Rethinking ESD from the View of an Ainu Fisherman*
Fumiko NoguchiThe burden of unsustainable problems is unequally shared ina society. The most marginalized are the most devastated and mostvulnerable in most cases, not the majority members. The endogenous development theory of Japanese sociologist, Kazuko Tsurumi (b. 1918
- d. 2006) claims that non-exclusion in a society can be achieved through social transformation by decentralizing and repositioning its members, thereby changing its power balance (Tsurumi, 1999; Tsurumi & Kawada, 1986).
The political and economic sensitivities and interests of dominant socialgroups may come under question in social transformation, whose process isaccompanied by discomfort, pain and resistance of both majority and marginalized. Yet, this process could emancipate and empower the membersof a society through their “conscientização” (Freire, 1972) of the injusticecaused by the power structure of the society in which they are embedded.
It is a critical informal unlearning and relearning of different members ofsociety.
Education for Sustainable Development (esd) can suggest theoreticaland methodological framework for an effort for community emancipationand empowerment for social change. Esd aims to create “a world where everyone has the opportunity to benefit from education and learn the values,
behaviour and lifestyles required for a sustainable future and for positive social transformation” (unesco, 2005, page 6). This aspiration has significant
transformational potential, not just in its scope and goals but also becauseof its wide societal focus. This wide focus involves all people, young andold, and people in all sectors related to sustainable development, including
people in formal, non-formal and informal education, and continues as alife-long process (unesco, 2005, 2012, 2014a, 2014b).
Non-formal and informal esd in a community development context
could have significant implications for community emancipation and empowerment for social change, because of its direct impact and practicality
to contribute to the solution of the issues in a real life context. However, esd
through schooling and formal education system has dominated esd policy,
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research and implementation. The experiences, actions and struggles ofpractitioners and community members, particularly the socially marginalized, for social transformation, have been silent in esd field, despite its wide
scope and socially critical orientation of esd. Hence, the effectiveness andappropriateness of current esd as a theoretical and methodological framework for a community development context is not clear.
This paper aims to bridge this gap between esd and community development, through investigation of informal learning process in a community
development context. To address this aim, this paper presents a critical ethnographic study of Mopet Sanctuary Network (msn) in Hokkaido, Japan,
where I engaged as a practitioner and integrated esd concept and methodology into the social actions for indigenous Ainu rights-based sustainablecommunity development. This paper discusses whether the current theoryof esd is sufficiently potent and efficacious to respond to the broader scopeand settings of esd, such as community development. Identifying the key
issues, it further proposes a “praxis” framework so that both esd and community development fields would be mutually supportive to strengthen thepractices.
Mopet Sanctuary Network (MSN) for Rights-based Sustainable
Community Development
Mombetsu is a small rural sea town facing Okhotsk Sea in northeast
Hokkaido. It is named after the main river that runs through the town andoriginated from the Ainu word, mo (quiet) and pet (river) (Ito, 2006, page183). Of the official population of 24,500 individuals in Mombetsu, many
engage in fishing, forestry and agricultural industries. The rich natural environment of the Okhotsk Sea result from the deposition of rich soil fromthe Amur River basin (Shiraiwa, 2011). The main fishing products include
salmon, cod, sole, and trout from the coastal waters (Mombetsu City
Government, 2013). Food processing industries using marine products arealso active.
Indigenous Ainu Fisherman, Hatakeyama
The rights-based sustainable community development movement in
Mombetsu was initiated by the indigenous Ainu fisherman, Satoshi
Hatakeyama. Hatakeyama was born in Mombetsu in 1941 and grew up inRethinking ESD from the View of an Ainu Fisherman225

poverty and experiencing discrimination. After dropping out from juniorhigh school at age fourteen, he simply worked as a fisherman hiding his
Ainu identity. He had engaged with dolphin spearfishing and catching cod
and ray for over thirty years. It was through Hatakeyama’s daily fishing activities that he became increasingly concerned about the negative impacts
of industrialization and commercialized fishing practices on the rich ecosystem of the Okhotsk region. He observed water pollution, an increase in
garbage drifting with the current, the deformation of fish, the destruction of
the sea bottom ecosystem by large trawl-boats, and decreasing sea ice eachyear caused by climate change. Hatakeyama eventually made the connection
between local ecological problems, being influenced by his late brother who
had claimed the indigenous fishing rights.
Yet, Hatakeyama struggled as he found that his rights claim did not fit
in the current Ainu rights protection policies of the Japanese government,
which understands Ainu culture narrowly by promoting dancing, craft making and demonstration of traditional hunting and fishing and lacks the linkage to the livelihood. I am a fisherman; I cannot dance or do embroidery. I
want to live as an Ainu fisherman. At the age of 50, Hatakeyama decided
to proclaim publicly that he was an Ainu person and began committing to
the position of ekashi (Ainu elder) of the Mombetsu Ainu, and president of
the Ainu Association of Hokkaido Mombetsu Chapter (aah-mc). He began
to link social, economic and environmental problems in Mombetsu withhis own claim on the “substantive indigenous rights” (MSN, 2010b). In regards to the salmon fishing rights, Hatakeyama revived kamuy chep nomi in
Mobetsu River in 2001. This is the indigenous ceremony (nomi) to welcome
the return of their god (kamuy) fish (chep) (salmon) to the original riverin autumn.1 Reviving the kamuy chep nomi was only an entry point of his
indigenous substantive rights claim for the right to access the local natural
resources, in particular, salmon and whale, in which the Japanese government had significant economic and political controls.
Mopet Sanctuary Network: Bringing Individualized Concern
into a Collective Social Action and Learning
In 2005, a critical event pushed Hatakeyama’s activism into the limelight.
The Mombetsu City Government (mcg) proposed the construction of
a forty-one-hectare industrial waste plant on a mountain in the Toyooka

