Funded by Scandinavia Japan Sasakawa Foundation (SJF), 2025
Project period: June – July 2025
In March 2025 the Scandinavia Japan Sasakawa Foundation (SJF) awarded a travel grant to the “Plastic Narratives” research collective in order to investigate how the Japanese government, academia and private sector engage in the fight against the global plastic crisis, particularly in coastal environments.
Why Japan?
In recent years, Japanese diplomacy has demonstrated a high-level commitment to combating plastic pollution, most recently by vowing joint action with China and the Republic of Korea prior to the negotiations in Busan on an international legally binding instrument to end plastic pollution. Boasting the second-highest plastic management index globally, Japan offers valuable insights into innovative and community-driven solutions. Yet, as the world’s second-highest per capita producer of plastic waste, Japan offers a compelling case study for research into the global plastic crisis.
What we will do
To engage with the interrelation of this theme’s political, socio-cultural and material realities, we plan to conduct interviews with key stakeholders, including researchers, government officials, academia and industry leaders. Our key stakeholders include the Japanese Ministry of Environment, Panasonic, and Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD).
Through interdisciplinary methods—social sciences and artistic research—we will document and disseminate these practices, their outcomes and the material effects on the environment, including but not limited to writing, photographic documentation and collection of digital artifacts.
The research will also assess whether Japanese circumstances and solutions can inspire scalable models for Norway, fostering mutual learning in the global fight against marine plastic pollution.
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