Research project Urban Water Culture
Urban water has emerged as a major concern in recent years. Water is the source of all life, but it is also at the base of many social and ecological problems in cities worldwide.
Megacities such as Tokyo face diverse challenges ranging from flooding and heat-island effect to pollution and biodiversity loss, all of which are being exacerbated by climate change. As these crises erode away at modernist myths, new approaches rooted in post-anthropocentric and transdisciplinary epistemologies are urgently needed. This project explores Japan’s cities as sites for the global, transcultural circulation of water practices and imaginaries by prompting exchange between academics, across oceans and disciplines who are engaged in urban water sustainability issues.
Project description
The project is embedded in ”Urban Waters”, an interdisciplinary and international network established in 2019 by three scholars: Ewa Machotka (Stockholm University), Mikiko Sugiura (Sophia University), and Takehiro Watanabe (Sophia University). The network is rooted in the MIRAI (2017-2019 https://www.mirai.nu), a strategic research platform connecting Swedish and Japanese universities targeting current global research issues such as sustainability. This framework facilitated initiation of our collaboration which then extend beyond MIRAI and in 2020 transformed into a separate network.
Project members
Project managers
Mikiko Sugiura
Associate Professor
Takehiro Watanabe
Associate Professor
More about this project
Project activities (2018-):
Research presentations:
Machotka E. “Between Ethics and Aesthetics: Mapping Cosmopolitan Mobilities of Landscape Imagination”, International Workshop “Cultural Translation between Europe and Asia in the Heritage Sector”, May 2022, University of Glasgow.
Machotka E. “The Ethic of Cosmopolitan Aesthetics: Conservation of Inokashira Pond in Tokyo”, October 2021, Södertörn University.
Machotka, Ewa and Takehiro, Watanabe. “Monet’s Pond in Tokyo: Aestheticizing Waterscapes and the Aura of Cosmopolitan Ecologies.” International Symposium “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities”, Sophia University, Tokyo, October 2021.
Machotka, Ewa. “Contested Waterscapes: Art, Ecology and Tokyo Olympics of 2020”, MIRAI Seminar “Moving Together Towards a Eustainable Future”, Stockholm University, November 2019.
Machotka, Ewa and Takehiro, Watanabe and Mikiko, Sugiura. MIRAI Seminar: “Pathways to Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”, Tokyo Institute of Technology, March 2019.
Machotka, Ewa and Takehiro, Watanabe and Mikiko, Sugiura. “Regenerating Rivers in Tokyo: Social and Aesthetic Dimensions of an Urban Ecological Change”, MIRAI Seminar: “Sustainable Social System and Technology for Ageing”, Sophia University, Tokyo, October 2018.
Machotka, Ewa. Keynote speech: “Tokyo as a City of Water: Art and Communication of Global Climate Change” at MIRAI Sustainability Workshop: “From Source to Sink – Human Society and the Flow of Water”, Gothenburg University, June 2018.
Organization of conferences:
International Symposium: “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities”, Sophia University, Tokyo, October 2021 [9 speakers from Japan, Sweden, UK, New Zeeland; online with simultaneous translation] https://urbanwatersjapan.wordpress.com
Stockholm Seminar on Japan: "Rivers as Method: Environmental Approaches to History and Society in Japan", joint event organized by the European Institute of Japanese Studies at Stockholm School of Economics, the Asia Programme at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs, the Department of Asian, Middle Eastern and Turkish Studies at Stockholm University and the Swedish Defence University. November 2019. [3 speakers: Takehiro, Watanabe and Mikiko, Sugiura and Ewa Machotka https://www.hhs.se/en/about-us/calendar/eijs/2019/stockholm-seminar-on-japan-11-november-2019/
Project publications:
Machotka, Ewa and Takehiro, Watanabe. “Monet’s Pond in Tokyo: Aestheticizing Waterscapes and the Aura of Cosmopolitan Ecologies.” [in preparation for Environmental Humanities in spring 2022]
Machotka, Ewa and Takehiro, Watanabe and Mikiko, Sugiura. (2021) “Urban Nature, Urban Culture: Rethinking Water in Japan’s Cities: Notes from the Field.” Journal of Global Environmental Studies 16 [forthcoming in March 2022]
Other activities:
Visiting Professorship: Ewa Machotka invited to Sophia University, Tokyo. Hosted by the Institute for Comparative Culture within the Education Innovation Program “What is Globalization: Think Globally, Act Locally” (web-based due to the Covid-19)