Paper short abstract:

Regarding the practices of repair in the post-mining era, this study compares convergence and juxtaposition as two configurations of temporal multiplicity by two case studies of repairing with/in plants, namely reforestation with acorns in Ashio and reedbed management in the Watarase wetland.

Paper long abstract:

After the Ashio copper mine was closed in the 1970s, various grassroots environmental initiatives were formed to “repair” polluted regions along the Watarase river in Japan. This study examines the reflexive relations between different tenses of pollution and the emerging futurity of recovery through multi-sited ethnography. It compares convergence and juxtaposition as two different configurations of temporal multiplicity in repair by two case studies, repairing with acorns in Ashio and repairing in reeds in the Watarase wetland.

Reforestation in Ashio was referred to as “reviving the green”. “Green” was a symbol for regional hydrologic connectivity and thus a metaphor for reconciliation between the mining town and the polluted downstream. Local volunteers regarded planting acorns as an obligation to past destruction so they left part of the barren mountains as its evidence. The future of revived “green” converged to and enacted an encompassing reference point of ongoing and unresolved pollution.

Reeds, compared to acorns, were not planted by humans but grew by themselves on the downstream ruination. It supported the growth of the local manufacturing industry that practised mowing and burning to maintain the quality of reeds. When a wetland registration movement started later, mowing and burning became practices to maintain the habitats for Ciconia boyciana and other species. While planting acorns and managing reeds are both engagements with multispecies temporalities, practising repair in reeds did not converge to or enact a single reference point. Rather, the temporalities of industrial ruination juxtaposed those of the industry and those of flagship species.