ASIA 2025 - Re-Orienting Asia: Popular Voices & Sustainability

This course examines the voices of people living in the margins of the rapidly developing economies of Asia, such as victims of industrial pollution, people displaced due to development, educational 'refugees', the homeless, the elderly, and the sick, the poor, etc.

It draws initially upon examples in Japan which, implicitly or explicitly, constitutes the model of development for the region. As the post-industrial superpower shows signs of unsustainability in key aspects of its society, however, many people are led to seek alternative paradigms for a sustainable future. Witnesses from within the various movements that now proliferate are critically addressing the negative legacies of the existing model of development, and attempting to build a better future. The course analyses these movements through the lens of participant experience. While the Japanese perspective constitutes the backbone, Japanese cases will then be matched, where possible, with examples in other parts of Asia.

The course explores the possibility of an Asia-specific paradigm of sustainable society. Within that paradigm, a holistic sense of humans being connected with each other; with nature and other species; with ancestors and descendants; with their cultural and spiritual heritages, constitutes a key concept.