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District, which was the source of Mobetsu River where Hatakeyama had
been hosting kamuy chep nomi. This proposal was made to revitalize economic activity in Mombetsu, responding to the request of the local industries who had to take their waste to an industrial waste management facility
outside the city by paying a disposal fee. Hatakeyama saw the further environmental damage as the extension of a hundred years of colonization by
the Japanese, pointing that this “could erode the Ainu’s life foundation andtheir potential access rights to the natural resources” (msn, 2011b). Despite
Hatakeyama’s concern, the Hokkaido Government granted permission toWorkshop in 2010 that established MSN.

mcg for the plant’s construction in 2007. Hatakeyama who was the one offew community members who showed opposition became isolated.
In 2008, a meeting with Masahiro Koizumi, a community educatorof Sapporo Free School You (You) brought a significant turning point in
Hatakeyama’s solo activism. Koizumi, who considered the indigenous Ainu
rights recovery as the critical issue in achieving sustainability in Hokkaido,
was inspired by Hatakeyama’s claim. He incorporated esd concept and ap-

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Mombetsu river water quality check by MSN in 2011.

proaches into Hatakeyama’s activism. He organized a workshop in Sapporo
in 2008 to discuss the future of Hokkaido and invited Hatakeyama as a guest
speaker. The participants of the workshop organized a Mombetsu study tourin 2009 to obtain in-depth contextual understanding of Hatakeyama’s rights
claim. I participated in the study tour and began engaging with “esd” efforts in Mombetsu since then. With the focus on community emancipation and empowerment, Koizumi and I organized and facilitated learning
activities such as workshops, seminars and participatory environmental andhistorical studies in Mombetsu. Through these efforts, in 2010, the participants from local and outside communities established Mombetsu Mopet
Sanctuary Network (msn).
Hatakeyama’s “Swing”
The msn learning activities contributed in developing Hatakeyama’s solo
activism into collective actions. These produced msn, which motivatedthe participants to take more actions and organize more learning activities
through their networks, which made the lobbying and policy advocacies for

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the Japanese government and the United Nations effective. I saw this as thesign of successful community emancipation and empowerment, considering the number of mobilized stakeholders who were motivated to challenge
the dominant values and systems. This “success” convinced me to understand “esd in a community development context” as the product of synergy
between timely learning and facilitation and social actions such as policy
advocacies and lobbying. However, there was one who neither got emancipated nor empowered among large numbers of the participants who seemed
emancipated and empowered - Hatakeyama. This was despite my intentionof using esd concept.
Hatakeyama continued his “puzzling” behavior, which indicated his
disempowerment, during and after the arbitration against the developerof the waste management facility. In 2011, msn came up with the idea of
Hatakeyama’s filing a complaint against the developer through arbitration
at the Hokkaido Environment Dispute Coordination Commission (hedcc).
In the arbitration process, msn members split into two groups, which confronted each other over the strategies of key claim at the arbitration meetings. One group (tentatively called Group “A”) was formed by the membersof msn who supported the strategies of taking a “realistic” approach basedon what current Japanese legal provisions could provide. The other group,(tentatively called “Group B”) was identified by the members who had what
was considered “hard requests” to submit, according to “Group A.” They
intended to use the arbitration to suspend the construction as long as possible, and, eventually, wanted to cancel the construction (msn, 2011a, 2011c).
They asserted that the “compromise” within the current Japanese legal system was ineffective in realizing Hatakeyama’s indigenous rights claim, drawing on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples(undrip) and Convention of Biological Diversity. By so doing, they also intended to open up a new path to the Ainu’s indigenous rights recovery by
developing a more appropriate legal system in Japan (msn, 2011b). Between
the two groups, Hatakeyama lost his leadership; he accepted one group’s
opinion whenever he went and spoke to them, denied the other group butthen repeated the same ideas as he did for the other group. Hatakeyama’s
behavior looked like the “swinging” of a pendulum between two different
groups. His behavior began to be viewed as irrational by msn members.
Some questioned his humanity and left msn.

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Due to the time constraints, in March 2012, Hatakeyama finally choose
Group A’s strategy and signed the agreement with the developer. The agreement gave the go-ahead for the developer to finalize the construction planfor its opening in November and recognized: (i) the local Ainu as the local
key stakeholder; (ii) prevention of the negative impact by the plant operation on their cultural activities; (iii) conservation of the local natural environment; and, (iv) the rights of the local Ainu to inspect the plant operation
any time upon their request. While the media and the researchers praised
this agreement as the first achievement in the history of Ainu rights movement (The Asahi Shimbun, 2012; The Mainichi Shimbun, 2012; The Yomiuri
Shimbun, 2012), Hatakeyama seemed unsatisfied with the result and continued his “irrational” behaviour. Rather than looking into any possibility to
optimize the agreement for his rights claim, he began to speak a lot about
his desire for “illegal” whaling.
The golden age when fishermen dreamed of making profits out of thewhaling industry had already dissipated. Hatakeyama, of course, knew thatwhale meat had lost market value in Japan. Hence, his claim of whaling
seemed unreasonable and unrealistic from the perspective of his substantive
indigenous rights. What I believed about esd that could bring the marginalized people to the locus of the society, actually, pushed Hatakeyama further
to disempowerment. I could not explain his disempowerment with the current theoretical methodological understanding of esd.
Epistemological Limitation of “Critical” Approach to Local Community
The discourses on Minamata guided me to the assumption that an epistemological insufficiency in esd could have disempowered Hatakeyama by
overlooking and oppressing his way of learning and knowledge. The problem of epistemological insufficiency in esd was identified by borrowing theargument of Kitoh (2007) on the power differential between two contrasting
views in the research on the Minamata Disease victims; “policy systemic
views” and “principle of a resisting individual.”
The policy systemic view characterizes the way of knowing and understanding of the modern knowledge production process. It grasps the victimsof Minamata Disease from a general, universal, and bird’s eye point of viewand seeks the solution systemically (Kitoh, 2007, page 135). The principleof a resisting individual is the view of those who are “forced to crawl on the

