Participation et développement soutenable des territoires (Participation and Sustainable Development of Territories)

The planning of territories experienced a dramatic upheaval during the twentieth century and lasting deterioration of the links between communities and resources that settle them. In Japan, this violent evolution has since demonstrated its weaknesses and produced a counter-current of thinkers and management of the intangible landscape and cultural resources that make up our environment. The reinterpretation of the environmental history of Japan since its opening to the world (1868), a reorientation of built environment experts on local ontologies to preserve cultural identities of autochthonous practices, enables to rethink our living spaces management in a resolutely humanistic way. However, because of the international conventions that tend to conform environmental policies, many local knowledges remain unknown to new expert generations. What are the steps of this economic internationalisation of knowledge and who are the new stakeholders of this new paradigm which now renders Japan one of the most advanced countries in terms of environmental management, after being one of the most polluted in the mid-twentieth century? Following an analysis of post-Meiji neoliberal jolts, the article will decipher the peculiarity of the Nippon environmental humanity through the ethics and activism of the philosopher Toshio Kuwako.