The 14th Workshop on the Creation of Resilient Societies
(Held as part of a mini-workshop in the GSAIS mini-workshop)

Research Group Leader　
Mika Shimizu, Associate Professor

On November 29th, the workshop, entitled “Bricolage of Local Knowledge and Technology in Disaster Management,” brought together students, researchers, and citizens with the latest research and findings through actual online collaborative work.

This workshop focused on the gaps/missing-links between “locally cultivated knowledge (local knowledge) and technology” in disaster prevention, using the approach of “missing-links and design” to design and weave together the gaps using various resources (Shimizu, 2015), which is essential for fostering resilience. The workshop was organized under the leadership of Ryo Tsuchida, a fifth-year doctoral student, GSAIS, who has been involved in this research group for many years. Mr. Ohki, also a forth-year doctoral student, GSAIS, served as moderator, and Dr. Sayama of the Disaster Prevention Research Institute and Dr. Otsuyama, a graduate student of Kyoto University who is currently an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, participated in the workshop as commentators.

Students, researchers, and citizens shared their experiences and actively participated in the workshop, different types of gaps or missing-links were drawn that could only be seen on site. I believe that the workshop embodied a glimpse of the “transdisciplinary research” that this study group has been pursuing. I expect that Mr. Tsuchida will take the insights he gained from the workshop and apply them to the next step in disaster mitigation. By accumulating, reviewing, and taking action on these kinds of activities, we will be able to find a path to better disaster prevention and mitigation that makes the best use of both technology and local knowledge through the collaboration of various stakeholders.