By Sophia Lumsdaine
Port Townsend is being included in a national research project examining the relationship between local resolutions and US foreign policy — particularly nuclear weapons policy. It is funded by the Carnegie Corp. in New York City, and led by anthropology professor Hirokazu Miyazaki of Northwestern University. Miyazaki visited Port Townsend on June 18 as part of his research.
Miyazaki began the project last fall by examining city resolutions in the Midwest, and is now visiting cities in the Pacific Northwest. Originally from Japan, Miyazaki first became interested in the ways that city governments interact with international foreign policy when he was doing work in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The two cities have been very active over the last 40 years in promoting nuclear weapons abolition and Miyazaki wondered if their example could be applied to other cities. …