Japanisms, civilizational crisis and environmental health. The future of Japanese Studies in the era of capitalocene

Abstract

The environmental crisis is the main challenge of the 21st century. For Latin American political ecology, it is a civilizational crisis, related to modern Western culture. That is to say, an objectified vision of nature that has allowed capitalist economic accumulation. In this framework, some ecological movements see non-Western cultures (indigenous, oriental) as a source of inspiration for a healthy relationship with the environment. However, prominent Japanese studies publications have refuted the “myth of harmony with nature” of Japan, and analyzed the platitude of the “ecologically noble Oriental.” This essay begins from a niquey intercultural perspective to promote the relevance of the study of Japanisms for the interpretation on the environmental crisis. In this way, Japanism discursive grammar presents new sensibilities about natures, which could problematize double modern dualism. In this sense, the ecological turn in the social sciences and humanities offers an epistemological justification for Area Studies, as analysis of the world-eco-system in the era of the capitalocene. Thus, the case of representations about Japan contains a heuristic value to investigate and imagine other possible worlds.