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Paper short abstract

This paper discusses the town of Minamata, known for its history of industrial pollution, as it appears in 2025. It examines the narratives and practices of the "eco park" and its state-sanctioned educational facilities, juxtaposing them with the Minamata Disease Museum run by a citizens' movement.

Paper long abstract

The seaside town of Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture is world-famous. It was here that, for several decades in the mid-twentieth century, the chemical company Chisso (now renamed JNC) released large quantities of toxic methylmercury into the sea, leading to the death or permanent disability of thousands of human and nonhuman residents. Minamata disease still exists, but the town has been rebranded by local authorities and corporate sponsors as an “environmental model city” that takes the lead in recycling technology and is home to a 41-hectare-large "eco park." This park literally conceals the polluted "sea of sorrow" (Ishimure 1969) from sight: the authorities created it by reclaiming land from the sea, turning it into "nature" by adding a bamboo landscape park and native seedling forest alongside sports fields, playground, and a roadside station selling local agricultural products. The park is also home to three educational facilities that tell the official story of Minamata disease and teach school children about environmental sustainability.

But there are other stories that can be told about Minamata. Stories of corporate violence, community conflict, and lingering pollution, for instance. And stories of citizens’ activism, artistic engagement, and more-than-human care. Such stories are told in a different museum, located far from the eco park, with a much lower operating budget: the Minamata Disease Museum managed by the NGO Sōshisha. This museum, which builds upon the work of writer Ishimure Michiko, functions as an archive and a meeting place. It is also a ritual site, as people here make offerings to the spirits of humans and cats who died as a result of Chisso’s corporate violence.

This paper introduces Minamata as it appears to a visitor in 2025. It discusses the eco park, the educational facilities, and the attempts at nature-making. It also analyses the history and present-day activities of Sōshisha, with particular focus on the role of ritual objects and practices. What do Minamata’s multiple stories tell us today, in this new age of widespread industrial pollution, anthropogenic disasters, and incessant extractivism? And what is the possible significance of ritual action in the face of such environmental precarity?