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bottom of the society” (Kitoh, 2007, page 141) taking the burden of the society individually. The policy systemic view is powerful as it supports those inpositions of power - often government officials and researchers, who have amodern knowledge background. Because this view supports those who arein positions of power and can have the agency of knowing and understanding the victims, it deflects away from understanding the totality of suffering the marginalized people have experienced psychologically, physically,
economically, and socially. It simplifies and abstracts socially complex andpolitically sensitive problems of victims so that everyone can easily accept
and comprehend them (Kitoh, 2007, page 135). But it leaves the entire experience of the victims unknown.
The policy systemic view picks up only what it is able to perceive, andwants to know and understand, based on modern knowledge, while dismissing a significant part of the victims’ entire experiences, and pushing them tofurther marginalization. Hence, the research and policies with this view neither understand the overall picture of the problems faced by marginalized
people, nor fundamentally solve their problems. Kitoh (2007, 2009) claims
the importance of establishing the epistemology from the experiences of a
resisting individual for fundamental solution of Minamata Disease.
Kitoh’s point helped me to assume that an epistemological oppression
also happens in esd. Esd, being influenced by critical theory (Habermas,
1972, 1979), concerns the issues of power and marginalization in the current
dominant society and emphasizes the importance of education for socialchange. However, despite its strong criticism of modernity, critical theory
also emerged from, and was developed, based on the same knowledge production system that supported the modern knowledge paradigm (MorrisSuzuki, 2011). There is a contradiction in critical theory that attempts to
produce a new knowledge with some of marginalized people, drawing themarginalized people in and not stepping out from the ground where they
are standing to challenge modernity. The knowledge is still created by “particularising, verifying and generalising (Agrawal, 2002)” and overlooking
the diversity and totality of the marginalized people and their complex interactions with modernity. Then, critical theory reintegrates the new knowledge into the modern knowledge and uses it for redefining the problems
of marginalized people. This has nothing to do with the power imbalance
between modernity and the marginalized people.

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When esd was applied to msn, it tended to only look at the impact tothoughts and systems that the majority support. Yet, it saw the local Ainu
people as a mass and overlooked the struggles and sufferings of Ainu individuals, such as how the marginalized individuals’ emotion, resistance,
learning and knowledge emerge in their interaction with majorities and how
those relate to community empowerment and sustainability.
Thus, esd for msn could not get close to the heart of “no one’s exclusion.”
Finding the epistemological limitation of critical theory motivatedme to shift to decoloniality approach (Ndlovu-Gatsuheni, 2013). With
this approach, I re-investigated the meaning of learning and knowledge of
Hatakeyama by investigating how he learned and created his knowledge, i.e.,establishing his epistemology.
Rethinking “Knowledge” and “Learning” from the Views
of Individuality of a Life
In my decoloniality attempt, the life experience of one fisherman with
Minamata disease, Masato Ogata (born in 1953) (Ogata, 2000, 2001; Oiwa,
Ogata, & Colligan-Taylor, 2001) provides the strong explanations to know
how the learning and knowledge creation of Hatakeyama was different fromthe other members of msn.
Ogata, Minamata Fisherman and Hatakeyama, Ainu Fisherman
Ogata was born in a small fishing village of Minamata, in the southernpart of Japan, when the outbreak of the symptoms of methylmercury poisoning began spreading (Ogata, 2000). Ogata lost his father when he was
six from acute mercury poisoning (which was not often identified as a causeof the sickness at that time). This new disease took the lives of his brothers,
sisters, nieces and nephews almost at the same time. It took over ten years
for the Nippon Chisso Company (ncc) and the government to finally admitthat there was methyl mercury in ncc’s wastewater. It was determined thata sub-chemical product from the production of acetaldehyde caused thedisease. During that time, Ogata’s family was subjected to discriminationby the residents in their small village. Having experienced tragic deaths ofclose family members, discrimination and poverty, Ogata grew with anger
and held a grudge against the ncc and society in general. “Fighting among

