The Elements of Joy
Healing human-land relations across
Japan-Okinawa-Hawaiʻi
Elements of Joy seeks to share how people find health, happiness, and wholeness by reconnecting with the natural elements of earth. Part of the global research collaborative AnthropoloJOY, it works with people across diverse cultural traditions to learn how cultivating land and sea through joyful acts of environmental care fosters care for others in difficult times. See below to learn more about our work and to share your story.
About our research
In times of disconnection and devastation, how do the elements of earth heal? In recent decades, ecological crises have raised the consciousness of existential threat in Japan, caused by soaring summer temperatures, rising pollen allergies, increasing severity of typhoons, and the enduring effects of the March 2011 triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear fallout. In response, many environmental advocates and food producers have sought refuge in non-modernized methods for connecting directly with nature, both from Japan’s Indigenous and Buddhist traditions, as well as from ancestrally aligned traditions borrowed from Japan’s neighbors such as Okinawa and Hawaiʻi. In practices such as Buddhist-inspired models of natural farming (Japan), localized forms of marine and coastal care in coral gardening (Okinawa), and Indigenous projects for restoring native forests (Hawaiʻi), people turn to the elements of earth to heal selves, communities, and broken ecological relations. How do people understand the current transitions of earth not only through a scientific model of climate monitoring but through a directly embodied experience of earthly elements?
Areas of study
Natural farming practices in Japan
In light of challenges like climate change, declining farmers, depopulating rural regions, and access to sustainable food-system careers, what sustains farmers and environmental stewards despite political, economic, and environmental barriers? Is financial support and practical training enough to grow a new generation of farmers? How can farmers not merely survive but flourish in ways that nourish themselves, families, and communities? Elements of Joy seeks answers from people practicing natural, ancestral, and contemplative/spiritual modes of cultivating land and, in turn, cultivating communities.
Foci:
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Natural, organic, and ancestral-oriented farmers and farm cooperatives across Japan, with a base in Ohara, Kyoto
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New farmer training programs
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Zen Buddhist approaches to cultivating farms, gardens, and direct experiences of nature
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Regional Shinto ceremonies honoring water, soil, seeds, harvests, and the natural elements known as kami
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Arts (dances, songs, stories) of cultivating land in Japan
Coastal care in Okinawa
As sea levels and ocean temperatures rise, and extreme weather conditions threaten coastal communities, how can local and Indigenous ways of observing nature inform technologies and sciences of climate monitoring? How do joyful ways of collectively caring for and celebrating the sea foster longevity, health, and community connection?
Foci:
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Seaweed cultivation and care for coastal reefs (satoumi)
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Stewardship of sacred groves (utaki)
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Ocean play: snorkeling, surfing, sailing (sabani), and paddling (funakogi)
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Embodied ways of knowing sea through song (shimauta), celebration (matsuri), and spirit connections (yuta/kaminchu/noro)
Food-system stewardship in Hawaiʻi
Despite colonial displacement from traditional lands, lifeways, and culturally relevant food systems, how can joy as a cultural practice of love and care for land (aloha ʻāina, mālama ʻāina) in hard times foster healing? How can public health practices draw from place-based Indigenous traditions of caring mutually for land and people? How can the act of finding inspiration and healing in others' cultural traditions be shared responsibly and reciprocally?
Foci:
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Indigenous-based approaches to public health, with base in Kalihi, Honolulu
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Native forest regeneration and food system integration
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New farmer training programs
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Culturally relevant models of mentorship and education
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Storytelling, song, and other arts of mālama 'āina
Azure laughing, Photo by Kaʻōhua Lucas
Methods
We explore joy not only as an object but also a method of research, following our collaborators' ways of cultivating joy as a practice of relating intimately with natural environments. In short, we follow the joy, even through hard times, with attention to three areas:
Embodiment - We study ways of knowing earth through qualitative experience beyond measurement. Tending soil, cleaning coral, carrying water to gardens one bucket at a time. We work alongside the natural elements of earth, and those stewarding them, to explore how somatic connections might be one missing piece that sustains cultivating and caring for earth well under crises of climate change.
Alignment - Many people feeling the weight of modernity seek to reclaim health and happiness by aligning their work with ancestral traditions in evolutionary, cultural, and spiritual terms. From this perspective, joy can be both a method of reconnection (such as by growing and eating culturally relevant foods or chanting and singing at harvest time) and an indicator of one's increasing alignment.
Storytelling - Stories serve as technologies to direct attention to what is most meaningful in an environment and what requires care and sometimes repair. We listen deeply to stories that connect people to place, as well as to the silences where stories break down or point to experiential ways of knowing that transcend words.
Collaboration
Elements of Joy works closely with collaborators long tied to its primary areas of study (Japan-Okinawa-Hawaiʻi), but also with partners in parallel field sites around the globe (UK, Thailand, Brazil). See here to learn more about our team and to collaborate with us.
Fruits
Along with traditional academic essays, we seek to produce alternative research outputs (fruits) that are:
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Led by joy and creativity
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Inspire, uplift, and support local communities
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Driven by collaboration
Examples might be a collective photo exhibit, a festival, a collaborative artwork, a co-authored grant for community support or community-led research, a farm-to-table dinner, a natural farmer exchange between regions (e.g., Okinawa and Hawaiʻi), a database connecting desiring farmers with available land and community resources, or something else we cannot currently image.
Essays
Why I study the elements of joy
A (very) brief cultural history
Joy in Ruins
In Japan, amateur photographers explore abandoned landscapes to rekindle joy in ruins. (forthcoming)