Paper Short Abstract:

Drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in Tadami, Japan, the paper explores hydraulic landscapes as sites for transmission of situated knowledges and water practices which provide insights on community resilience in face of mutually reinforcing challenges of ageing, depopulation and climate change.

Paper Abstract:

Drawn from recent ethnographic fieldwork in Tadami, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, including community workshops and participant observation, this paper explores hydraulic landscapes as a key site for the transmission of situated/folk knowledges. It argues that paying attention to these water practices and knowledges can provide new insights on community resilience in the face of the mutually reinforcing challenges of ageing population, depopulation, and responses to climate change in rural Japan.

The paper explores dynamic resilience and processes of adaptation through social and cultural engagements with water. It presents rich ethnographic examples of how people live with water in a mountainous, rural agricultural community in Japan. These examples encompass both the material and practical (eg. irrigation channels, koi ponds, roof ridge line pipes to melt snow, flood-protection in storage rooms) as well as the social and cultural (community responsibilities, local knowledge and folklore).

These material and social expressions of water are increasingly relevant to necessary reckonings with climate change. The paper explores these hydraulic landscapes in light of pressing challenges to social cohesion presented by ageing population and depopulation. Overall, these challenges produce a changing and ruptured context within which customs and traditions, livelihoods and beliefs find new combinations. The transmission of situated knowledge – culture, place, livelihood and lifeworlds – thus takes on fresh significance for community resilience and disaster risk reduction.