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H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c · V o l u m e 9 , 2 0 1 9school kids was an everyday occurrence (Oiwa et al., 2001, page 55)”. Ogata’s
anger drove him to social activism when he was fifteen years old.
Like Hatakeyama, Ogata also experienced his “swing” in his life struggles. He took a philosophical right-wing position in his teens, although later
he switched to the left in his 20s-30s. After leaving home at the age of fifteen,
he joined an organization which was a front for criminal yakuza operations
in Kumamoto City. He spent a few years fighting against left-wing organizations and selling amphetamines and was arrested in 1971. After the arrest,
he went back to his hometown where he was influenced by the leftists who
supported the victims of the Minamata disease. Ogata supported the lawsuit
for the official recognition of Minamata disease victims as the President of
Minamata Disease Certification Applicants’ Council (mdcac) in 1975.
Ogata’s way out from his “swing” occurred in 1985, when he realizedthat social activism, both rights and left, had to stand on the same understanding ground of modernity for the fight against modernity. He foundthat such activism were trapped by the idea to change the system, did nothing with the diversity, complexity and wholeness of the victims’ sufferings.
“There is something, which could be described as a problem of “un-savable”
souls in Minamata disease, which could not be saved by institutionalization
or by compensation money” (Ogata, 2001, page 137). Minamata disease destroyed the whole system around the Shiranui Sea. This system supported
complex life cycles created through the interaction of the sea, rivers andmountains - including the lives of humans who subsisted on that environment (Ogata, 2001). For Ogata, the ideological right or left was not the final
goal. These were just present there when he was desperately searching forany possibility of relieving them from the situation where the problems unreasonably kept occurring in every aspect of his community’s lives. This realization pushed Ogata to withdraw himself from all social activism, and tochoose to live as a local fisherman, wishing to re-connect his broken social
ties, spiritual connection with the spirits of the dead victims, and broken ties
between humans and nature.
Ogata’s life story indicates that Hatakeyama might have not been“swinging” because of his weakness or a defect in his personality. Like
Ogata, the political thoughts of “left” or “right” OR Group A or B, could
not really give a clear answer to Hatakeyama, who might have desperately
searched for something that did not fit in both. It seemed that Hatakeyama
had something that could be akin to Ogata’s “unsavable souls.” I tentatively

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233labelled this “something” as “Hatakeyama’s Ainu world” and explored it byfocusing on his words of “whale” to find clues to understand it deeply.
Hatakeyama’s Ainu WorldFor him, “whale” had more meanings beyond just catching and consuming
one. Hatakeyama says:
I do not intend to make a profit out of it [hunting a whale]at all. This is my rights claim, as an indigenous individual.
Challenging the largest [animal] and top [sic] of the ecosystemon the globe would be just a full privilege of being born as aman... I always perceived myself as a loser. I put on a brave face atwork. However, it was only at work. I am always carrying a feeling of inferiority. I really want to tell Wajin (Japanese) who haveinsulted Ainu until now. Even Ainu can do. We can do, because
we are Ainu. I don’t want to end my life as a loser.
Catching the largest animal on the globe might represent his revenge
against the Japanese. It would demand attention given that it was the top of
the ecosystem for a fisherman. It would be the biggest catch. The “whale”
might have also represented himself and his people. And now, as a fisherman, his power of catching such a mighty beast had been taken away from
him and his Ainu people. Hatakeyama saw an association between the unfairness and unreasonableness of the government of Japan in their control
over whaling rights with the control of him and his people through assimilation and modernization policies. He viewed them as ignoring his peoples’
history in return for national growth.
For him, regaining control of whale hunting could have two implications. The Ainu rights to access natural resources based on his and his
people’s decisions could be reinstituted. This point would be congruent between Hatakeyama and other msn members. The other implication, which
is different from the others, could be the spiritual emancipation of him andhis people. The Ainu people traditionally believed in the spirits of all living
creatures, plants and commodities that they are related to in their everyday
life. In their belief, Kamuy (spiritual being) appears in the Ainu (human)world in the outer form of animals (such as bears, owls, and salmon), plants(such as monkshood), diseases (such as smallpox), and natural phenomena
such as fire and lightning (Utagawa, 1992). The Ainu people understand thatkilling, consuming or using these things meant freeing their spirits from234

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their outer forms, and sending them back to the place where their ancestral
spirits dwelled (Fujimura, 1982; Utagawa, 1992). The Ainu people conduct aceremony to express gratitude toward the spirits for these things that they
believe have been bestowed upon mankind, and this may be seen as a “respectful return gift from humanity to the heavens” (Utagawa, 1992, p. 255).
This Ainu belief in the “spiritual sending-back” is “a different notion of sacrifice in Christian belief ” (Fujimura, 1982, page 177).
Hatakeyama could see the spiritual connection between humans andwhales, like Ogata had with his experience in Minamata. This is indicatedby his memory of his fuchi (grandmother), who told him not to mess witha particular area near the local mountain because the ancestral local Ainu
people enshrined a whale skull for their ceremony purposes. Hatakeyama
might wish to return to this place, his people and connect with his ancestor’s
spirits through catching a whale. Hence, the underlying meaning of a fullprivilege of being born as a man could be the emancipation of him and his
people. This understanding of what Hatakeyama means by “whaling” might
be the best way he could express his thinking, using his limited vocabularythat had been shaped by his life as a fisherman.
Hatakeyama speaks Japanese, and specifically, the dialect of theMombetsu fishermen. There was a gap between his spoken language and his
unspoken Ainu world. The word, “whaling” came out where Hatakeyama
struggled with his oppressed and confused feeling. The Japanese andwell-educated young Ainu are never going to be able to understand what
Hatakeyama symbolically meant by his use of the word “whaling.” They understood his unexpressed Ainu world based on what the modern rational
legal term understands as the “indigenous rights.” But, his Ainu world remained untouched.
Embodied Local and Indigenous Knowledge
According to Berger and Luckmann (1985), the process of forming identity
occurred in “the period during which the human develops towards its completion in interrelationship with its environment is also the period during
which the human self is formed” (pages 67-70). Drawing on their explanation, tracing how Hatakeyama formed his identity and obtained his embodied local/indigenous knowledge since his childhood helps me to know thenature of his Ainu world.

