This seminar introduces a current of postdevelopment thinking in Japan and discusses its contribution to the global debate on degrowth and the pluriverse. I take up key thinkers such as Yoshirou Tamanoi, Kazuko Tsurumi, and Takashi Uchiyama, highlighting their intellectual developments leading to a place-based relational ontology. In particular, my talk examines the ways in which their place-based thinking spatializes/pluralizes technology and economy through the notions of living system, animism, mandala, and multi-layered community. I discuss how postdevelopment in Japan deepens a culturalist notion of limits, hence reframing key categories in degrowth and contributing to a design for the pluriverse.
Yoshihiro Nakano is a specially-appointed associate professor at the Graduate School of Social Design Studies at Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Nakano is a specialist in social theory and critical development studies, teaching various courses in the fields of development and peace studies, social innovation, and the Anthropocene studies. Dr. Nakano is also an instigator of degrowth in Japan and translated a number of books on degrowth and post-development (mainly Serge Latouche and other French and Italian authors) into Japanese. For details, see his web office: https://postcapitalism.jp/index/ (external link)