Japan’s New Ruralities: Coping with Decline in the Periphery [1 ed.] 9780367341053, 9780367354183, 9780429331268

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JAPAN’S NEW RURALITIES

Seeking to challenge negative perceptions within Japanese media and politics on the future of the countryside, the contributors to this book present a counterargument to the inevitable demise of rural society. Contrary to the dominant argument, which holds outmigration and demographic hyper-aging as primarily responsible for rural decline, this book highlights the spatial dimension of power differences behind uneven development in contemporary Japan. Including many fieldwork-based case studies, the chapters discuss topics such as corporate farming, local energy systems and public healthcare, examining the constraints and possibilities of rural self-determination under the centripetal impact of forces located both in and outside of the country. Focusing on asymmetries of power to explore regional autonomy and heteronomy, it also examines “peripheralization” and the “global countryside,” two recent theoretical contributions to the field, as a common framework. Japan’s New Ruralities addresses the complexity of rural decline in the context of debates on globalization and power differences. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars of sociology, anthropology, human geography and politics, as well as Japanese Studies. Wolfram Manzenreiter is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. His research interest in the social outcomes of globalization is documented in Sport and Body Politics in Japan (Routledge, 2014) and the co-edited volume on Happiness and the Good Life in Japan (Routledge, 2017). Ralph Lützeler is Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. His relevant publications include the co-edited volume Imploding Populations in Japan and Germany: A Comparison (2011) and other papers on demographic change and its regional implications in rural and urban areas of Japan. Sebastian Polak-Rottmann is a PhD student, researcher and lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna, Austria. His research focuses on private security companies, political participation and well-being in Japan.

Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series Editors: Roger Goodman Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, Fellow, St Antony’s College J.A.A. Stockwin Formerly Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies and former Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College

Japan’s World Power Assessment, Outlook and Vision Edited by Guibourg Delamotte Friendship and Work Culture of Women Managers in Japan Tokyo After Ten Swee-Lin Ho The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature Metaphors of Christianity Massimiliano Tomasi Understanding Japanese Society Fifth edition Joy Hendry Japan and the New Silk Road Diplomacy, Development and Connectivity Nikolay Murashkin The Liberal Democratic Party of Japan The Realities of ‘Power’ Nakakita Kōji Japan’s New Ruralities Coping with Decline in the Periphery Edited by Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/NissanInstitute-Routledge-Japanese-Studies/book-series/SE0022

JAPAN’S NEW RURALITIES Coping with Decline in the Periphery

Edited by Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler and Sebastian PolakRottmann to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-367-34105-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-35418-3 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-33126-8 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of Figures List of Tables List of Contributors Series editors’ preface Preface and acknowledgments   1 Introduction: Japan’s new ruralities Ralph Lützeler,Wolfram Manzenreiter and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann

viii x xi xvi xviii 1

PART I

Transformations in the primary sector

25

  2 From agribusiness to deer hunter: “placing” food industrialization and multispecies health in Tokachi, Hokkaido Paul Hansen

27

  3 Corporatization as hybridization in rural Japan: the case of Iwasaka in Shiga Prefecture Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba

48

  4 Sea pineapples in troubled waters: on the local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt (hoya) industry in the aftermath of the 3.11 disaster Johannes Wilhelm

65

vi Contents

  5 Reclaiming the global countryside? Decline and diversification in Saga Genkai coastal fisheries Sonja Ganseforth

82

PART II

Political innovations in rural Japan

101

  6 Local renewables: Japan’s energy transformation and its potential for the remaking of rural communities Thomas Feldhoff and Daniel Kremers

103

  7 Empowering rural cooperation: effects of agricultural policy intervention on rural social capital Shinya Ueno,Toshiki Ōsuga and Wolfram Manzenreiter

124

  8 Sustaining healthcare in Japan’s regions: the introduction of telehealth networks Susanne Brucksch

140

  9 Regional revitalization as a contested arena: promoting wine tourism in Yamanashi Hanno Jentzsch

159

PART III

New residents in the countryside

175

10 Has the island lure reached Japan? Remote islands between tourism boom, new residents, and fatal depopulation Carolin Funck

177

11 Fluidity in rural Japan: how lifestyle migration and social movements contribute to the preservation of traditional ways of life on Iwaishima Shunsuke Takeda

196

12 Nai mono wa nai—challenging and subverting rural peripheralization? Decline and revival in a remote island town Ludgera Lewerich

212

13 Embracing the periphery: urbanites’ motivations for relocating to rural Japan Cornelia Reiher

230

Contents  vii

PART IV

Conceptual interventions for a new understanding of rural Japan

245

14 Reinventing rurality: hybridity and socio-spatial depolarization in northern Japan John W. Traphagan

247

15 Rereading the changing Japanese rural peripheries: new approaches and actors for the future Tolga Özşen

262

16 Environmental activity gaps and how to fill them: rural depopulation and wildlife encroachment in Japan John Knight

276

17 Epilogue: Think global, act peripheral in Japan’s new ruralities Sebastian Polak-Rottmann, Ralph Lützeler and Wolfram Manzenreiter

295

Index302

FIGURES

  1.1 Case study areas of this volume 13   2.1 Taishō migration promotion posters highlighting Tokachi as a place of individuated opportunity and alternative agriculture 31   2.2 Large-scale forestry in the “Gensan” area circa 1955 32   2.3 A bird’s eye view of a rotary parlor 35   2.4 A pamphlet “suggesting” how to be a good Hokkaido hunter that is clearly geared toward trying to attract younger and female practitioners39   2.5 Hunters processing after a morning out hunting 41   3.1 Paddy field in Iwasaka 55   3.2 Office and greenhouses of Shimada Farm 57   4.1 Production value and share of cultivation fisheries (1960–2016) 69   4.2 Primary fisheries by type (2013) 70   4.3 Age structure in Sanriku’s fisheries companies and their average size by age groups and gender (2013) 71   4.4 Sea squirt production in South Korea (weight and value) 74   4.5 Persons with a hoyapai at a local festival 75   4.6 Comic foreground for visitor’s photographs (kao-paneru) of Hoyabōya in the port area of Kesennuma 76   5.1 Fishing village at the Genkai Sea 85   5.2 Local morning market at the Genkai Sea 88   6.1 Cumulative operational renewable energy capacity certified under FiT 109   6.2 Renewable energy self-sufficiency at the prefectural level (electricity for private household, business and agricultural use, excluding large-scale hydro) 110   6.3 Japan’s energy and electricity self-sufficient municipalities 2012–2017 111

Figures  ix

  6.4 Structure of Japan’s total primary energy supply in F.Y. 2010 and 2016 112   7.1 Social capital and community size, 2006 and 2016 130   7.2 Trends in the changes of social capital mean values by size of community131   7.3 Correlations between all social capital values in 2006 and 2016 135   8.1 Basic scheme of the ism-Link network of Iida City and the Shimoina District 150   8.2 Demographic forecast for Fukui Prefecture (changes between 2015 and 2030) 151   8.3 Basic scheme of Fukui Medical Net 153 10.1 Number of islands visited in Japan or abroad for purposes other than work 182 10.2 What is your image of islands? 184 10.3 Have you ever thought about moving to an island? (percent of respondents)184 10.4 Population and visitor numbers in Yakushima 186 10.5 Population and visitor numbers in Naoshima 188 12.1 Hishiura port with the Kinnyamonya Center in the background 219 14.1 Gelato shop located across from hay fields that are farmed to feed local cows 253 15.1 Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method (TSAM), steps 1–4 266 15.2 List of the social and economic issues of households, step 5 266 15.3 Average distance of out-migrated descendants from their hometowns by region 269

TABLES

  4.1 Sea squirt production and share by prefectures, 2007–2015 (in tons and percent)   4.2 Sea squirt exports (in tons and percent) 10.1 Which of these islands have you visited, which do you want to visit, which have you heard the name of? (percent of respondents) 15.1 Frequency of support activities of out-migrated descendants (in percent)