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In 1940s when Hatakeyama was born, the Ainu culture had alreadybeen decimated. The values, social ties, traditional ceremonies, materials
and languages that had supported Ainu society were vanishing. The Ainu
adults belittled their culture and convinced Hatakeyama to believe in the
superiority of the Japanese people and their culture over the Ainu’s ways.
Hatakeyama grew up hardly having opportunities to learn traditional Ainu
culture. At the age of fifty, when he came out as identifying as Ainu for the
first time, he began to explore what his Ainu identity meant. Hatakeyama
had to confront memories that he had wanted to deny and forget for a longtime. Then, he had to weave pieces of memories of Ainu into a ground uponwhich he could stand for his rights claim. However, this process was noteasy as his Ainu memories were fragmented.
Hatakeyama filled the gaps in his Ainu memories with his life experiences as a fisherman. Hatakeyama obtained the knowledge to be a fisherman in Mombetsu environment. Wind, temperature, swell, humidity, smell,the colour of the ocean and sky, flying seabirds, fish running in waves, fishing techniques, business, values, trust relationship and ethics – he has experienced these and expressed them through his daily practice as a fisherman.
Pálsson (1997) described that fisherman’s knowledge about fishing techniques, social ties and ethics was mainly the result of practical engagementwith the social and natural environment, based on his participant observation on the Iceland fishermen. This statement indicates that Hatakeyama
could have learned his knowledge through observing and copying the otherfishermen in his community, through his body movement and in a very local
social and environmental context. It could be assumed that his knowledge
was characterized as tacit and practical, and embodied bodily and locally.
This knowledge can also be referred to as “embodied local and indigenous
knowledge.”
Epistemological Oppression
The Msn process contributed in Hatakeyama’s establishing his Ainu identity, drawing on Berger and Luckmann (1985) explanation on how social interaction with others affects the process of one’s knowledge creation:
Only a small part of the totality of human experience is retained in consciousness. The experiences that are so retained
become sedimented, that is, they congeal in recollection as recognizable and memorable entities... Intersubjective sedimenta-

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H u m a n R i g h t s E d u c at i o n i n A s i a - Pa c i f i c · V o l u m e 9 , 2 0 1 9tion also takes place when several individuals share a common
biography, experiences of which become incorporated in a common stock of knowledge. Intersubjective sedimentation can becalled truly social only when it has been objectivated in a sign
system of one kind or another, that is when the possibility of reiterated objectification of the shared experiences arises. (Berger& Luckmann, 1985, page 67)
One can identify a part of his/her life experiences and store it as his/her knowledge while he/she repeats the interaction back and forth with surrounding people. In this process, the values, thoughts, the way of understanding and knowledge of the surrounding people significantly affect one’s
understanding and knowing of a part of his/her life experiences as “knowledge.” In msn process, workshops, seminars and meetings provided thespace where Hatakeyama shared his life experience in conversation with thepeople around him regarding his rights claim. Through the communications
with the msn members and wider audiences, Hatakeyama tried to cognize
and find the words to express his thoughts about indigenous rights arisingfrom his Ainu world. Such conversations might have helped him to re-form
his Ainu identity.
In this process, unfortunately, there was a mismatch between two parties - Hatakeyama and others. This mismatch was caused because of thepower differential between knowledge paradigms upon which both parties
were standing; modern knowledge and Hatakeyama’s embodied local andindigenous knowledge. These epistemologically oppressed Hatakeyama
in the msn process. He was struggling to verbalize embodied indigenous
knowledge as it is difficult to verbalize from the beginning. But this power differential made even more difficult for him to cognize and express his
knowledge. This happened without anyone’s intention including both msn
members and even Hatakeyama. There were four obstacles that created thepower differential, including “place,” “language,” “emotion” and “nature ofknowledge.”
Place
The first obstacle was the place where the social interactions happened. All
the meetings, workshops and seminars of msn happened in closed meeting rooms. Such settings physically decontextualized Hatakeyama from his
local context where he lived and utilized his knowledge. Ainu communica-

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tion methods, like storytelling and singing, could be incorporated in thesemeetings. However, these options would not be effective when these aredecontextualized from the original environment. Hatakeyama struggled as
he had to cognize and express what was bodily embodied and locally contextualized in an entirely different place.
Language
The second obstacle was the language used for the communication at themeetings. Ainu people cannot use their language as a result of assimilation policy and education; they use Japanese language for their everyday
communication. Since this is the language of the different culture and of
the colonizer, using Japanese language for the indigenous Ainu rights claim
is problematic. The Japanese language cannot fully convey the meaning of
Ainu world so that what is expressed in the meeting tends to be interpreted
based on what is commonly understood in Japanese, which is the colonizer.
For example, msn members discussed the Ainu rights using the following Japanese words, such as, 権利 (kenri; rights), 先住民族 (senjyu-minzoku;
indigenous people), 捕鯨 (hogei; whaling), 鯨 (kujira; whale) and 鮭 (saké;
salmon). In the meeting, Hatakeyama used these to try to express some elements of his Ainu world, but the others understood these within what theynormally understand in Japanese society. Hatakeyama wanted to express
something that did not exist in Japanese society, or were subjugated by theJapanese. Further, these words in Japanese inherited the oppressive relationship between the colonizers and the colonized, without anyone being awareof it, including Hatakeyama.
Emotion
The third obstacle was Hatakeyama’s own emotion – that he felt inferior
toward the Japanese people and their modern knowledge backgrounds.
Hatakeyama grew up receiving physical and verbal abuse which imprinted
on him and contributed to his feeling of inferiority. He did not complete hiscompulsory education due to discrimination. Remembering multiple andongoing experiences of discrimination in the school and local community
resulted in his feeling of inferiority toward the Japanese people and thosewith modern educational backgrounds. Even after a few decades since he238

