My Story

Captivated by Culture

I grew up moving between Japan and the United States. My father was a traveling salesman for a Japanese electronics firm, which took our family between major U.S. cities and Tokyo.

My mother, an elementary school teacher, was among the few women of her generation with a college education. She valued public education and wanted her children to be bilingual, so I attended an American public school during the week and a Japanese supplementary school on Saturdays.

Crossing the Pacific multiple times sparked my fascination with culture. Why do people in one country write from top to bottom and right to left, while in another they write from left to right? Why do some bow while others shake hands? These questions intrigued me.

When I encountered a Cultural Anthropology course at a small liberal arts college in Tokyo, I was excited to learn that studying culture could be a profession.

Differences are not always a result of culture

The role of policy

Anthropologists often discuss the nature-culture divide, yet rarely address the impact of policy in shaping both.

Japan was occupied by the Allied Forces from 1945 to 1952. The postwar period, especially the economic boom from the 1960s to the 1980s, was deeply influenced by occupation policies.

These policies shaped cultural narratives such as ‘Japanese collectivism vs. American individualism’ and ‘Japanese homogeneity vs. American diversity.’ Policy took the outcome of history and naturalized it as distinctions. It facilitated an international division of labor, reinforcing security while expanding economic influence.

Climate change as a clarion call to take nature seriously

Nature's Copernican Turn

Today, there is growing consensus that prioritizing economic growth above all else is unsustainable. Concepts like Gross Domestic Happiness were introduced to shift focus from wealth to well-being, but their success has been limited. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s concept of ecosystem services and the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA EA) are revolutionary steps in integrating nature into economic decision-making. These ideas influence all aspects of life, including culture and society.

Learning about ecosystem services, particularly cultural services, was an eye-opener for me in an era where culture is increasingly used as an economic instrument. As a graduate student, I taught Japanese pop culture simply because it was part of the curriculum. However, when teaching study-abroad students, I couldn’t ignore the fact that the course often functioned as an entertainment-driven, credit-earning mechanism rather than a meaningful educational experience.

There is nothing wrong with making money or enjoying entertainment, but when these motives overshadow education, we must reassess priorities. Capitalism’s consumerist mentality extends beyond goods—it commodifies knowledge and people. I became convinced that institutions should resist reducing education to mere transactions.

Culture as a service derived from nature

Body as Capital

In Japan, the phrase ‘my body is my capital’ (karada ga shihon) is commonly heard. It aligns with the idea that participation in sports fosters social connections, discipline, and teamwork—qualities valued in corporate and educational leadership. This suggests that success depends not just on social networks but also on physical fitness and resilience.

This concept also highlights how culture can be seen as a service derived from nature. Physical skills, whether in sports or the arts, cannot simply be bought or replicated by AI. They require years of embodied practice, reinforcing the connection between culture and nature.

Shutai and Metabolic Sociology

Metabolic Sociology is a course I am developing, centered on the concept of shutai (主体). Rooted in Pedagogical Anthropology (Kyōiku Ningen-gaku), it explores how possessing (主) one’s own body (体) helps tap into the creative origins of culture. Shutai intersects with pan-human practices like shamanism and spirit possession that anthropologists study, offering insights into embodied practices as a means of subjectifying the laws of nature.

Sociologist Anthony Giddens defined agency as the ‘stream of actual or contemplative causal interventions of corporeal beings in the ongoing process of events-in-the-world’ (1979, 55). This definition led to the misconception that agency is about awareness rather than embodied practice. Some scholars, myself included (2020), argue that agency is not simply a choice but an emergent behavior. Understanding shutai can illuminate the biophysical and environmental conditions that faciliate the emergence of agency.

One of my research goals is to demonstrate that there are no shortcuts or technological tools capable of enhancing our capacity for agency and the sociocultural changes that result from it. Changes facilitated by the capitalist system are inherently limited, as societies and cultures cannot be treated as commodities or technologies. They are, above all, lived experiences rooted in histories that give meaning to human existence.

When society and culture are reduced to market forces, our humanity suffers. However, by engaging in embodied practices and reintegrating nature into our socioeconomic activities, we can achieve sustainable growth that prioritizes human well-being. I believe education and research should support this transformation, helping more individuals access the rich and profound aspects of being human.

Yuka Hasegawa