72 73 183 270

CONTRIBUTORS

Susanne Brucksch is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. She spent two years in Japan with a MEXT and DIJ scholarship conducting research for her dissertation on “Environmental Collaboration between Business Companies and Civil Society Organisations in Japan.” Between 2009 and 2016, she worked as a senior research fellow at Freie Universität Berlin. In 2016, she was a visiting researcher at Waseda University where she collected data for her current research on “Technical Innovation and Research Collaboration in Japan: The Biomedical Engineering Sector.” She is also Head of the Technology Section of the German Association for Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF). Thomas Feldhoff is Full Professor of Human Geography at the Department of Geography, Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany). His research focuses on “material political geographies” (geo-resources and sustainability, energy sector transformations, geopolitics, area studies in transnational perspective) and “space and place in public policy” (understanding institutions, policymaking processes and policy outcomes in spatially relevant policy areas, sustainable urban and regional development). Carolin Funck is Professor of Human Geography at the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University. Her research focuses on the development of tourism in Japan and the rejuvenation of mature tourist destinations; local development and citizen participation are her second theme of interest. She is the author of Tourism and Periphery in Japan (1999) and co-editor of Living Cities in Japan (Routledge, 2007). Sonja Ganseforth is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. She has received her doctorate from the University of

xii Contributors

Leipzig and the DFG graduate school “Critical Junctures of Globalization” after studying Arab Studies, Japanese Studies, and German as a Foreign Language in Leipzig, Kyoto and Damascus for her Master’s degree. Her dissertation dealt with Japanese development politics in the Middle East and was published with Transcript in 2016. Her main research interests include critical studies of development, the social and economic geography of the globalization of agri-food systems, rural livelihoods, maritime territoriality, property rights in natural resources and the political ecology of food. At the DIJ Tokyo, she is conducting research on Japanese fisheries in the context of major global transformations. Paul Hansen is Specially Appointed Professor in the Department of Media and Communication at Hokkaido University, Japan. He completed a PhD in anthropology at the University of London’s SOAS, post-doctoral research based at Hokkaido University and The Japanese Museum of Ethnology and has lectured in anthropology at the University of Calgary and Tsukuba University. His research focuses on animal-human-technology relationships and the embodied, ethical, and affective permutations of such interrelations in Japan and Jamaica. Recent publications include Escaping Japan: Reflections on Estrangement and Exile in the TwentyFirst Century, a co-edited book with Blai Guarné (Routledge, 2018), “Linking Cosmopolitan and Multispecies Touch in Contemporary Japan,” a 2018 article in Japan Forum, and a co-edited and ongoing blog with Gergely Mohacsi and Émile St. Pierre entitled More-Than-Human Worlds hosted by the Journal NatureCulture. Haruhiko Iba is Associate Professor of Agricultural Economics at Kyoto University. His principal areas of research and teaching include farm management and farmers’ organizations. He has been studying farming organizations especially in remote and disadvantaged rural areas and the tensions between efficiency and sustainability goals in their activities. Hanno Jentzsch is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. He received his PhD from the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2016, where he was a member of the DFG Research Training Group “Risk and East Asia.” His upcoming book analyzes the process of institutional change in the Japanese agricultural support and protection regime. His research interests include processes of institutional change in advanced political economies, varieties of capitalism, urban-rural relations, and agricultural politics. John Knight is a reader with the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast. He completed his doctorate at the London School of Economics on the topic of depopulation and social change in Japanese mountain villages. He has undertaken extensive field research in rural Japan on a range of topics, including migration, forestry, farming, and tourism. His main area of research is human-animal relations, including sportive hunting, wildlife pests, and the use of animals in tourism. His most recent field research has been on Japanese monkey parks as sites of primatology and tourism.

Contributors  xiii

Daniel Kremers is a senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. He holds a PhD in Japanese Studies from Martin-LutherUniversity Halle-Wittenberg. In his dissertation research he investigated the influence of advocacy and lobbying on Japan’s immigration policy by conducting a case study on the Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). As a member of the DIJ project “Risks and Opportunities in Japan,” he currently focuses on strategies of production and consumption of renewable energies on the local level. His main research interests include civil society, public opinion and political participation, equality and workers’ rights as well as international relations and the history of ideas. Ludgera Lewerich is a lecturer and research associate at the Department of Modern Japanese Studies, Heinrich-Heine University Düsseldorf. She is co-editor of the volume Old Age Dementia and Local Welfare: A German-Japanese Comparison (2018). Her research mainly focuses on contemporary rural Japan, the aging society in Germany and Japan, and the Korean diaspora. She is currently pursuing a PhD on urban-rural migration narratives in the context of national revitalization discourses. Ralph Lützeler is Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. He received a PhD in geography and completed a habilitation degree in Japanese studies. His main research fields are population geography as well as urban and rural change in Japan. Recent publications related to the topic of this volume include the co-edited volume on Imploding Populations in Japan and Germany: A Comparison (Brill, 2011), and the volume chapter “The urban-rural divide in Japan: A matter of social inequality?” (Routledge [Chiavacci and Hommerich], 2017). Wolfram Manzenreiter is Professor of Japanese Studies at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna where he teaches modern Japanese society. His research is mostly concerned with social and anthropological aspects of sports, popular culture, labor and migration in a globalizing world. Currently he serves on the Editorial Boards of Contemporary Japan, Asiatique Etudes, and the Asia Pacific Journal of Sports Studies. Recent publications include the monograph Sports and Body Politics in Japan (Routledge, 2014), the co-edited volumes on Happiness and the Good Life in Japan and Life Course, Happiness and Well-being in Japan (both Routledge, 2017), and the special issues on Squared Diaspora: Representations of the Japanese Diaspora across Time and Space and Rural Japan Revisited (both with Contemporary Japan in 2017). Currently he is working on projects related to issues of rural Japan and the Tokyo Olympics. Toshiki Ōsuga is Assistant Section Chief of the Design and Planning Section, Infrastructure Development Division, Rural Development Bureau, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries ( Japan). Prior to joining the ministry, he was working for the Japan Institute of Irrigation and Drainage, Tokyo.

xiv Contributors

Tolga Özşen is Associate Professor of Japanese Studies at the Department of Japanese Language Teaching ( JLT) at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (COMU), Turkey. He completed his BA in JLT studies at COMU. As recipient of a MEXT scholarship, he completed his MA and PhD studies at Kumamoto University, specializing in rural community issues of Japan. His research interests mainly focus on Japanese community issues and Japanese sociolinguistics. He is a member of several national and international association such as the European Association of Japanese Studies (EAJS), Japan Anthropology Workshop ( JAWS), The Japanese Studies Association in Turkey ( JAD), and one of the founding members of the Japanese Language & Culture Research and Application Center ( JADKAM). He started Kendō in Japan and has been practicing Kendō for 14 years (3rd Dan). Sebastian Polak-Rottmann is a PhD student, researcher and lecturer at the Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna. His research focuses on private security companies, political participation, and well-being in Japan. He is currently working on a multi-disciplinary project about subjective well-being and social capital in rural Japan funded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. In his dissertation, he examines the well-being of citizens who actively participate in local community affairs in southwestern Japan. Cornelia Reiher is Assistant Professor for Japanese Society at Freie Universität Berlin. She studied Japanese studies, political science, and media and communication studies in Berlin and Leipzig. After graduating with an MA in Japanese Studies, she worked as a coordinator for international relations with the JET Program in Saga Prefecture. From 2007 to 2011, she was a doctoral fellow at the DFG Graduate Research Training Group “Critical Junctures of Globalization” at Leipzig University and received her PhD with a thesis on local identity and rural revitalization in Japan that was published as a book in 2014. Her current research focuses on food safety, the global agri-food system, (culinary) globalization, food policies and rural areas in Japan. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume on Contested Food: Production,Trade and Consumption of Food in Global Contexts (2015) and journal articles on food safety in Japan Forum, Contemporary Japan, and The German Journal on Contemporary Asia. Kiyohiko Sakamoto is Associate Professor of Sociology at Ryukoku University, Japan. He holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Kentucky. His previous research focused on the role of science and technology in agri-food sectors and rural development in the Americas and Japan. His recent studies center on neoliberal governmentality and its consequences for rural areas. Shunsuke Takeda is Associate Professor at the University of Shiga Prefecture. He obtained his PhD in sociology from the University of Tokyo. His research interests focus on social structures of local communities, succession and revitalization of intangible cultural heritages, and local media in Japan. His recent publications

Contributors  xv

include Komonzu to shite no toshi sairei: Nagahama Hikiyama matsuri no toshi shakaigaku [Folk festival as local commons in a traditional city: Sociological inquiry on the Hikiyama Festival in Nagahama] (Shinyōsha, 2019). John W. Traphagan is Professor and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of numerous articles and books related to Japanese culture including Taming Oblivion: Aging Bodies and the Fear of Senility in Japan (2000); The Practice of Concern: Ritual,Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan (2004); and his most recent book related to Japan, Rethinking Autonomy: A Critique of Principlism in Biomedical Ethics (2013). Shinya Ueno is Professor at the Kumamoto Innovative Development Organization at Kumamoto University, Japan, where he has been a faculty member since 2001. He is also Professor at the Graduate School of Social and Cultural Sciences. Ueno completed his PhD at Kyushu University. His research interests lie in the area of political science and public policies. Currently, he is studying the Minamata disease problem and rural areas’ development policies (the role of social capital and social networks in particular). He has collaborated actively with researchers in several other disciplines of social science, medical science, geography, and engineering. He has served as a public official at the Kumamoto Prefectural Government from 1979 to 2001. He has worked in various departments such as Social Welfare Division, Tokyo Office; Governor’s Office at the State of Montana in the US; International Affairs Division; and Attracting of Business Division. Johannes Wilhelm is currently a researcher at Kumamoto University, Japan. In the past he worked in several positions at the University of Bonn, Akita University, University of Vienna and at Keiō University. He received his PhD at Bonn University in 2009. His main studies focus on the relationship between nature and society. His interests include fisheries, pastures in mountainous regions, and rural areas as much as general phenomena in society such as radicalism, migration, and social vulnerability.

SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE

The Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies series was established in 1986 and has published since then well over 100 volumes. It set out to foster an informed and balanced—but not uncritical—understanding of Japan. One aim of the series has been to show the depth and variety of Japanese institutions, practices and ideas. Another has been, by using comparisons, to see what lessons, positive and negative, may be drawn for other countries.The tendency in commentary on Japan to resort to outdated, ill-informed or sensational stereotypes still remains, and it needs to be combatted. The latest volume in this series meets all of these objectives admirably. The depopulation of Japan’s rural communities has been the subject of academic studies for well over 50 years. The assumption that many such communities are on the verge of extinction has become constantly repeated and the idea that they face an increasingly bleak future taken for granted. And yet, as the editors of this volume point out, cases of rural communities in Japan disappearing completely are actually very rare indeed. This book sets out to explore the sources of resilience of such communities and why predictions of their extinction have so consistently proven wrong. In order to answer these conundrums, the editors apply a wide panoply of social science method and theory. For example, as the various chapters in the book show, one can only really understand the experiences of (and potential futures for) rural communities in Japan through an examination that combines an analysis of both structure and agency: structure in the sense of looking at the impact of macro forces such as globalization, neo-liberalism and demographic change on such communities; agency in the sense that different communities (and individuals within those communities) react differently to those structural pressures. It is indeed the wide variety of reactions that leads the editors to conclude that there is no such thing as “rural Japan,” only the wide range of “Japanese ruralities” that they refer to in the title of

Series editors’ preface  xvii

the book. As they show, it has been the almost total focus on structure in previous analyses (often applied in functionalist, essentialist and ahistorical ways) that has led to such negative perceptions of the future of these communities; the inclusion of agency allows us to see the multiple, often positive, ways in which many of them have adapted to their new realities. While all the chapters in this volume are situated in the theoretical nexus of the effects of structure and agency on rural communities, they also provide a great deal of fascinating ethnographic data about those communities. Indeed, it is these portraits of rural Japan that will probably best survive the test of time and serve as important reminders in decades to come of what they looked like in the 2010s when they will have changed again in multiple ways.The editors are to be congratulated, therefore, on bringing together such a high quality set of qualitative social scientists who could provide the data to enlarge their theoretical positions, while the contributors are to be congratulated on being prepared to situate their material in these wider frameworks. The net result, we believe, is to steer the study of rural Japan away from the cul-de-sac of the past half-century of reporting on decline and loss and instead see it as a set of fascinating responses to a range of common challenges. Not only should we be grateful to those who have produced this book for putting the study of rural Japan back on the academic agenda of Japanese studies, but this celebration of social resilience deserves to be used as a model for the study of rural communities in other parts of the world. Roger Goodman Arthur Stockwin October 2019, Oxford

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Rural Japan featured high on the agenda of the early years of social science research on Japanese society.Well into the 1960s and until the 1970s, ethnography and community studies were the prevailing methodological approaches to understanding Japan. As Japan changed from agrarian to industrial and postindustrial society, however, rural Japan nearly vanished from the Western research agenda. As metropolitan Japan provided the spatial background for cultural innovation and social dynamism, the countryside tended to be seen as traditional and irrelevant—if not backward and resistant to change—and increasingly as problematic. Particularly the cityscape of Tokyo, the epitome of the Asian mega-city, has shaped the popular imagination of Japan from abroad to an extent that the countryside, if seen at all, acquires all qualities of a museum or cultural repository of the past. This book is a reminder that millions of Japanese continue to dwell in distinctively different social spaces located in the periphery. Paying attention to the changing faces of the “rural imaginary” and the plurality of lifeways in late-modern society, researchers at the University of Vienna developed a new research focus in 2015 to deal with aspects of regionality beyond metropolitan Japan and exploit the methodological advantages of Community Studies and interdisciplinarity. Together with collaborators from Japanese universities and our own students, we have been conducting fieldwork, questionnaire surveys, and interview research in the Aso region in central Kyushu to explore the multifaceted relationship between social institutions and subjective well-being in peripheral regions. In regard to the choice of area and method, we continued the tradition of the Vienna School of Japan Studies that originated in a joint research project by Alexander Slawik, Josef Kreiner, Erich Pauer, Sepp Linhart, and others in the same region more than 50 years ago. This first Aso project was crucial to the development of Japanese Studies in Europe as the beginning of a novel form of Japanese Studies, founded in cultural and social sciences, evolving alongside the existing

Preface and acknowledgments  xix

philological tradition. It focused on the local social and cultural conditions, and it was characterized by a strong historical and ethnological orientation. The relative remoteness of the volcanic Aso basin favored such an approach of Japan through the lens of a region.Yet the project team examined a version of Japanese society on the verge of vanishing and failed to consider the structural linkage with the political economy of Japan’s emergence as an economic super power. The Aso 2.0 project nowadays examines the same area again but this time as an example region for the many problems and also opportunities that exist in rural areas, not only in Japan but increasingly also in Western and Central Europe. We are thankful for the many encounters and exchanges we had over the past four years with our intellectual collaborators, some of whom are included in this volume. We want to thank all who made it into the book or into one of the workshops and conferences we have organized in the process of Aso 2.0 for their dedication to our joint research interests in an academic field that has been unfashionable for a long period of time. We are happy about the partnerships that we established with the Regional Policy Center at the University of Kumamoto and the German Institute of Japanese Studies (DIJ) Tokyo. We appreciate that the German Association of Social Science Research on Japan (VSJF) entrusted us with hosting the VSJF 2017 conference on “Rural Japan Revisited,” which laid the foundation for this edited volume. Thanks to our main sponsors along the road, including the Japan Foundation, the Austrian Chambers of Commerce (WKO), the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, the City of Vienna, and Taylor & Francis. We are grateful for the tireless efforts of many helpers at this early stage, including our students and colleagues at the Department of East Asian Studies, in particular Theresa Aichinger, Angela Kramer, and Philipp Unterköfler for creativity input, administrative help, and technical support. We also want to thank the editors of the Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies series, Roger Goodman and J.A.A. Stockwin, who right from the beginning encouraged us to publish with the series. Thanks are due also to the anonymous reviewers for encouragement and helpful suggestions and to Stephanie Rogers and Georgina Bishop from Routledge for their full-hearted support and professional attitude. Thanks to Ada St. Laurent for her valuable support in language editing. Many thanks also to Charlotte Stickler for compiling the index. Most thanks go to our friends, gate-keepers, and informants on the ground in Aso whose voices are not yet represented in this volume but will be for sure in publications to come. It is to you and your communities that we dedicate this publication. Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler, and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann Vienna

1 INTRODUCTION Japan’s new ruralities Ralph Lützeler, Wolfram Manzenreiter and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann

From depopulation to degrowth When Masuda Hiroya, a former Minister of Internal Affairs and Governor of Iwate Prefecture, wrote in a much-discussed 2014 report called Chihō shōmetsu (The disappearance of the regions) that approximately half of all Japanese municipalities will disappear within this century if no immediate countermeasures are taken, his appeal, albeit highly dramatic, was in step with half a century of research on rural areas in Japan. The term kaso chiiki (lit.: too-sparsely populated regions) was created in the 1960s as a regional policy term when out-migration from rural areas reached dramatic proportions. It refers to areas with heavy population losses and consequent demographic aging far above the national average. Thus, rural areas in Japan have long been considered threatened by regression or even extinction. More recently, an acute lack of fiscal resources, giving rise to a strong municipal dependence on fiscal transfers from the central government, has been added as an indicator defining kaso areas (see Sōmushō 2016). Areas designated as kaso chiiki can be found throughout Japan, covering almost 60 percent of the territory.While mountainous areas and small, remote islands are particularly affected, the phenomenon has now reached the plains, where medium- and small-sized cities began showing signs of depopulation starting in the 2000s (Odagiri 2011: 7–10). Distance from major metropolitan hubs such as Tokyo, Osaka, or Nagoya appears to be the only factor affecting the distribution pattern of kaso areas. There are no differences in frequency between macro-regions such as northeastern or southwestern Japan. Starting with a study by Sakaguchi (1966) on deserted small settlements on Tango Peninsula (Kyoto Prefecture) and an account by Nomura (1966) on structural changes in a mountain village in Nara Prefecture, Japanese social scientists, too, turned their attention to the depopulation problem, contributing to what has

2  Ralph Lützeler et al.

become an enormous quantity of mostly case-study research on kaso settlements (see Tsutsumi 2015: 3–8, 40–49 for a detailed review of Japanese kaso studies).While this research produced a wealth of detailed knowledge, surprisingly few studies have used the findings in developing theoretical concepts or general conclusions about the future of kaso areas. One exception is a three-stage model evolved by Norimoto (1981), postulating a transition from heavy out-migration (Stage 1) and the disappearance of elderly farmers (Stage 2) to the disappearance of main families (honke) and core farming households (Stage 3). During the first decade of this century, the term genkai shūraku or “marginal settlement,” coined by the sociologist Ōno Akira in 1991 and popularized in a 2005 publication by the same author, started to gradually replace kaso chiiki as the most frequently used catchword for pointing at rural decline. Genkai shūraku are defined as settlements where more than 50 percent of the population are aged 65 or older, which seems to indicate that the settlements are destined to disappear soon. Hamlets where the share of people aged 55 years or older exceeds the 50 percent threshold are termed “semi-marginal settlements” ( jun genkai shūraku), as they will most likely follow the fully marginal settlements in their path toward abandonment (see Yamashita 2012: 25–26). In short, significant parts of the research community as well as politicians concur in predicting a bleak future for many Japanese rural areas. But is this assessment a foregone conclusion? It is true that Japan’s rural areas are undeniably riddled with grave structural problems, including economic and demographic decline. With sources of livelihood stagnating or dwindling in the countryside, the young have flocked to the cities for decades. In 2015, when the most recent population census was taken, 13 out of 47 prefectures, all of them rural, had a proportion of people aged 65 or older that exceeded 30 percent (with the national average at 26.6%). Such high aging rates are contributing to the phenomenon that, in rural areas, there are currently more deaths than births. This has become the primary direct reason for population decline, though net migration remains negative as well. Out of 1,719 municipalities in Japan, no fewer than 1,419 (82.5%) recorded a population loss in the period 2010–2015. Among them, 230 towns and villages lost more than ten percent of their inhabitants. Compared to the period 2005–2010, this was an increase of 80 municipalities affected by rapid population decline (Sōmushō Tōkeikyoku 2016: 14–15, 23). Economic change has been no less dramatic. In rural areas, only a minority of people who are employed still make a living from agriculture alone. Most of them are aged subsistence farmers or members of households that earn the majority of their income in construction work or manufacturing, working only part time in agriculture. Due to the offshoring of manufacturing jobs to Mainland Asia and expenditure cuts on public construction projects, many farm households have recently seen a substantial drop in gross income (Odagiri 2011: 14–16). A major problem among numerous studies that highlight rural decline comes from reaching conclusions primarily through cursory analyses of only a few structural indicators in almost the same manner as in the preceding paragraph. Several

