Stella Dixon
Anthropology, SOAS
UBEL Pathway: Anthropology
Supervisor: Dr Fabio Gygi
About Me
After completing an undergraduate degree in Social Anthropology at Cambridge, I worked for a transport planning consultancy and got to know how governments make policy, particularly around net zero. I realised policy is often made without the people in, and wondered what people think about climate change on the ground. Combining this with my long-standing interest in Japan, my masters at SOAS was an initial exploration of relationships with nature in urban Japan in a changing climate, which I am now building on through my PhD. Outside of academics I enjoy attending queer community events, crocheting/sewing and playing folk music.
My Research
My research examines the impact of climate change in urban Japan through how it affects people’s relationships with nature and seasonality. I am exploring how people from urban areas relate to nature, both in terms of their own concepts of nature and how nature makes itself known in people’s everyday lives. I will do this through ethnographic fieldwork among communities who use and maintain urban parks and gardens in Tokyo, using participant observation, interviews and multisensory methodologies to explore how urban-dwellers relate to nature and seasonality.
Impact of My Research
My research offers a human-level perspective of climate change and environmental awareness in Japan that has been missing from international policy and practice. Understanding how climate change manifests itself in people’s mundane, everyday lives creates insights that can shape communication and mobilisation strategies so they speak to what people are worried about, rather than rigid governmental priorities.
I will co-produce research with my informants and local grassroots movements, working towards a grassroots approach to climate policy. Through co-production I aim to empower my informants to articulate positions, raise awareness, undertake studies and take action to make change in their own communities. I will also encourage this impact via knowledge exchange: publishing my thesis as open access, giving talks and conference presentations to non-academic audiences, and collaborating with the non-academic networks of SOAS’ Japan Research Centre, which is a national and international centre for Japanese studies.
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