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publicly claimed his Ainu identity, the feeling of inferiority still rankled
Hatakeyama:
I never have the right words to describe my concerns because I do not have an education. It does not matter how many
years have gone by after telling the world I am Ainu. This
thought of “I am stupid” keeps haunting me, even after shaking
it off again and again.
His feeling of inferiority obstructed him from cognizing and expressing
what he felt through his body. Despite the strong confidence that he obtained
through his hard work in his fishing business, Hatakeyama felt inferior to
Wajin (Japanese). He felt fear and anxiety in relation to the Japanese experts
who live their lives by using the skills and knowledge obtained through themodern educational system.
Nature of Knowledge
The fourth obstacle was the nature of the knowledge that predominantly
underpinned the communication, thoughts and the language used forthe discussions of the msn meetings, workshops and seminars. First factor comes from the different nature of knowledges that msn members andHatakeyama had. His knowledge is rather bodily, tacit, local, contextual andpractical. It is in contrast to modern knowledge, which is rational, universal and expressive, which most msn members including myself possessed.
The modern knowledge is superior in general so that it overlooks what is
invisible, unpresented and unspoken. The language for communication andthe place for communication, including workshops, seminars and meetings
are the products of modern knowledge, which naturally makes the modern
knowledge predominate. This allowed the msn members to overlook what
Hatakeyama could not express and to understand literally through the lensof modern Japanese, which meant Hatakeyama could not accurately express
his Ainu world.
The four obstacles blended together, creating an epistemological oppression between those with modern knowledge and those without it in themsn. Once again, none of the msn members had any intention to oppress
him at all; rather, what was present was each member’s sincerity, and allRethinking ESD from the View of an Ainu Fisherman239

of them did their best to try to help Hatakeyama from their own sense ofjustice.
I am such a dumb person. My emotion always comes first before thewords... I often observed Hatakeyama putting himself down in his everyday life. However, his claims were not true. Hatakeyama could not put his
concerns into articulate statements not because of his lack of an academic
background. He was engaging with a very local and historically contextualized knowledge, which was far beyond the understanding, thoughts
and languages of modern knowledge. Furthermore, the power of modern
knowledge placed most msn members’ knowledge and their epistemology
superior to Hatakeyama’s knowledge and his epistemology. In so doing, itdismissed a large part of Hatakeyama’s Ainu world and even re-defined itby the understanding obtained through discussions at the msn. As a result,the msn discussions were sometimes oppressive to Hatakeyama, even in
the process of msn that everyone believed as “participatory” and inclusive.
Rethinking Hatakeyama’s Swing
Hatakeyama’s “swing” emerged while he was struggling to deal with thepower differential between two knowledges and epistemologies; between
modern knowledge and embodied local and indigenous knowledge. He wastrying to cognize what he never cognized before, and to verbalize his cognition that he never verbalized, using the words that underpinned the modern knowledge of the colonizers (Japanese). Even in this process, he still felt
some comfortableness from his resistance against the power that could draghim back into the modern and colonial understanding.
Msn members with modern educational backgrounds and expert
knowledge interpreted Hatakeyama’s concerns and provided advice (drawing on the concepts and approaches within the modern knowledge system,
such as the Japanese legal system or the United Nations Declaration on the
Rights of Indigenous Peoples). Their suggestions did not fully represent
Hatakeyama’s true concerns. Hatakeyama even tried to make every effort tofit into their perspectives – motivated by the nature of his knowledge andhis feeling of inferiority. After a while, he began to feel unsettled because
he felt somewhere in his body that none of the advice fully addressed what
he wanted. It was at this juncture that he would meet yet another expert.
His behavior and conflicted thinking made him look like a pendulum in240

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motion. Like Ogata, Hatakeyama looked for whatever he could to improve
his outcomes but he could not find it in either ideological camp of right orleft. Hatakeyama had struggled with the power differential between theseknowledge paradigms for a long time.
“Translation was never possible” (Atwood, 1986, page 5), even in the“participatory” and “inclusive” msn process. None of msn members, even
Hatakeyama, realized that there was something that could go far beyond
the words in their conversations. Ideas and Weltanschauungen (worldviews)
are only part of the sum of what passes for knowledge (Berger & Luckmann,
1985, pages 26-27). Hatakeyama could express only a part of his “Ainu world”
that arose from the unverbalized daily environment in which he lived. And
then, Hatakeyama’s words were interpreted into a colonizer’s modern
Japanese language and their true meaning lost their accuracy.
“Swing” was the result of him being torn between two knowledges. Hisbehavior represented his struggles in expressing his knowledge when the
power of modern knowledge excluded his knowledge from its understanding. He showed his irritation, anger and desperation when he struggled toexpress his Ainu world - one that he could not articulate or verbalize. From
my experience, critical theory-based approaches could be effective only for
those who share the same languages, ways of communicating and approaches to social change within modern knowledge. This could be an effective approach with most msn members who possessed the modern knowledge andlived in urban cities. But, unfortunately, it was not effective for the few Ainu
people, like Hatakeyama, who were contextualized in their own Ainu world.
Praxis Framework for ESD in a Community Development Context
This paper identified epistemological limitations of the current esd theory,
which cause the oppression of the marginalized individual in terms of place,
language, emotion and nature of knowledge, and suggested the decoloniality lens to surface what the “critical” overlooks. Integrating these findings,
finally, this paper proposes a praxis framework that aims to integrate theory and practice, or reflection and action, for the conscientization and theemancipatory empowerment of the participants for the transformation ofthemselves and the society.
The praxis framework operationalizes the two findings in four steps:

