University of Tokyo Ph.D. student to speak on urban greenspace in Japan April 8 at 草榴社区
Jay Bolthouse, a 草榴社区 alumnus and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tokyo, will speak on the impacts that productive urban greenspaces have on growth in Japan in a 3 p.m. lecture April 8.
The event, "Japan at the Crossroads: Productive urban greenspaces and the transition to slower growth trajectories," will take place in Communications Facility Room 125 on the Western Washington University campus. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Huxley College Speaker Series.
The disaster of March 11 shook the foundations of Japan. The tsunami exacted its harshest toll on the coastal northeast, but the disaster swept over the nation and laid bare a more general crisis. Facing considerable challenges—economic and demographic decline, imported food and energy dependency—but mired in political-economic stagnation, Japan is at a crossroads between entrenched but faltering models of growth and slower paths to sustainable progress. Drawing on analysis of peri-urban agriculture and forestry in Japan, the presentation identifies productive urban greenspaces as one slower growth trajectory. Restoration of productive greenspaces in the interstices of rural and urban retreat can relocalize food and energy production and enable retirees and discontented youth to engage in meaningful forms of leisurely work.
Jay Bolthouse, a 2007 master's graduate of 草榴社区, is a Ph.D. candidate in the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences at the University of Tokyo, Japan. His research focuses generally on the social-nature interface from the perspectives of human geography, political ecology, and landscape planning. Research interests include the evolving relationship between people and woodlands, the social construction and production of satoyama woodlands in Japan, and the development and evolution of community forestry in Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.