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scholars have recently challenged, or at least modified, the “dissolving-rural-areas” hypothesis, inter alia pointing to the fact that even among rural settlements or hamlets (shūraku), usually including no more than about 100 households but often fewer than 20, cases of total dissolution are still extremely rare. High aging rates in such small settlements can be reversed; they are not necessarily a harbinger of village desertion (Yamashita 2012). Others have suggested that many out-migrants keep social contacts with their home village because most of them stay in the region (Özşen and Tokuno 2008; Tokuno 2007). In his study of a rural community in Miyagi Prefecture in the Tōhoku region two decades ago, Sakuma (1999) found that elderly households are supported by their out-migrated children and not by their (remaining) neighbors, rendering population decrease and aging somewhat negligible factors in the survival of village functions, at least to a certain point. This view was somewhat qualified by Niinuma (2009), whose survey of a community in the rural outskirts of Tokyo Prefecture revealed that children living apart from their parents are usually willing but not able to maintain the management of their parents’ land and housing. A second line of counterargument centers on the fact that some underconsidered quality-of-life indicators, such as levels of health, safety, or subjective wellbeing, point to a more favorable situation in at least some rural areas (Manzenreiter 2018). According to Japanese life table statistics regularly published by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (2017), in 2015 the regional pattern of life expectancy at birth for both sexes showed no correspondence to the urbanrural divide, being lowest in rural Aomori Prefecture but highest in equally rural Nagano Prefecture. Likewise, the level of subjective wellbeing as measured by the CEL Enerugī Bunka Kenkyūsho ([2011]) was found to be lowest in rural prefectures such as Akita, Miyazaki,Tokushima, and Tottori but highest in the no less rural prefectures of Nagasaki and Kumamoto (Lützeler 2018: 20–21). Third, as the terms kaso chiiki or genkai shūraku imply, public attention is focused on demographic aging or shrinkage, thus neglecting economic decline as the prime cause of rural difficulties. This might have contributed to the fact that most studies have not considered Japan’s integration into the world economy, seeing rural decline as solely a nationally induced problem. In contrast, international research on rural decline, including studies by Japanese scholars, has long since elaborated on the existence of a vicious circle or downward spiral (Schramm et al. 1981: 10–11; Taira 2005: 72–77; Tsutsumi 2015: 40–45), with economic decline triggering net migration losses among young adults. This in turn leads to population aging and eroding fiscal resources in municipalities, which are then forced to discontinue services, thereby damaging the attractiveness of the region for citizens and businesses and reinforcing migration losses.

Peripheralization Peripheralization as an alternative approach brings in (trans-)national power relations as the basic factor that keeps the downward spiral in full swing. It draws

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heavily from concepts such as dependency theory (Senghaas 1974) and worldsystem theory (Wallerstein 1974), differing only insofar as it emphasizes spatially uneven development within industrialized or newly industrializing countries rather than developmental gaps between the Global North and South (Fischer-Tahir and Naumann 2013: 11–14). Peripheralization means that specific areas, most but not all of them rural, are being disconnected from economic and social development because of their dependence on political and economic decisions made in the centers of power; i.e., where central political institutions and corporation headquarters are located. Since “capitalism requires uneven spatial development for profitable accumulation” (Hadjimichalis 1987: 86), the rise of neoliberalism and the ensuing increase in excessive global competition since the 1980s have greatly accelerated this trend in many industrialized countries, the formerly socialist states in Eastern Europe in particular. In the wake of this process—often aggravated by national political decisions to transform or further develop the capital city into a global economic hub—peripheral regions have become affected by a new wave of high outmigration of the young and skilled, increasing poverty levels among the remaining elderly and less-skilled population, physical disconnection from jobs and other opportunities through the discontinuation of services including public transport, and stigmatization, for instance through media reports discussing the “bad” condition of those areas (Bürk 2013: 170–171; Fischer-Tahir and Naumann 2013: 20–21). In Japan, historians in particular have long characterized the Tōhoku region as an “internal colony,” a fact recently discussed by Hopson (2013) with reference to the triple disaster that exposed Tōhoku as a popular location for “NIMBY” (Not In My Back Yard) facilities such as outmoded nuclear power plants. The affinity between the concepts of “internal colony” and “peripheralization” is more than obvious. However, to the best of our knowledge, so far no Japanese scholar specializing in rural areas research has taken up the concept of peripheralization as such, perhaps because it has been mostly employed by researchers from the European continent (German-speaking countries in particular) and remains less common in English-speaking countries. Rather, the term “periphery”—if expounded at all—is understood in a more traditional way as a paraphrase of “geographically remote areas.”This notion also pervades a volume on The Future of Peripheries ( JDZB 2008), including papers submitted by European and Japanese researchers to a conference held in Berlin in 2007. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence (some even depicted by the contributions to that proceedings volume) for assuming that processes postulated by the peripheralization concept are also occurring in the Japanese countryside: ongoing age- and skill-selective out-migration and demographic aging; increasing territorial injustice created by infrastructural downsizing in fiscally weak municipalities; increasing powerlessness against decisions made by ( Japanese) global corporations as exemplified by the massive offshoring of “extended workbenchtype” industrial activities to the Asian mainland; a fundamental change in national spatial planning policy toward lopsidedly favoring the growth of major urban centers; or (accidental) discursive stigmatization, for instance by publishing papers such as the Masuda report cited at the beginning of this introduction.

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Thus, we think that the concept of peripheralization is applicable to Japan. By specifically including national and global power relations as a major force behind rural change—an aspect largely missing in Japanese rural research—we seek new insights into the current processes of making—and unmaking—Japanese rural peripheries. It is obvious, for example, that transformations of the countryside initiated by and dependent on external centers of power have to be evaluated differently from change conceived and controlled by local actors that have a vital interest in the wellbeing of their region.We also appreciate the inclusion of discursive mechanisms such as stigmatization that reduce the predominance of purely structural indicators in assessing the prospects of rural areas.

Situating Japan’s peripheries in the “global countryside” While the peripheralization concept as such is not predicting the extinction of affected areas but—quite to the contrary—stressing the possibility of a trend reversal, many studies referring to this approach implicitly assume that rural peripheries are perpetually stuck in a state of dependency and structural weakness. This view is qualified by another new body of scholarship that places the transformation of rural areas even further into the context of globalization (da Silva Machado 2017). These studies remind us that, like urban areas, the countryside is exhibiting new characteristics that are driven by structural changes and a complex net of translocal relations on a global scale. Following Saskia Sassen’s (1991) intriguing theory of the “global city,” Michael Woods introduced the similarly suggestive concept of the “global countryside” to flesh out “the ways in which local actors engage with global networks and global forces to produce hybrid outcomes” (Woods 2007: 497). In marked contrast to the global city concept, which is firmly embedded in political economy (and urbanism), the nascent idea of the global countryside as a hybrid space is loosely backed up by poststructuralist assemblage theory to explain the distinctive nature and outcome of locally specific engagements with and responses to globalization that are likely to differ from region to region. In other words, while there is no prototypical global countryside (yet), it is conceptualized as a hypothetical space corresponding to a condition of global interrelatedness. What we like most about the global countryside concept is, first, the emphasis on agency. Even in remote areas, globalization is not necessarily a top-down practice of influential global actors dooming local residents to react passively. Rather, rural places are active regions, with residents acting and reacting to global processes and thus actively shaping the countryside. And second, we think that pinning down processes and outcomes of globalization issues in the periphery is an opportunity to analyze the spatial and scalar quality of forces giving shape to rural peripheries in relation to a varying number of core areas. In sum, compared to the peripheralization approach, “global countryside” emphasizes reconfiguration rather than decline or stagnation of rural areas. Nevertheless, we think that the two concepts complement, rather than contradict, one another: The global countryside concept specifies the various global forces that might trigger or reinforce rural peripheralization, while

