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Yakushima Glocal Art Project

Zoll, Andrew Alona Konrad LU (2022) HEKM51 20221
Human Ecology
Human Geography
Department of Human Geography
Abstract
Aface the crashing wave of the global climate crisis, humans are struggling to stay afloat. Building a raft of sustainable environmental ethics whilst swimming in the dark waters of unsustainable “modernity” requires a herculean effort. And yet, here we are. The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) curriculum of Yakushima municipality in Japan is doing its localised part to gather the wood, tie the planks, and fashion the sail by refining its environmental education curriculum into a radical place-based pedagogy. But building a raft requires more than technical knowledge—it also requires artistry. Using participatory art and ethnography-leaning qualitative methods, this thesis investigated Yakushima High School students’ vision of... (More)
Aface the crashing wave of the global climate crisis, humans are struggling to stay afloat. Building a raft of sustainable environmental ethics whilst swimming in the dark waters of unsustainable “modernity” requires a herculean effort. And yet, here we are. The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) curriculum of Yakushima municipality in Japan is doing its localised part to gather the wood, tie the planks, and fashion the sail by refining its environmental education curriculum into a radical place-based pedagogy. But building a raft requires more than technical knowledge—it also requires artistry. Using participatory art and ethnography-leaning qualitative methods, this thesis investigated Yakushima High School students’ vision of this raft and its oceanic range—that is, it investigated the students’ conceptions of glocality within the context of sustainability. Findings materialised into and from an artistic boundary object expressing four key conceptions: Nature as Lowest Common Denominator, Water as Connector, The Preeminence of Trash and Waste, and Facing Reality, Responsibility, and Hope. This thesis concludes that artistic methods have great value in catalysing dialogue and knowledge production on topics of glocality and sustainability, especially when such methods are explicitly informed by the feminist and decolonial emphasis on situated narrative of subaltern groups—such as rural Yakushima’s students—in order to construct a sustainable political ecology, as Yakushima’s ESD hopes to do. May our raft be humbly grand, and sail us far into a sustainable future. (Less)
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author
Zoll, Andrew Alona Konrad LU
supervisor
organization
course
HEKM51 20221
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Human Ecology, Glocality, Sustainability, Sense of Place, Participatory Art, Boundary Object, Japan
language
English
id
9079610
date added to LUP
2022-09-28 15:49:55
date last changed
2022-09-28 15:49:55
@misc{9079610,
  abstract     = {{Aface the crashing wave of the global climate crisis, humans are struggling to stay afloat. Building a raft of sustainable environmental ethics whilst swimming in the dark waters of unsustainable “modernity” requires a herculean effort. And yet, here we are. The Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) curriculum of Yakushima municipality in Japan is doing its localised part to gather the wood, tie the planks, and fashion the sail by refining its environmental education curriculum into a radical place-based pedagogy. But building a raft requires more than technical knowledge—it also requires artistry. Using participatory art and ethnography-leaning qualitative methods, this thesis investigated Yakushima High School students’ vision of this raft and its oceanic range—that is, it investigated the students’ conceptions of glocality within the context of sustainability. Findings materialised into and from an artistic boundary object expressing four key conceptions: Nature as Lowest Common Denominator, Water as Connector, The Preeminence of Trash and Waste, and Facing Reality, Responsibility, and Hope. This thesis concludes that artistic methods have great value in catalysing dialogue and knowledge production on topics of glocality and sustainability, especially when such methods are explicitly informed by the feminist and decolonial emphasis on situated narrative of subaltern groups—such as rural Yakushima’s students—in order to construct a sustainable political ecology, as Yakushima’s ESD hopes to do. May our raft be humbly grand, and sail us far into a sustainable future.}},
  author       = {{Zoll, Andrew Alona Konrad}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Yakushima Glocal Art Project}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}