"Resilience Studies: Cultural Practices of Survival and Adaptation across Japan, Oceania, and Beyond," marked the first phase of a comparative anthropological framework for analyzing how communities respond to ecological and social precarity through cultural practice, with a focus on Japan in relation to Oceania, Northern Europe, and Asia.

The central research question asked how practices of resilience are produced, shared, and transformed across different contexts. In Japan, the study examined contemporary art subcultural phenomena, including the “sauna boom,” not as an isolated trend but as part of broader youth-driven wellness cultures that respond to climate anxiety, social fragmentation, and changing modes of collective life. This was analyzed alongside ongoing research on Marshallese and other Indigenous Pacific Islander communities, where art activism and cultural practice address climate change, displacement, and nuclear legacies. This was put into conversation with fieldwork perspectives from Nordic (Finland/Denmark) and Southeast Asian (Thai/Lao) youth art and climate movements.  

Methods included field observation, interviews, and collaborative research with artists and cultural practitioners, as well as site-based inquiry in Aomori, Tokyo, Kyoto, and other locations. Particular attention was given to how resilience is articulated through sensory, material, and social practices rather than formal policy frameworks.

Outcomes include the formulation of a clear comparative research/art framework linking Japan and Oceania; the identification of key sites and collaborators for future study; and the development of a proposed residency and exchange program in Aomori connecting Japanese and Pacific practitioners, a forthcoming exhibition in Tokyo in autumn 2026 and another potential collaborative exhibition at the Sapporo International Art Festival in 2027. This also resulted in workshops in Helsinki, Finland, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and in Aomori, as well as the basis for a forthcoming book project slated for 2027.   These results also form the basis for a forthcoming KAKENHI application and future publications/ curatorial projects.