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the peripheralization concept gives more critical attention to the impact of global forces on the viability of affected rural areas. Woods mentions ten characteristics of the global countryside that we believe are relevant for the study of rural areas in contemporary Japan and touch upon throughout this book’s discussion in various contexts and to a varying extent. The features of concern for the countryside in both the Global North and Global South can be grouped in terms of economic, political, social, and symbolic dimensions of contemporary globalization. They are usually intertwined in arrangements of different scale and scope, as the following summary of Woods’s conceptualization will demonstrate with particular relevance to Japan. Worldwide, the increase of global trade is influencing the countryside through competitive pressure and susceptibility to shifting patterns of consumer preferences. Consumers who buy food in huge supermarkets are gaining power over producers, and the global perspectives of food-supply chains challenge traditional relations between customers and producers in local areas (Best and Mamic 2008; Spaargaren et al. 2011: 2). Terry Marsden (2011) holds, however, that these power relations have always been in flux and argues that today’s developments may be seen as a “post-productivist phase” that involves a complex net of actors and views and is thereby shaping production. According to data from the UN Comtrade database (SITC Rev.3, 2017), food imports in Japan (about $55 billion) are over ten times higher than food exports (about $4.9 billion). At the same time, the government heavily protects rice cultivation, which is also a point of economic discussions (Tanaka and Hosoe 2011). Some think that international trade in food, especially with neighboring Asian countries, is insufficiently developed despite its increasing importance since at least the 1990s (Shimowatari and Natori 2010). The salience of international trade relations can be assessed by examining the crucial role of (food) chains dominated by a few multinational corporations. These profit-oriented enterprises often do not take into account the interests of local communities, which are no longer shaped only by the traditional patterns of rural society. Increasingly, they are influenced by global interests, as Spiegel shows in the case of Cambodia’s mining sector (Spiegel 2010: 306–307). And the International Labor Organization (ILO) claims that a competitively oriented over-supply in the global agri-food sector results in lower prices and existential problems for small farmers (Best and Mamic 2008: 16). This overall trend is somewhat challenged by local actors who, despite—or maybe even because of—their locality are important forces of change within global developments. Local food chains can be identified as “innovators that change the way food is perceived, spoken of and, finally, consumed” (Oostindie et al. 2016: 14; see also Torre and Traversac 2011: xvii). Farmers’ markets selling locally produced products are another alternative to global food chains, and they are popular in Japan’s rural regions to a degree that they can no longer be considered marginal (Iizaka and Suda 2010: 174).Yet Iga (2014) argues that Japan’s “alternative” local food systems are entangled with conventional agri-food systems, combining the local with the global. Likewise, Kimura and Nishiyama (2008) point out that many local food systems that started out as grassroots movements have

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been taken over by local governments and agricultural cooperatives. This speaks to the need to look beyond a simplified understanding of two antipodes to more closely examine the in-between nature of production in the countryside. The global countryside is not only linked to production processes but also to non-national property investments and transnational counter-urbanization, as Woods illustrates. Resort speculation and residential housing for border-crossing amenity and retirement migrants are part of global rural areas and seem to have played a crucial role in the financial crisis of the late 2000s. The crisis hit Japan during its recovery from the long aftermath of its own domestically produced real estate bubble two decades earlier. The global liberalization of financial markets was the root of the asset price bubble that eventually spilled over into regional Japan, where financial investors lured local governments into public-private partnerships to redesign the rural landscape as urban amenity space. However, many of these partnerships faltered when the real estate market collapsed, and the newly erected theme parks, leisure resorts, and golf courses in the peripheries soon had to shutter their doors (Funck 1999). Besides short-lived booms in Niseko and a few other ski resort areas, rural areas in Japan never attracted much financial investment from abroad, and with the continuing population decline, the property market is unlikely to rebound outside metropolitan areas. Some rural areas in Japan have been competing with destinations abroad such as Canada or Malaysia for wealthy Japanese retirees, though only very few have moved from their place of residence or family origin. Another feature that is typical for global processes in rural areas is labor migration, which often occurs in the context of uneven global power relations between a poorer sending and a richer receiving country (Lindio-McGovern 2003: 530). As for Japan, where the total number of labor migrants is rising, the globalization of labor in the countryside affects agricultural work as well as tourism, food processing, and service-sector jobs. As of June 2017, the Japanese Ministry of Justice recorded 545,549 labor migrants, though the effective number of foreign workers is much higher: Many foreign students or trainees also engage in low-paid work often regarded as dirty, dangerous, and demeaning “3D” jobs (or in Japanese, 3K: kitanai, kiken, kitsui)—for example on farms or in the seafood processing industry (Mazumi 2014; Meguro 2010). By virtue of their presence, they may challenge normative ideals of how rural areas should look like. Despite structural restraints, these actors may speak up and take action for their rights (Onuki 2016). In addition, the increasing number of international marriages in rural Japan may generate the “opportunity to create a more open atmosphere” in Japanese society (Ishikawa 2011: 440).Yet not all migrants are able to speak Japanese, which means that more than just their presence is required to change communication patterns and power relations between old and new residents (see Kubota and McKay 2009). It is not only in terms of labor migration that strangers appear in remote areas, as tourists from around the world are drawn to visit sites of outstanding global reputation. Case studies from the southern parts of New Zealand explain the emergence of a “global multifunctional countryside” as response to both conflict and

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cooperation (Mackay et al. 2014: 55). Shifting ideas of what is presented as an ideal touristic experience as well as a growing diversity in demands challenge traditional patterns of dealing with tourists. At the same time, this gives rural areas the opportunity to attract a specific audience that wants to explore the countryside in particular (Salvatore et al. 2017: 49). In the reflection of the tourist gaze, rural communities may experience renewed interest and pride in local traditions and crafting skills, which may then be preserved for a longer time—as in the case of Noto Peninsula in Japan (Vafadari et al. 2014). Global tourism can thus be understood as a potential driving force of change that may also produce less positive outcomes: Differing views on how to behave in certain places or overuse of vulnerable land might lead to conflicts within the local community (Torre and Traversac 2011: xvi). Adjusting to new trends may also cause the exclusion of those community members who do not (want to) fit in (Wanda et al. 2009: 158). A closer look at JNTO statistics regarding foreign tourists to Japan—out of the approximately 24 million foreign tourists who visited Japan in 2016, roughly half went to Tokyo and many others to the other urban centers of Osaka and Kyoto—shows that rural tourism remains more an alternative form of tourism than part of the mainstream tourist experience in Japan.

Globalization impacts on space and authority The landscape itself is rapidly changing in response to the economic and political forces of globalization. On a global scale, this is most clearly visible in the destruction of primary forests and the expansion of commercial secondary forests and pastoral lands (Woods 2007: 493). In Japan, where 70 percent of the land mass is covered by forest, only half is still classified as natural, and large parts are covered by fast-growing Japanese cedars (sugi, 18%) and cypresses (hinoki, 10%) that are most often grown in monoculture plantations. Despite the presence of domestic timber resources, two-thirds of Japan’s annual demand for wood is met through imports from abroad, and with plummeting lumber prices, many forests are no longer cultivated (MAFF 2016). For the past two decades, neoliberal reforms in Japan have lifted the ban on investment in farmable land. Under the impact of global trade agreements, Japan’s new agricultural policy aims at efficiency gains and higher profitability by consolidating arable land in the hands of fewer and larger farms. While the largest share of Japan’s farmland is still owned by private households, with an average size of slightly less than two hectares, the holdings by farm corporations increased nearly five-fold since 1995 ( Jentzsch 2017).Yet structural change of the production system and the depopulation of rural areas contributed to the loss of 2.5 million hectares of farmland over the past 50 years. Decline in farming’s profitability has caused mass abandonment of crop production in rural areas, and municipal leaders were more than willing to agree to convert underused land into residential or industrial land, dotting the countryside with pachinko parlors, home markets, and apartment buildings in the middle of paddy fields (Yamashita 2008). The extent of abandoned

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farmland (kōsaku hōkichi) and uninhabited houses (akiya) is likely to skyrocket over the coming years, when land titles are bequeathed to a generation of successors who live far from the plots they own and who are often not registered as heirs. The environmental consequences of unclaimed land are already affecting an estimated area of 4.1 million hectares, which is more than the entire size of the island of Kyushu (Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research 2018). Part of the reason why hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of empty and decaying buildings have not been demolished is that empty lots, as fixed assets, are taxed at a rate six times higher than ones with a structure (Yoneyama 2015). On a more subtle scale, the abandonment of paddy fields and satoyama landscapes at the intersection of nature and cultivated areas is affecting ecosystems and destroying the habitat of many animals and plants. Aggressive species like the kuzu vine spread and grow over abandoned buildings, and equally aggressive neophytes such as weeping lovegrass (shinadare suzume gaya [eragrostis curvula]), which was introduced in 1959 for soil stabilization, or the invasive goldenrod from North America are driving out native plant species. The trend toward industrial agriculture and the economic imperative of maximizing land use efficiency has also had a devastating impact on biodiversity in the fields, forests, and coastal areas. Japan’s agriculture is known for exceptionally high levels of pesticides and chemical fertilizers (5.7 times the EU15 level and 18.2 times the US level; OECD 2016: 214), contributing to environmental pollution and the extinction of species. Climate change, the most global process of all, is also leaving its mark on species distribution and habitat ecology. With the occurrence of stronger typhoons and heavier rainfalls, an increase in flooding and landslides has been recorded with far-reaching consequences on the distribution of organisms, the bleaching of coral reefs, and the threat of extinction for ever-growing shares of wild fauna and flora. The loss of biodiversity in all ecosystems has been dramatic (GoJ 2014: 11–18) and will continue to be, particularly if global warming is not stalled: Climatic zones in Japan are forecasted to move northwards at a rate of five kilometers per year if there is a four-degree increase in the global average temperature by 2100 (GoJ 2014: 28). Woods (2007: 494) also describes the global countryside as space where new political authorities emerge beyond the reach of local residents. The subordination of national agricultural policies to global trade agreements, the legally binding regulation of designated heritage sites, and environmental regulations not only disempower local stakeholders; they also introduce competing and conflicting worldviews that transform the discursive construction of nature and landscape and lead to consequences that can be disruptive or even alienating. The abolishment or reduction in support and protection of food producers and markets, as stipulated by the free trade framework of the World Trade Organization, significantly curtails the economic vitality of small-scale farming in Japan. By extension, it also curtails many of the positive externalities of agricultural production, including environmental preservation, land conservation to prevent flooding and soil erosion, conservation of water resources, the expansion of rural amenities, and the maintenance of rural communities (Honma 2006). Food security is a major concern for those Japanese

