nthropological Perspectives on Holistic Sustainability

CASA 2014 will be held at the KKR Hotel Hiroshima
Hiroshima, Japan
March 17-18, 2014

Deadline for Proposals is December 15th, 2013

Full papers are welcome, but not required.

The Conference on Anthropology & Sustainability in Asia is a biennial event. The first conference was held in 2012 in Bangkok, Thailand, and the 2014 conference will be held in Asia?s ‘City of Peace’: Hiroshima, Japan. CASA 2014 will provide a two-day interdisciplinary platform for scholars, researchers, policymakers, entrepreneurs, students, and practitioners. Selection of Hiroshima as the venue site provides the ideal backdrop for a conference that will draw researchers and scholars from around Asia to discuss the importance of anthropology in regards to the CASA 2014 theme: Anthropological Perspectives on Holistic Sustainability.

Under the theme of Anthropological Perspectives on Holistic Sustainability, CASA 2014 welcomes submissions from the following areas:

– Cultural Sustainability
– Social Sustainability
– Political Sustainability
– Economic Sustainability
– Archaeology and Sustainability
– Linguistic Sustainability
– Biological Sustainability
– Other areas (Please specify)

Sustainability is a term of recent origin with widespread contemporary saliency. In its popular use, sustainability tends to focus mostly on issues of natural environment. The lens of environmental sustainability raises questions such as:

– Can the natural world recover from damage caused by human activity at a rate faster than the damage is done?
– Is the use of natural resources at a rate that is compatible with their regeneration?
– What changes in human practice can lead to long-term availability of necessary natural resources?

Anthropological Perspectives on Holistic Sustainability will explore these and related questions, but in a way that considers sustainability beyond its ecological dimensions. Trends toward broader consideration of sustainability are in place. The World Bank and other governmental and non-governmental organizations have incorporated the concept of social sustainability into their approaches to development. The notion of a ‘triple bottom line’ that considers profit, people and planet has entered the private sector discourse on sustainability. This conference considers the contributions that anthropology can make to expanding the horizons of sustainability.

CASA 2014 Conference Adviser

1.Claudio Delang, PhD (National University Singapore)
Department of Geography
Hong Kong Baptist University (Hong Kong SAR)

Claudio Delang is a human geographer specializing in nature-society relations, especially the use of ? and conflicts over ? natural resources in East and Southeast Asia, in the context of environmental change, local-global articulations of power and land use policies, and social and economic transformations.

His research interests have evolved over time. He is now mainly interested in political ecology of land use change in China, Thailand, Laos. Moreover, and related to this interest is his concern for the socio-economic consequences of deforestation and reforestation programs in China, with particular emphasis to Yunnan, as well as attitudes of people towards government development strategies.

Dr Delang also has a strong interest in ecological economics, such as the role of forest products in the livelihood of rural communities in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

In his research he endeavors to bring together principles and methods of both disciplines to discuss the effects that national and supranational policies have on local livelihoods. However, he has also done (and still does) research on cultural ecology and ecological processes, mainly in fallowed swiddens. More recently, he has also done research on urban planning in Hong Kong.

CASA 2014 Adviser and CASA Founding Chair

– Matthew Krystal, PhD (Tulane University, USA)
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
North Central College (USA)

Matthew Krystal describes himself as a cultural anthropologist, working with living people to study the concept of culture and people?s behavior in their cultures and believes that in an increasingly globalized world, understanding human diversity is crucial and anthropology addresses cultural, economic and political dimensions of diversity. Most recently, Dr Krystal published a book on the enactment of identity in dance: Indigenous Dance and Dancing Indian.

Apart from teaching anthropology and conducting research, Dr Krystal also serves as an adviser to the Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) program at North Central College in which his students spend two weeks in Guatemala working with local coffee growers to have a rare look at the end result of their labor.