“Utopian thought and its lived radical alterity constitute a fruitful avenue for research in the anthropology of the future and social change.”
Teruko Vida Mitsuhara
What We Do
At the Science of Worldbuilding, we research communities that are actively striving to thrive against the odds and doing so through community. Rapid change often creates two opposed vectors of possibility, hope or chaos. At SOW, we strive to cultivate the former making interventions at critical junctures of development, design, and redirection in communities and business.
At the heart of innovation and forward thinking is the sense that life could be – and should be – lived differently. The Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, and global movements for social and environmental justice have led many to not only rethink responses to cycles of crisis but to also redirect the trajectory of crisis towards living a life in line with individual and collective prosperity. This innovative mindset entails reimagining and creating a ‘better normal,’ knowing that the path we’re on now is unsustainable.
We partner with communities and business to help the wider scientific community as well as broader public understand how alternative communities help us all learn how to build healthier, more inclusive societies that foster hope and achievement in many different forms in preparation for life with rapid environmental change and the resulting chronic trauma.
Who We Are
Teruko Vida Mitsuhara, PhD
Anthropologist of Language and Utopia
Founder and President of SOW, Teruko is an anthropologist with 14+ of experience in research and 2+ years in the commercial sector. Specializing in the anthropology of language, utopia, and worldbuilding, Teruko has led longitudinal and multimodal ethnographic research projects for both education and business. Shortly after completing her PhD at UCLA, she began consulting for companies doing market and UX research. She is currently an experience researcher in the Adobe Design Research and Strategy team.
Jan David Hauck, PhD
Anthropologist, Research Analyst
Jan is the Research Manager at SOW with 16+ years of experience in qualitative and mixed methods approaches to social science research. Holding an MA in social anthropology from Free University, Berlin and a PhD in linguistic anthropology from UCLA, his research examines the interface of human behavior, language, cognition, and the environment. He was lead researcher of three longitudinal multidisciplinary, international research projects and is an expert in video-ethnographic data collection and analysis, project management, and optimization of research workflows involving large quantities of behavioral data.