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politicians calling for special measures to replace tariffs and non-tariff barriers, referring both to the domestic vulnerability of a food self-sufficiency ratio of 38 percent (MAFF 2016, 2018) and fear of contamination introduced by poor-quality foreign imports. Quota and direct payment systems have been one way of keeping farms in business and gaining consent, albeit reluctantly, from the countryside for trade partnerships: In 2011, agriculture received government support equal to its annual 1.1 percent share of GDP. On the eve of the ratification of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, Japan’s government expected a drop in production value of up to ¥110 billion (or 5% of total sales in agricultural products; MAFF 2018), which would require specific measures to secure production and farm household income, such as an increase in direct payments, the incorporation of additional farming enterprises entitled to benefits, or the promotion of alternative income sources, such as income derived from tourism. A popular strategy for promoting tourism in Japan is place-branding under the umbrella of a globally acknowledged authority. As of 2018, the UNESCO listed 22 World Heritage Sites in Japan, including four natural heritage sites and nine Global Geoparks (out of 140 in 38 countries), and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization certified eleven regions (out of 52 in 21 countries) as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). It is commonly believed that the reappraisal of regions as globally approved repositories of Japanese traditional culture will result in new revenue streams from domestic and foreign visitors as well as an increase in community pride.Yet the designation comes with a full list of requirements directly impacting issues of property management, access, and usage; new regulations in the name of protection eventually disrupt the inhabitants’ relationship with their place. Kato (2006) noted that in the case of the Shirakami mountain forests following its designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, locals could no longer harvest in all forests or access the core area of the site. Consequently, they were unable to protect their crops against wildlife or themselves against the increasing bear population. Locals in mountainous Shirakawa-Gō complained about lack of privacy and a decline in conservation due to the surge in visitors after their picturesque home was listed ( Jimura 2011); similarly, visitor concentration around the sites of the ancient trees on Yakushima Island had a devastating effect on vegetation in heavily visited areas. Natural heritage site designation brought no economic gains to the lowlands of the island and effectively decreased agricultural and fishery production (Okano and Matsuda 2013).What such micro-studies on heritage politics unequivocally demonstrate is the impact that international conventions have on the nature-human relationship at each site (Asano 2014: 61) and on rural society overall, with new cleavages opening up within the local community and among neighboring areas. The increasing social gap between classes of rural entrepreneurs who thrive with the new opportunities and small farmers or producers that are squeezed out of business is another characteristic Woods associates with the global countryside. While there is a discernable inequality in income and wealth, quality of schooling, employment opportunities, and cultural consumption between rural and urban Japan, it would be difficult to find widespread evidence of structural polarization

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caused by global investment, reckless suppression of inferior competitors, and the arrival of new residents giving birth to entirely distinctive housing markets and consumption patterns.True, economists have provided robust evidence on the relative deprivation of rural residents (Hayashi 2015; Tachibanaki and Urakawa 2012), who are poorer by comparison and cut off from many services and amenities concentrated in the urban areas.Yet within rural communities, people often fare similarly, and intra-regional inequality appears to be much more pronounced in cities, where the socially vulnerable are most unhappy with their lives (Oshio and Koba­ yashi 2010). That rural poverty—defined as the “lack of the resources necessary to permit participation in the activities, customs, and diets commonly approved by society” (Townsend 1979: 88)—is not endemic in the countryside is arguably a result of the Japanese state’s former developmentalist politics. This has changed insofar as the effects of economic recovery are no longer reaching out into the countryside, which is indicative of policy change and the widespread perception of rural areas as decoupled from economic growth, left behind, and forgotten by the national government (Higuchi 2008: 56). So far, echoes from the past—such as the postwar Land Reform and the Agricultural Land Law from 1952, which guaranteed the equal distribution of assets to the members of rural society and the continuous subsidies channeled by the Japanese state into the countryside to level off social and infrastructural disadvantages—have been able to counterbalance preconditions of severe social inequality within rural areas. Nevertheless, differences between areas are becoming more accentuated: Some communities apparently fare better than others when adjusting to global forces. But again, evidence is too scattered to unequivocally state that differences in communal wealth and success are not first of all due to locally specific demographics, the distribution of natural resources, or the proximity to urban centers. What is more, a burgeoning literature on happiness and wellbeing has pointed out the weakness of macroeconomic indicators in expressing a fair idea of how residents feel about their lives. In regard to Japan, Manzenreiter and Holthus (2017) and Holthus and Manzenreiter (2017) provided evidence for the productivity of in-depth research on the micro-level of particular groups or localities as a way of grasping the interplay of objective and subjective factors that shape an individual’s sense of happiness. Unfortunately, studies on the impact of local or regional differences below the meso-level of rather large areas are few and far between.The evidence so far suggests that cities are superior in providing material satisfaction, while the countryside is better equipped to satisfy environmental and communal needs.Yet none of these structural patterns can be taken for granted, as communal wellbeing is dependent on the availability of local resources and joint contributions in making and maintaining communal assets (Manzenreiter 2018).

Rurality check: contestation of the countryside The final point Woods mentions in regard to the global countryside is to be fully approved: The global countryside has always been a contested space. Given the multitude and variety of combinations in which processes, structures, and agents

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of globalization leave their mark on any given place, this statement seems to neatly summarize the discussion so far. Woods states that tensions are likely to arise from the various facets of globalization or from different approaches and strategies addressing the challenges and opportunities. At stake are crucial issues of local identity and the meaning of rural. In very practical terms, the impact on local identity is perhaps more at the heart of the transformation process than income levels, economic density, or productivity rates, as a sense of dependency, powerlessness, and heteronomy is undercutting local pride and spirit, destabilizing community support systems, and threatening “entire ways of life.” As noted earlier, the countryside is far from being passive or limited to being on the receiving end of globalization. The transformations hovering over the countryside frequently meet resistance from local actors and translocal alliances and incite new forms of political engagement. New agents of change are entering the established fields of local politics, among them volunteers in environmental (Kurimoto 2004) and anti-war protest movements (Nakashima 2014) and other non-governmental organizations that sometimes overlap with the “new locals” of tanada (terraced rice field) owners or urban weekend farmers (Kieninger et al. 2011), government-funded temporary villagers (chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai), artists in residence (Fifield 2015), and returnee entrepreneurs in “green tourism” (Ōno 2010) or the creative industries (Ikegami 2011). Commitment to the local is no longer determined by place of residence, origin, and family provenance but by the affective investment of locals and non-locals alike (Nakatsuka 2011: 51). In conceptual terms, these new residents and their activities are contributing to the blurring of the city-countryside distinction. What we observe in the contemporary reconfiguration of rural spaces is a continuation of the academic debate on the definition of the rural that has been ongoing since the late 20th century. Already half a century ago, the one-dimensional continuum of urban-rural was dismissed as being too simplistic and void of evidence in the form of internal correlatedness of its constituent variables. Instead, rurality was seen as a more appropriate term to conjure a “whole series of meshes of different textures superimposed on each other, together forming a process which is creating a much more complex pattern” (Pahl 1966: 327, quoted in Hedlund 2016: 462). With the increasing mobility of people, goods, and ideas, the interlacing of urban and rural society—as well as between the local, national, and global—has grown to a new level. That there is no such thing as a global countryside is due to the variety of heterogeneous entities in rural space, which create remarkably different countrysides. As Murdoch (2003: 274) said, “there is no single vantage point from which the panoply of rural or countryside relations can be seen.” We thus chose “Japan’s new ruralities” as the main title of this volume. “Ruralities” refers to the variety of rural realities in Japan as stated earlier, while “new” stresses the fact that the impact of neoliberal politics to address the globalization challenge since around the end of the 1990s has reshaped the Japanese countryside to a great extent. Corresponding to the various forms of rurality, there is an equal diversity of strategies by institutional and individual actors to cope with the challenges rural areas are facing today.

