Marlboro College Student Research Panel

Marlboro Senior Leni Charbonneau will head a panel of Marlboro students who will present on topics related to their senior research projects.

Leni will present on “Japan and the Ainu: A Spectacle of Sustainability.” Other students’ topics are still in development.

Leni’s lecture will focus on the Japanese government’s recent policies regarding the Ainus which have been carried out under the rubric of Sustainable Development. This lecture uses Japan as a case study to more broadly consider the notion of sustainability within structures of global governance. The talk will situate the implications of this discourse within unfolding events in the country, such as the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Leni’s work deals with how a specific conception of sustainability is folded into spectacular mega-events like the Olympics and what the implications are for people and places over which the concept is imposed. Her talk will shed light on the challenges posed by dominant sustainability-based discourses as they are faced by Ainu activists and communities.

Leni Charbonneau is a senior at Marlboro College, graduating with a Plan of Concentration in Human Geography and Asian Studies. During her time at Marlboro, Leni has been active in the World Studies Program, through which she traveled to conduct research and field work in Northern Japan. Since 2018, she has been a researcher at the Centre for Environmental and Minority Policy Studies based in Sapporo, Japan. With this Centre, she has worked closely with activists and organizations representative of Japan’s Ainu community- the Indigenous peoples of the country’s northernmost island. Through this work, Leni has also worked with transnational Indigenous coalitions, most often assisting with initiatives rooted in Arctic and northern environments. In her academic work, she is interested in the transmission of environmental knowledge across cultures in different geopolitical contexts.