Rethinking ESD from the View of an Ainu Fisherman

•
•
•
•

241

Step 1: “Conscientizing” the limitation of understanding local community problems within an understanding of critical approach to
esd;
Step 2: “Stepping out” from the dominant frame of views andknowledge, which is supported by modern knowledge;
Step 3: “Establishing the epistemology” of marginalized people
from their perspectives; and,Step 4: “Re-engaging” back with dialogue about social change withmajority members.

My experiences as an educator are also incorporated into the praxis
framework. This included the struggles I had in finding a better methodological approach and my pursuit of understanding the real meaning of
knowledge and learning of the Ainu community.

This framework can be used by anyone who is involved in seeking solutions to community problems and to support mutual learning among thestakeholders (which might, for example, include researchers, practitioners,
local residents, marginalized people, and government officials). This framework encourages a mutual learning and reflection process where the diverse
stakeholders have a chance to take a leadership role and to participate inactions for social change.

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Step 1: Conscientization
This step encourages stakeholders who engage in the process of community development to consider three aspects of the knowledge paradigm
upon which the majority people stand. Firstly, it encourages them to understand the oppression and limitations of modern knowledge that causes
the marginalization of particular groups of people, their views and indigenous knowledge. Secondly, it raises an understanding that this modern
knowledge (that supports the majority, critical esd and critical theory) has
epistemological limitations for understanding the knowledges and learning
processes of marginalized people. Thirdly, applying modern knowledge toknow and understand the problems of marginalized people can oppress themarginalized people even further.
The consideration of the epistemological limitation of critical theory
involves the process of “conscientização” (Freire, 1972). Individuals within
the dominant framework need to recognize the epistemological limitationsof the current critical methodological and theoretical frameworks. This
limitation became clearer when I confronted the problem of Hatakeyama’s“swing.” It was elaborated through discussion on the epistemological oppression caused by policy systemic perspective to the view of resisting individual in the Minamata disease research. These frameworks may guidepractitioners and researchers in their engagement with marginalized people
in terms of sustainability. In this process, individuals might acknowledge
that knowledge paradigms exist outside the dominant framework and cannot be fully known and understood solely by remaining within the lens of
the dominant framework.
Step 2: Stepping Out
This step encourages the stakeholders to step out from the knowledge framework that they are familiar with, in terms of the way of knowing and learning the knowledge of marginalized people. Individuals educated within thedominant framework need to set aside their guiding theories and thoughts,
and step out from the dominant social framework to engage with marginalized people. As seen in the arbitration process of the msn, the participatory
workshops, seminars, field surveys and policy advocacies all provided informal learning opportunities but for only those who were familiar with theway of learning and knowledge within the modernity framework.

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243

In a local community development context, the stakeholders need to
be aware of the particular framework that is imposed on them, including
the knowledge framework, social framework and curriculum framework.
It is important for stakeholders to step out from the way of understanding
and knowing that they are familiar with and to step into the context of marginalized people. This is the beginning of decolonizing process for both the
majority and marginalized peoples.
The people from the majority group should attempt to hand over theiragency of knowing and understanding into the hands of the marginalized
people. The experiences in this step can help the modern knowledge holders to re-capture and re-identify the problems of the marginalized people.
In this step, the marginalized people also need to step out from their own
boundaries (such as beliefs of negativity and inferiority of their own values,
images and knowledges) that were borne out of the oppressive relationshipwith the majority.
This step encourages both the educators and the participants to focus
on what is overlooked in the understanding of modern knowledge. It suggests that stakeholders set aside their dominant knowledge, values and waysof knowing and instead immerse themselves in the very real context of themarginalized people. They should seek to experience what the marginalized
people tacitly experienced in their day-to-day lives, if the situation allows.
The approaches taken here may include living in the local community
context and actually experiencing the life of the marginalized people as one.
They should seek to understand and listen to the knowledge of the marginalized people from their perspective. Through this, they will come to understand the totality and complexity of their issues that the marginalized people
experience in their everyday life.
Step 3: Establishing the epistemology of the marginalized
This step encourages the stakeholders and educators to immerse themselvesin the context of the marginalized people. It is required that they distancethemselves from the modern knowledge for a certain period, and provide
them with an opportunity to learn the knowledges and ways of learning of
the marginalized people. The idea of establishing the epistemology of themarginalized people was developed from the Minamata disease experience.
I found that it would be the only way to get close to the real problems of the244

