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Paper short abstract

Drawing on ethnography in Minamata, Japan, this paper examines how caring for a shrine’s Muku tree enables coexistence amid pollution, labor conflict, and social division. Through one man’s experience across rival unions, it shows how care practices mend relations without reconciliation.

Paper long abstract

This paper argues that practices of care oriented toward mending relations with a shared, more-than-human presence can enable coexistence in communities marked by enduring social and environmental division. Focusing on the care of a Muku tree(Aphananthe aspera) at a local shrine in Minamata, Japan, it examines how people remain in relation without resolving historical conflict, consensus, or inequality. Minamata is widely known for Minamata disease, caused by industrial pollution. Less visible, however, are the social divisions produced by prolonged labor disputes at the chemical company responsible for the disease, which dominated local employment and the regional economy. Labor conflict led to the formation of two rival unions—one aligned with the company and the other opposed to it. These divisions extended beyond the workplace into neighborhood associations responsible for festivals and shrine rites, leading to the suspension of local rituals in the 1960s. At the center of this ethnography is Mr. F, a man from Minamata who experienced employment discrimination due to his affiliation with the oppositional union and spent nearly a decade working outside the city. Like many from Minamata, he avoided speaking the name of his hometown, constrained by stigma and the widespread belief that Minamata disease was contagious. After returning, he became involved in restoring shrine practices in his local neighborhood, taking responsibility for the care of a large Muku tree growing within the shrine grounds. Through conversations with an elderly neighbor formerly affiliated with the company-backed union, Mr. F learned how the shrine and the tree had long served as a site of prayer, wartime departure, survival through air raids, and collective gathering during periods of labor conflict. Acts such as pruning the tree and cleaning the shrine grounds became shared practices through which conflicting memories and relationships could coexist. This paper contributes to anthropological discussions of coexistence by demonstrating that, although these practices did not fully resolve past antagonisms, they gradually narrowed the distance between the two sides and eventually helped to create the conditions for being together in the same place.