Sustainability Literacy through Japanese Folktales: A Pathway to New Humanism
Abstract
The ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ calls its member states to strive for a sustainable future. A fundamental approach to achieving this objective is advocating ‘sustainability literacy’. Resorting to human interventions: sustainability human factors’ which encompass beliefs, values, attitudes, and behaviors as opposed to non-human interventions is of prime importance in this process. Folktales are a classic carrier of these human factors from one generation to another. Although the importance of storytelling and folktales is well demonstrated in extant literature, studies conducted in a Sri Lankan perspective, focusing on Japanese folktales have been sparse. Hence, this study brings into limelight, the potential of Japanese folktales in promoting sustainability literacy. The versatile nature of folktales to be reproduced into other popular forms like anime, their resemblance to Sri Lankan Jathaka katha justifies the significance of this study. Adopting a qualitative approach, 16 Japanese folktales adapted into Sinhala are subjected to thematic analysis which yielded 5 major themes: T1: Values, T2: References to Buddhism, T3: Beliefs, T4: Fantasy, and T5: Historical references with several sub-themes under them. Traits of characters and moral lessons of the stories illustrate exemplary societal ideals, and the stories are creatively reimagined by disseminating warmth, hope, human touch, care and taste to advocate sustainability human factors. Going beyond the traditional boundaries of ‘new humanism’, we extend its definition by showing how these factors are embedded into the lives of the modern man by relating the stories in an appropriate and innovative language, narrative style and through the incorporation of fanciful, novel, and original illustrations.