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Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with characterizing the countryside as hybrid or using assemblage theory to map out how the countryside is enmeshed in the more generic process of globalization.Yet, similar to the way we are dissatisfied with the structural principle of the predominant approach in Japan and the so far empirical paucity of the peripheralization concept, we think that the poststructuralist approach can be flawed by an overemphasis on discourse and representation. In order to come to terms with the rural in Japan, this volume therefore seeks to find a

FIGURE 1.1 

Case study areas of this volume

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middle ground by paying attention both to structure and agency, which leaves space and opportunities for autonomous action—and by accentuating the multi-level nature and process-driven character of transformation, arguably more pronounced in the global countryside discourse. In that regard we assume that the heterogeneity of contributions we gathered for this volume is less of a problem and rather an advantage as we address the following questions: Which of the concepts we outlined here is better supported to understand conditions of the rural in Japan? What is the relationship between peripherality and rurality? Is the disconnection of peripheral rural areas from economic and social development absolute, or are these regions also interwoven in the complex pattern of rural-urban interrelatedness? Is the periphery status determined by regional, national, or global asymmetries of power and wealth? Are there ways of considering the peripheral status of the Japanese countryside in relation to more than one core area, or even in transnational dimensions? Are the notions of peripheralization and global countryside conflicting or even contradictory, or do they complement and correspond with each other?

Outlining the book This book is organized in four blocks that reflect different aspects of the changes occurring in rural areas in Japan (see Figure 1.1 for the location of the case studies featured in the chapters). Section 1 deals with transformations of the primary sector, exploring both global and local influences. Particularly during the period of high economic growth in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s, vibrant Japanese cities attracted rural populations, whose departure left their hometowns suffering from population decline and high rates of aging. In addition, neoliberal policies and the globalizing economy accelerated the transformation of opportunities to work in the countryside.Taking into consideration influences both local and global, the following four chapters highlight the complex networks that account for a changing primary sector in four different regions of Japan. Paul Hansen concentrates on human-animal relationships in farming enterprises and deer-hunting practices in Hokkaido. While today’s dairy industry in Hokkaido is characterized by large “mega farms” that have a noticeable impact on the health of farmers and cows alike, the abundance of deer and the absence of wolves as predators pose challenges in the local population’s daily lives. Thus, the globalizing forces that further intensified production of what has been labelled “foreign food” and subsequently changed the farming environment become highly visible in today’s primary sector of Hokkaido and lead to the (re-)emergence of hunting as a possible source of additional income. While Hansen draws his attention to the changing environment of animals in northern Japan, Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba focus on the human dimension of the problems occurring in depopulating areas. They show how neoliberal market structures challenge traditional practices of paddy agriculture in western Japan. Faced with global market strategies and a decreasing number of active farmers, farmland owners let an outside corporation use their land, while the local

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community still maintains auxiliary practices such as mowing paddy levees. The juxtaposition of the company’s takeover of farmland activities in a small hamlet in order to preserve the rural environment while simultaneously challenging traditional divisions of labor underscores the increasing hybridization of Japan’s rural areas. Both Hansen and Sakamoto/Iba clearly depict the ambivalent relationship between local actors and global production practices outside Japan’s centers. The next two chapters deal with the transformation of fisheries in two different parts of Japan.The direct impact of global actors on local fishing industries becomes evident in Johannes Wilhelm’s contribution to this volume. He examines the niche sea squirt (hoya) industry in the disaster-struck coastal area of Tōhoku in northeastern Japan and analyzes how a Korean import ban on the product challenges local production practices. Marketing strategies and compensation payments by the government can be observed as temporary measures to secure the fisheries’ income, but Wilhelm’s chapter highlights the necessity of new approaches for coping with the complex and changing relations between local and international actors. In her interviews of local fishers in southern Japan, Sonja Ganseforth asks whether new marketing strategies actually address the manifold pressing problems in the industry. She critically addresses globally enforced notions of growth and rationalization and suggests a qualitative reform of fishing cooperatives to successfully adjust to the industry’s current conditions. Comparable to the other contributions in the first block, this part of the primary industry is not only subject to significant transformations of the global market structure (buyer-driven economy, global chains in seafood, proliferation of large supermarket chains) but also to local challenges (depopulation, aging). The four chapters all note that in order to deal with the difficulties of a globalized countryside, it may be necessary not only to adhere to current business strategies—which is often quite difficult for small businesses—but also to consider an entirely different approach to production itself. Hansen and Iba/Sakamoto depict the role of large local enterprises for changes in the local community or environment, while Wilhelm and Ganseforth show the struggles smaller businesses experience in coping with the transformation of their own ways of living. Section 2 focuses on political innovations taking place in rural Japan. Starting in the 1960s, governmental efforts to support the countryside were often limited to specific short-term projects or certain areas and were hardly successful (see Matanle et al. 2011). Rather than providing solutions, government initiatives to promote self-governance and regional autonomy (see Foljanty-Jost et al. 2013; Hüstebeck 2014), such as the Trinity Reforms of the 2000s, often intensified structural problems (Honma 2007). The papers in this section examine alternatives to a top-down state bureaucracy in the fields of energy transformation (Feldhoff/ Kremers), land improvement projects (Ueno/Ōsuga/Manzenreiter), telehealth networks (Brucksch), and revitalization projects ( Jentzsch). Portraying self-sufficiency as an aim to help cope with issues of peripherality, Thomas Feldhoff and Daniel Kremers take a closer look at strategies used by rural communities to provide renewable energy for their own needs. They discuss how government policies link renewable energy to local development and stress that the

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outcome of such programs largely depends on regional contexts. Successful strategies thus require a local government that is open to establishing networks with other actors. Enabling or supporting communities in their efforts to independently produce energy becomes easier in a more decentralized environment and may foster democratic ownership processes and subsequent community empowerment. Shinya Ueno, Toshiki Ōsuga, and Wolfram Manzenreiter explore the impact of land improvement projects on social capital in regional Japan. Comparing data from a nationwide survey on rural social capital in 2006 and 2016, they observe a general decline in social capital. However, their findings suggest that among smaller communities, participation in irrigation, road maintenance, and arable land improvement politics reduces the loss of social capital. Because not all forms of social capital are affected to the same extent, societal context and communication patterns likely require more attention. As in the previous chapter, this study also touches on the variety of rural communities across Japan and how their characteristics affect policy outcome. Susanne Brucksch’s chapter focuses on growing costs and labor shortages in rural healthcare systems. Her case studies from central Japan emphasize the importance of telehealth technologies as a countermeasure against rural peripheralization. Building a network of relationship helps communities cope with structural deficiencies and secure regional healthcare services. Telecommunication in the service of “Regional Integrated Care Systems” may help overcome healthcare’s spatial inequalities to some degree. Hanno Jentzsch’s study of revitalization strategies in wine-growing parts of Yamanashi Prefecture reveals the limitations of the central government’s revitalization policies. Drawing on data from interviews and participatory observation, Jentzsch argues that the political imperative of “making use of local resources” is deeply structured by a “normative landscape” that governs land use and agricultural production and shapes relations between farmers, wine-makers, entrepreneurs, and local administrations. Most significantly, his case also illustrates how local institutions predating the municipal merger are at odds with the new administrative boundaries. This disruption and the ensuing reshuffling of local identities, production sites, and the rules and practices governing these sites within the expanded areas effectively restricts regional revitalization efforts. Conflicting interests within local stakeholder groups clearly reveal the region as a contested space of limited autonomy. Section 3 examines characteristics and effects of urban-to-rural migration, a popular topic among Japanese regional scientists since the economic slump caused by the oil crisis in the mid-1970s reduced jobs in larger metropolitan areas (see Arai et al. 2002: 15–33). The population flows “against the current” were never large enough to evoke the typical counter-urbanization trends seen in other industrialized countries. These population flows never completely dried up, however, and recently they have attracted renewed interest from both researchers and the Japanese media—not least because of programs initiated by the central and local governments to draw people (back) to rural areas. The four contributions of this

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section all show that while the new in-migrants from urban areas are often people with individualized, global lifestyles who bring creativity and new knowledge into the countryside, their effect on mitigating rural peripheralization is moderate at best, since their numbers are small and it is unclear whether they will choose to remain. Carolin Funck opens the section with a general account of the evolving attractiveness of remote islands in Japan for both tourists and new residents. In recent years, “new” forms of tourism such as ecotourism or art tourism and the spread of the internet in connecting remote islands to products and services all over Japan have combined to make islands more popular among urban residents. Other factors include the presence of heritage sites that create a positive image, a positive attitude toward in-migrants among established residents, and a certain level of hard infrastructure, including a moderately convenient connection with the mainland. Funck emphasizes that islands, which maintained their administrative autonomy during the Heisei years as they did not merge into large-scale municipalities, have a better chance to develop unique policies and thus become successful in revitalizing the community. Shunsuke Takeda, in his contribution on Iwaishima, a small island in the Inland Sea famous for its ongoing protest activities against construction of a nuclear power plant, shows that the trends of individualization and fluidization in postmodern society do not necessarily lead to the destruction of traditional community life. Contrary to suggestions by other studies on lifestyle migration, new residents on Iwaishima do not come from an affluent middle-class background. Takeda interviewed the newcomers to find out why they moved, how they make a living in and adapt to the traditional village community, and what kind of social networks they participate in after their settlement. While their motivations, attitudes, and activities reflect global trends of an “alternative countryside,” Takeda’s informants also use traditional ways of social interaction and are even considered crucial for maintaining some local traditions. However, limited employment opportunities, among other issues, might discourage many in-migrants from permanently settling in Iwaishima. Ludgera Lewerich investigates the strategies employed by the local government and the role of in-migrants in Ama Town on the remote Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan, a municipality that has gained nationwide fame for its successful revitalization through urban-rural migration. Ama places great importance on local decisions, facilitated by the strong leadership of a committed mayor. Implemented projects utilize local resources and target new in-migrants as well as young outmigrants from Ama who are encouraged to return home once they complete higher education on the mainland. Knowledge-creating partnerships with Tokyobased universities are another strategy for reconnecting the periphery with core areas. Nevertheless, population decline continues, and the town still largely relies on national subsidies. This exposes the dilemma facing peripheral rural communities, which are increasingly expected to invest in local asset-based strategies while being largely unable to sustain them independently.

