ASIA 3007 - Asia Beyond Climate Change

How can we adapt to climate change? Can Asia contribute to solve this existential crisis? Asia Beyond Climate Change explores these questions by focusing on China and Japan, the world's second and the third largest economies. Their experiences of modernisation have a lot to offer when reconsidering the meaning of development and questions of sustainability. Focus of this course is Japan. What does Japan's 2011 Fukushima nuclear crisis signify, and what can we learn from this experience? How is it relevant to climate change? The course examines a wide range of relevant topics including energy, agriculture, construction, education, youth, ageing population, and urban-rural relationships using a sociological approach. In particular, we examine how people respond to socio-ecological issues at the grassroots (e.g. Minamata), and how the intangible cultural heritage has contributed to new theoretical and philosophical reconsiderations of human-nature relationships (critical/postmodern animism). The role of China will be crucial to the world and so is Australia's. We examine the relevance of Japan's experience for these countries. The course is useful for students doing Japanese Studies, Chinese Studies, International Relations, International Development, Media Studies, Environmental Policy and Management, International Business, Education and Law, as well as Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Social Sciences.