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Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa

Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa CONTEMPORARY JAPAN BOOK REVIEW Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa, by C. Anne Claus, University of Minnesota Press, 2020, 256 pp. $27.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0662-7, $108.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0661-0 During a conversation with an official of a conservation center on Okinawa Main Island, C. Anne Claus was told in a confessional tone that “Okinawans don’t care about their environ- ment. It’s mainlanders who are taking care of things [. . .]” (p. 38). This statement is illustrative of the key concern of the author’s intriguing book Drawing the sa near: How, in the context of transnational environmentalism, different definitions of expert knowledge, environmental stewardship, and concepts of “nature” are negotiated on Ishigaki Island, Japan. Conflicting ideologies are explored through the case of the Coral Reef Research Centre (Sango Mura, or Coral Village), World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) only field-station in Japan. The book most prominently focuses on the role of “outsider” (yosomono) director Kamimura Masahito in the transformation of WWF’s practices towards what Claus defines as “equitable, culturally attuned engagements” (p. 1). The author proposes the concepts of conservation-far and conservation-near to argue that transnational environmental projects depart from hege- monic paradigms that understand nature http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Contemporary Japan Taylor & Francis

Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa

Bijlsma, Sarah
Contemporary Japan , Volume 35 (1): 4 – Jan 2, 2023
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Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa

Abstract

CONTEMPORARY JAPAN BOOK REVIEW Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa, by C. Anne Claus, University of Minnesota Press, 2020, 256 pp. $27.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0662-7, $108.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0661-0 During a conversation with an official of a conservation center on Okinawa Main Island, C. Anne Claus was told in a confessional tone that “Okinawans don’t care about their environ- ment. It’s mainlanders who are taking care...
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Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Copyright
© 2021 Sarah Bijlsma
ISSN
1869-2737
eISSN
1869-2729
DOI
10.1080/18692729.2021.1913795
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

CONTEMPORARY JAPAN BOOK REVIEW Drawing the sea near: Satoumi and coral reef conservation in Okinawa, by C. Anne Claus, University of Minnesota Press, 2020, 256 pp. $27.00 (paperback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0662-7, $108.00 (hardback), ISBN: 978-1-5179-0661-0 During a conversation with an official of a conservation center on Okinawa Main Island, C. Anne Claus was told in a confessional tone that “Okinawans don’t care about their environ- ment. It’s mainlanders who are taking care of things [. . .]” (p. 38). This statement is illustrative of the key concern of the author’s intriguing book Drawing the sa near: How, in the context of transnational environmentalism, different definitions of expert knowledge, environmental stewardship, and concepts of “nature” are negotiated on Ishigaki Island, Japan. Conflicting ideologies are explored through the case of the Coral Reef Research Centre (Sango Mura, or Coral Village), World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) only field-station in Japan. The book most prominently focuses on the role of “outsider” (yosomono) director Kamimura Masahito in the transformation of WWF’s practices towards what Claus defines as “equitable, culturally attuned engagements” (p. 1). The author proposes the concepts of conservation-far and conservation-near to argue that transnational environmental projects depart from hege- monic paradigms that understand nature

Journal

Contemporary Japan – Taylor & Francis

Published: Jan 2, 2023

References

  • The social life of Okinawan corals