Scholarlink

<p>Anthropogenic climate change is reshaping winter seasonality and threatening the intangible cultural heritage of ice-dependent communities. While Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments increasingly recognize non-economic loss and damage, the mechanisms through which slow-onset climatic change undermines cultural continuity remain insufficiently understood. Existing scholarship often interprets cultural loss through narratives of crisis or rupture, potentially overlooking more gradual transformations in everyday life. This study examines the <i>omiwatari</i> ice tradition at Lake Suwa, Japan, using a descriptive phenomenological framework integrated with Watsuji Tetsuro’s concept of <i>fūdo</i> (climate-geographical milieu). Drawing on longitudinal fieldwork (2019–2025, <i>N</i> = 35), this study shows that cultural loss may unfold as a quiet experiential erosion: a gradual weakening of the embodied and temporal conditions through which winter traditions remain meaningful and transmissible. As direct engagement with ice declines, symbolic and mediated forms of winter traditions become more prominent, but they do not fully replace the sensory foundations of intergenerational transmission. The findings suggest that adaptation limits for ice-dependent winter traditions may emerge before complete physical disappearance, through the erosion of lived experience itself. The paper therefore extends debates on climate-related loss by showing how slow-onset change can destabilize cultural continuity in ways that are incremental, difficult to register, and not always publicly articulated.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Climate change–induced loss of lived winter experience and cultural heritage: a descriptive phenomenology of fūdo in Japan’s omiwatari ice tradition

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月16日

查看全文
  • Yoshimi Fukumura

摘要

Anthropogenic climate change is reshaping winter seasonality and threatening the intangible cultural heritage of ice-dependent communities. While Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessments increasingly recognize non-economic loss and damage, the mechanisms through which slow-onset climatic change undermines cultural continuity remain insufficiently understood. Existing scholarship often interprets cultural loss through narratives of crisis or rupture, potentially overlooking more gradual transformations in everyday life. This study examines the omiwatari ice tradition at Lake Suwa, Japan, using a descriptive phenomenological framework integrated with Watsuji Tetsuro’s concept of fūdo (climate-geographical milieu). Drawing on longitudinal fieldwork (2019–2025, N = 35), this study shows that cultural loss may unfold as a quiet experiential erosion: a gradual weakening of the embodied and temporal conditions through which winter traditions remain meaningful and transmissible. As direct engagement with ice declines, symbolic and mediated forms of winter traditions become more prominent, but they do not fully replace the sensory foundations of intergenerational transmission. The findings suggest that adaptation limits for ice-dependent winter traditions may emerge before complete physical disappearance, through the erosion of lived experience itself. The paper therefore extends debates on climate-related loss by showing how slow-onset change can destabilize cultural continuity in ways that are incremental, difficult to register, and not always publicly articulated.