Environmental Challenges and Planetary Health In East Asia: Sociological Perspectives on Sustainability, Community, and Well-Being

This session examines environmental challenges in East Asia through the interdisciplinary framework of Planetary Health. Planetary Health emphasizes the interconnectedness of human health, social systems, and the natural environment, highlighting the need to reconsider conventional boundaries between society, ecology, and well-being. East Asia provides a particularly important context for such discussions due to its rapid economic development, urbanization, demographic transformation, environmental pollution, climate-related disasters, and growing social inequalities.

The session invites sociological reflections on how environmental change affects everyday life, health, community relationships, and social vulnerability across East Asian societies. Topics may include climate change, disasters, environmental degradation, food systems, aging societies, energy transitions, migration, environmental justice, indigenous and local knowledge, and community-based sustainability practices. Particular attention will be paid to how local cultural values, collective practices, and social institutions shape responses to ecological crises.

The session also welcomes theoretical contributions that critically examine Planetary Health from non-Western and Post-Western sociological perspectives. Rather than treating environmental problems solely as technical or policy issues, this session seeks to understand them as deeply social and ethical questions concerning care, responsibility, inequality, and coexistence between humans and nature.

By bringing together scholars from sociology, environmental studies, public health, disaster studies, and related fields, the session aims to promote interdisciplinary dialogue and contribute to more inclusive and globally relevant understandings of sustainability and human well-being.