My legacy: an anthropologist who stands up for the happiness of Okinawan fishers
(This article is the English version of the column article published on the Asahi Shimbun GLOBE+ on April 28, 2025.)
The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) is a scientific research institution that attracts diverse talent from around the world. Among them is Dr. Jamila Rodrigues, an anthropologist working with Okinawan fishers to learn their perceptions of local of climate change and to identify the economic, social and environmental factors affecting their happiness. Dr. Rodrigues, whose father is Brazilian and mother is Portuguese, is one of the researchers who embody the transdisciplinarity that takes OIST's multicultural and interdisciplinary nature a step further.
Dr. Rodrigues and her team visited 30 out of the 37 fishing cooperatives in Okinawa Prefecture and collected over 500 survey responses, with the aim of learning how Okinawan fishers perceive climate change and what factors affect their livelihoods and well-being, and as well as to convey their challenges to the government and wider society.
“Instead of scientists asking fishers for cooperation on their own agendas, we plan research together, work together, and find solutions together. This approach is truly transdisciplinary,” says Dr. Rodrigues. As such, she is listening carefully to the voices of fishers and works alongside them to create the research project.
A researcher with an unusual background
Before turning to research, Dr. Rodrigues was a dancer. During her 12-year-long career, she traveled to over 50 countries, meeting people from various cultures which helped her develop an anthropological mindset. However, her career was cut short when she was involved in a serious car accident and was forced to spend six months in bed. Despairing at the thought that she would never be able to return to her life as a dancer, she began to think deeply about the purpose of life and what gives meaning to it.
After completing her PhD in anthropology from the University of Roehampton in the United Kingdom, Dr. Rodrigues was a visiting researcher at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto before joining OIST, from where she is currently researching the perceptions and well-being of fishers.
Why fishers? “The environment in which I was born and raised had a big influence on me,” as she says. Dr. Rodrigues was born and raised between the capital city of Lisbon and a port town in the Alentejo region in southwestern Portugal. While her father was not a professional, he’s been spearfishing all his life, and her relatives were fishers. “I grew up surrounded by fish.”
Meeting the future collaborators
Dr. Rodrigues did not immediately fit in with the fishers when she arrived in Okinawa. Fully aware of the differences in language and culture, Dr. Rodrigues met Mr. Minato Nakaema, head of the Ginoza Village Fishery Cooperative Association, through her friend and ethnologist Mayako Koja from the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts. Mr. Nakaema was interested in Dr. Rodrigues’ research, and helped formulate the questionnaire items and introduced her to the Okinawa Prefectural Federation of Fisheries Cooperative Associations.
It took four months to put together the questionnaire. Together with Mr. Nakaema, she presented it to the fishers and received their feedback, and they reworked it again and again until they were finally satisfied with questionnaire. Then, over the next nine months, they visited fishing cooperatives in various parts of the prefecture to build relationships, ask for cooperation in filling out the questionnaire, and collect the completed forms.
Results and prospects
While collecting survey data, Dr. Rodrigues has already identified a correlation between typhoons and ship accidents. She has also conducted personal interviews with fishers and eaders of fishing cooperatives, discussing diverse issues like the aging population, lack of successors, changes in the flow of the Kuroshio current, poor harvests due to rising sea temperatures, and diplomatic issues. The goal is to use this data for a report that can help policymakers in the Okinawa Prefectural Government and local authorities.
Furthermore, Dr. Rodrigues is working on medium- to long-term plans to return the results of her research to the local community, such as by creating a space where fishers can discuss and share their issues, and by producing a documentary to inform wider audiences, including children, about the current state of the fishing industry.
A big dream: the fisherman's clinic
Dr. Rodrigues dreams of eventually establishing an “uminchu no clinic” (meaning fisher's clinic in the language spoken in Okinawa) where fishermen can freely discuss their concerns. “If the results of my research don't benefit the lives of fishers, then it's meaningless. What I'm aiming for is to empower them so that they can make better choices.”
After a year and a half of this work, she now calls it “my legacy,” and her passion for the project is unwavering. “I don't want to stop this work here. I hope to contribute as much as I can.”
Dr. Jamila Rodorigues -- Profile
Researcher at the Complexity Science and Evolution Unit (Prof. Ulf Dieckmann).
After working as a professional dancer, she received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Roehampton in the United Kingdom and then worked at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto before joining OIST. Her research includes a study of the differences in “ikigai (a reason for living)” between cultures.
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Written by: Tomomi Okubo, Manager of the Media Relations Section, Communication and Public Relations (OIST)
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