how people interact with the environment (e.g., organize themselves to manage resources; conduct rituals related to their connection with the sea, etc.). I have had the benefit of watching society and the environment change (e.g,demographic changes; disasters) around them. This, as an extension of my early work on personal autonomy and identity stemming from a drop in fishing population numbers, has led me to focus on the themes of social sustainability and resilience.

Couples working together on summer tasks, Shichigahama, Japan

Subsidence in Toguhama Port following the Great East Japan Earthquake (3.11)

Principal areas of interest

• Environmental anthropology of coastal cultures, including Japan
• Social Sustainability and community resilience
• Natural resource management and governance
• Disaster Anthropology (e.g., 3.11)
• Visual Anthropology