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X-WR-CALNAME:Anthropology Colloquium:  Akihiro Ogawa
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Eastern Time (US & Canada)
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DTSTAMP:20260809T072012Z
UID:tag:localist.com\,2008:EventInstance_51223430647521
DTSTART:20260424T190000Z
DTEND:20260424T203000Z
DESCRIPTION:Policy Praxis for Reverse-Engineering Systemic Failure:\n\nRevi
 siting The Failure of Civil Society? (2009) for Redesigning Co-Production 
 Governance\n\nAkihiro Ogawa\, Professor\, University of Melbourne\, Austra
 lia\n\nFifteen years ago\, my award-winning monograph The Failure of Civil
  Society? (2009\; originally submitted as a dissertation to Cornell Univer
 sity Department of Anthropology in 2004) argued that Japan’s Non-Profit 
 Organization (NPO) boom was a state-led project creating “volunteer subj
 ectivity” to mobilize low-cost labor under the guise of co-production. T
 oday\, the dissolution of thousands of NPOs in Japan underscores this stru
 ctural fragility. To address this crisis\, we must move beyond the virtue 
 narrative that assumes NPOs are inherently effective. Instead\, I apply wh
 at I call Policy Praxis through Institutional Reverse-Engineering (Busetti
  2023). Drawing on Critical Failure Studies\, I treat failure not as an ac
 cident but as an “ethnographic category” (Alexander 2023) that reveals
  hidden infrastructures. I reverse-engineer the debris of failed co-produc
 tion—specifically mechanisms of resource dependence and NPO-ization—to
  identify the causal chains that turned citizens into subcontractors. My p
 roject reverses these mechanisms to propose a new model: the Regenerative 
 Co-Production Model\, which replaces state-defined volunteerism with “ci
 vic knowledge” (shimin chi\; Ogawa 2015)—experiential knowledge genera
 ted by citizens to solve community problems independently of state directi
 ves. By redesigning governance to ensure financial independence and advers
 arial co-production\, we can transform civil society from a fragile servic
 e provider into a resilient\, critical innovator. Failure is not an endpoi
 nt\; it is the blueprint for redesign.\n\nBio\n\nAkihiro Ogawa is Professo
 r of Japanese Studies at the Asia Institute\, University of Melbourne\, Au
 stralia. He completed his PhD in Anthropology from Cornell University in 2
 004. Akihiro subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard Unive
 rsity (2004–2006) and taught at Stockholm University\, Sweden (2007–20
 15)\, before taking the current position in 2015. His research focuses on 
 civil society and politics in Japan and Asia\, as well as the anthropology
  of policy. His publications include The Failure of Civil Society? (2009)\
 , Lifelong Learning in Neoliberal Japan (2015)\, and Antinuclear Citizens 
 (2023)\, and edited volumes such as the Routledge Handbook of Civil Societ
 y in Asia (2017) and Varieties of Civil Society Across Asia (2024)\, among
  others. He leads the Asian Civil Society Research Network (https://asianc
 ivilsociety.com/)\, and he is currently on a cross-appointment at Kyoto Un
 iversity as a Research Professor.
LOCATION:120 Mary Ann Wood Drive\, B21
SUMMARY:Anthropology Colloquium:  Akihiro Ogawa
URL;VALUE=URI:https://events.cornell.edu/event/anthropology-colloquium-akih
 iro-ogawa
CATEGORIES:Lecture
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