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marginalized people. This meant knowing and understanding their problems from their way of understanding and knowing, or establishing “theirepistemology.” Theoretically, I handed over my guiding theory (critical approach to esd) and agency of knowing to Hatakeyama. In so doing, I immersed myself in Mombetsu local community. This, decoloniality approachbrought to the surface his embodied local/indigenous knowledge and previously unrevealed oppression that he experienced in the “participatory andinclusive” process of msn, in terms of “place,” “language,” “emotion” and “nature of knowledge.”
This step encourages stakeholders to immerse themselves in the context
of the marginalized people. They are encouraged to learn the knowledge,
the problems and ways of understanding from the marginalized people byimmersing themselves into the marginalized people’s community context.
In this step, the stakeholders might come to better conceptualize and understand the plight and perspectives of the marginalized people.
Step 4: Re-engaging back with the multi-stakeholder dialogue
Step 4 facilitates the marginalized people’s re-engaging in a dialogue withmodern knowledge holders. This is based on the established epistemologyof the marginalized people. The marginalized people are encouraged to reengage back with the modern knowledge holders in the dominant social
paradigm. Given the modern knowledge stakeholders now have a better
understanding of the marginalized people’s plight, both parties should be
able to re-engage in dialogue within the modern knowledge paradigm. Thisshould lead to outcomes and solutions to the problems of the marginalized
people.
In an interview with Hatakeyama in 2017, I noticed that there were a
few words that indicated the new beginning of his own personal paradigm
shift, like Ogata. In our conversation, Hatakeyama talked about his dreamof creating a locally based sustainable enterprise on his land that would
connect socially marginalized people in Mombetsu, including Ainu, people
with disability, aged and youth. He believed that creating a space for sustainable fishing, and for socially marginalized people to get together, would
comfort his ancestral spirits’ sleep.
For most msn members, the indigenous fishing rights are about whether
or not the Ainu people would catch something, such as salmon and whales.

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However, what he said to me was more than that. Yes, the government still
does not give him the rights to catch these, but does it mean that there has
already been a recovery of some indigenous rights?
Hatakeyama expressed his thoughts about his indigenous rights in morediverse and richer words than what I had heard in my early involvement withthe msn in 2010. These words were not given to him by the experts. Years of
struggling finally brought him to the landing point that is neither the Rightnor the Left ideological camp. He began to localize himself; to find the rightwords to articulate and even to realize a glimpse of his true Ainu world.
Role of Educator: Cultural Broker and Escort Runner
Throughout the four steps of this praxis, the role of the educator goes beyond what has been recognized in the critical esd literature, where the educator acts more as facilitator and coordinator. In these new roles, linked
to the praxis framework, they could be described as a cultural broker and/or an escort runner. Hereafter, these roles are briefly explained based on
my personal and research experiences, and supported by relevant academic
literature.
At msn, I, as the educator, experienced crossing between two knowledge
systems of modern knowledge and the local knowledge of Hatakeyama. This
experience allowed me to discover the role of the educator in dealing withthese different knowledges. This role of crossing between different knowledge paradigms can be related to the concept of the cultural broker which
has been recognized in the field of community development and social
work. Particularly, this term describes a person who deals with people frommultiple cultural backgrounds and multiple knowledges (see, for example,
Escobar (1991) and Jenkins (2015)). The term is used to describe educators
who are willing to cross over different knowledges, including both dominantmodern knowledge and the knowledge of the marginalized people. They immerse themselves in the knowledge of the marginalized people to understand their epistemology and to reflect this back to the modern knowledge
paradigms, but from the perspective of the marginalized people. They create
the space for dialogue between the majority people and the marginalized
people. They facilitate the discussions during multi-stakeholder dialogues,
with the epistemology of marginalized people. The role of the educator as
described in the praxis framework, as a cultural broker could be further
examined in the literature and investigated in future research.

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The Msn process also helped me to identify that the educator needs togo beyond the role of dealing with different knowledges. In the process of
exploring different knowledge paradigms, educators also act as what I canbest describe as an escort runner, who guide and assist visually impaired
people in running competitions. Escort runners need to have analytical eyes
because they are seeing on behalf of someone else and have to be able tocommunicate instructions to the runner. Therefore, they must have knowledge of the runner, their preferred language, and so on. This is similar to
the role that I played in the journey with Hatakeyama. Despite the conflict
between the two groups of the msn and Hatakeyama’s “swing,” I attempted
to go through the process with Hatakeyama, all throughout my engagementwith msn. Based on my experience, I have described the term escort runner in this research to mean a person who crosses the different knowledges,
shares the experience of the “swing” in crossing different knowledge paradigms with marginalized people, but who maintains an analytical view to
see what is really behind the “swing.” The role of escort runner may include
elements of cultural broker in terms of dealing with multiple knowledges.
However, the role of escort runner is different from the role of cultural broker, in the point that it attempts to understand the learning and knowledge
creation process of the marginalized people from the perspective of themarginalized people. While the role of cultural broker may concern the sensitivity of dealing with different knowledges, however, it still stands on themodern knowledge to understand the problem of the marginalized people(Escobar, 1991; Jenkins, 2015).
In the praxis framework, the two roles of cultural broker and escort
runner are integrated throughout the four steps. The degree of how these
two roles are integrated may vary depending on the stages of practices.
* This article is based on interviews with Hatakeyama and focus group discussions withMSN members from September 2009 to December 2017.

Acknowledgement
I express my appreciation to Mr Satoshi Hatakeyama for allowing me topresent his life struggles in this research.

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Endnote
1 The Ainu people traditionally believed in salmon as one of their gods, aswell as valuing it as their staple food. The assimilation policy banned Ainu people
from hosting Kamuy chep nomi, and the development policy prohibited all Japanese
residents, including the Ainu, from fishing for salmon in the rivers, to protect thecommercial fishing industry.