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Cornelia Reiher analyzes the revitalization strategy of Taketa City, situated in the mountainous interior of Kyushu. On the surface, Taketa’s success in encouraging the in-migration of urban residents is surprising, since Taketa lacks convenient traffic connections or local specialties that would underpin revitalization strategies. Contrary to Ama, Taketa relies solely on—and skillfully adapts—instruments conceived by the central government, such as the Community Building Support Staff Program. But much as in Ama, the commitment and enthusiasm of local officials, led by a strong and charismatic mayor, are the main factors behind the success. Reiher also identifies the dependence on central government funding as a problem reinforcing peripherality, notwithstanding the “de-peripheralizing” effects of new residents. Finally, in Section 4, three contributions provide additional details about Japan’s new ruralities but can also be read as questioning the validity of established concepts employed in rural studies. In particular, doubt is cast on (1) the unconsidered assumption of a strict dichotomy between rural (peripheral) and urban (core) regions (Traphagan; also addressed in the contribution by Hansen in Section 1) and (2) the exclusive use of demographic indicators and other statistics related to the permanent population of a municipality to grasp the severity of structural problems in the countryside (Özşen; Knight). John Traphagan scrutinizes the case of a return migrant from Tokyo who started a restaurant in her native town located in the Tōhoku region.Traphagan argues that the import of ideas from abroad and the fusion with local traditions and resources exemplifies a process by which individuals actively and intentionally engage in reconstructing the rural as a hybrid space, thus contributing to a socio-spatial depolarization of the urban and rural. Clearly, Traphagan’s argument is similar to the concept of the “global countryside,” while being opposed to notions of ongoing peripheralization. Tolga Özşen’s contribution rallies against an inaccurate and one-sided understanding of rural communities. He argues that the “settlement analysis method” (Tokuno 2007) provides insight into village societies beyond municipal borders as a network between mostly elderly people who have remained in the village and their children or other family members who have out-migrated to other areas, most of which are relatively nearby. These family members must be taken into account when evaluating the conditions of rural peripheries in Japan, for many of them contribute to the community’s upkeep by engaging in different support activities such as participating in local festivals, caring for parents, or helping with farming. In a similar vein, in the final chapter of this volume John Knight questions established perceptions of the rural periphery by redefining depopulation as deactivation—in other words, the reduction of human activity in the village envi­ ronment as a result of fewer (and older) people. As fewer people engage in, first, controlling plant growth and animal presence in the village and, second, managing the interface with the forest, a bidirectional peripherality structure emerges in which a village is peripheral in relation to both urban centers and the forest surroundings. Knight concludes that under these conditions the village’s appearance changes, a

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sense of spatial disorder emerges, and a demoralizing uncertainty about the future of the village develops. It remains to be seen whether mobilizing villagers and using urban volunteers can be an adequate strategy to fill this environmental activity gap. In closing the book, we first ask to what extent the contributions in this volume—by utilizing the concepts of peripheralization or global countryside— give us fresh insights into the current state of rural areas in Japan.This also allows us to evaluate whether the two concepts are theoretically sound or have to be modified to become useful tools for rural analysis. We further recap to what degree and by using what strategies local actors have been influential in coping with decline. Is rural autonomy on the rise, or have decisions made in national or global centers retained their prominent role in controlling and shaping rural areas? Finally, we identify new gaps of knowledge created through this book project. We expect that a comparison of ruralities in Japan and other countries would prove useful in furthering our understanding of the influences of globalization, neoliberalism, and population change in exacerbating socio-spatial inequalities.

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Senghaas, Dieter. 1974. Peripherer Kapitalismus: Analysen über Abhängigkeit und Unterentwicklung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Shimowatari,Toshiharu, and Masahiko Natori. 2010.“Higashi Ajia fūdo shisutemu no rinkēji to baryū chēn” [Food-system linkages and value chain buildings in the East Asian countries]. Fūdo Shisutemu Kenkyū 17 (2), 64–75. Sōmushō (Sōmushō Chiikiryoku Sōzō Gurūpu Kaso Taisaku-shitsu). 2016. “Heisei 27-nen doban kaso taisaku no genkyō” [Current state on measures against depopulation, FY 2015 edition]. www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000472999.pdf (accessed August 2, 2018). Sōmushō Tōkeikyoku. [2016]. “Heisei 27-nen kokusei chōsa: jinkō-tō kihon shūkei kekka— kekka no gaiyō” [2015 Population Census: Basic complete tabulation on population and households—summary of the results]. www.stat.go.jp/data/kokusei/2015/kekka/ kihon1/pdf/gaiyou1.pdf (accessed March 14, 2018). Spaargaren, Gert, Peter Oosterveer, and Anne Loeber. 2011. “Sustainability transitions in food consumption, retail and production.” Gert Spaargaren, Peter Oosterveer, and Anne Loeber (eds.), Food practices in transition: Changing food consumption, retail and production in the age of reflexive modernity, 1–31. New York and London: Routledge. Spiegel, Samuel J. 2010.“Rural place-making, globalization and the extractive sector: Insights from gold-mining areas in Kratie and Ratanakiri, Cambodia.” Journal of Rural Studies 36, 300–310. Tachibanaki, Toshiaki, and Kunio Urakawa. 2012. Nihon no chiiki kakusa: Tōkyō ikkyoku shūchūgata kara yatsugatake hōshiki e [Japan’s regional disparities: From hyper-centralization in Tokyo to the pyramid model]. Tokyo: Nihon Hyōronsha. Taira, Nobuhisa. 2005. Chiiki ni motomerareru jinkō genshō taisaku [Measures against population decline in the regions]. Ageo: Seigakuin Daigaku Shuppankai. Tanaka, Tetsuji, and Nobuhiro Hosoe. 2011. “Does agricultural trade liberalization increase risks of supply-side uncertainty? Effects of productivity shocks and export restrictions on welfare and food supply in Japan.” Food Policy 36, 368–377. Tokuno, Sadao. 2007. Mura no shiawase, machi no shiawase: kazoku, shoku, kurashi [Rural happiness, urban happiness: Family, food, living]. Tokyo: Nippon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai. Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research. 2018.“Forum report: Land rights and responsibilities in the twenty-first century.” www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2018/land-rightsand-responsibilities (accessed December 1, 2018). Torre, André, and Jean-Baptiste Traversac. 2011. “Introduction.” André Torre and JeanBaptiste Traversac (eds.), Territorial governance: Local development, rural areas and agrofood systems, ix–xxxiiii. Heidelberg: Springer. Townsend, Peter. 1979. Poverty in the United Kingdom: A survey of household resources and living standards. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tsutsumi, Kenji. 2015. Jinkō genshō, kōreika to seikatsu kankyō: sankan chiiki to sōsharu kyapitaru no jirei ni manabu [Population decline, aging, and living environment: Learning from case studies on mountain areas and social capital]. Fukuoka: Kyūshū Daigaku Shuppankai. Vafadari, Kazem, Malcolm Cooper, and Koji Nakamura. 2014. “Rural tourism and regional revitalization in Japan: A spotlight on Satoyama.” Katherine Dashper (ed.), Rural tourism: An international perspective, 337–360. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The modern world-system, volume 1: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New York and London: Academic Press. Wanda, George E., Heather Mair, and Donald G. Reid. 2009. Rural tourism development: Localism and cultural change. Bristol, Buffalo and Toronto: Channel View Publications.

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Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstruction of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507. Yamashita, Kazuhito. 2008. “The issues in the farmland system.” Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research. www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2008/the-issues-in-the-farmlandsystem (accessed December 1, 2018). Yamashita, Yūsuke. 2012. Genkai shūraku no shinjitsu: kaso no mura wa kieru ka? [The truth about marginal settlements: Do depopulated villages disappear?]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho. Yoneyama, Hidetaka. 2015. “Vacant housing rate forecast and effects of vacant homes special measures act:Vacant housing rates of Tokyo and Japan in 20 years.” Fujitsu Research Institute. www.fujitsu.com/jp/group/fri/en/column/message/2015/2015-06-30.html (accessed December 1, 2018).

PART I

Transformations in the primary sector

2 FROM AGRIBUSINESS TO DEER HUNTER “Placing” food industrialization and multispecies health in Tokachi, Hokkaido Paul Hansen

Introduction: Tokachi, place, and practice This chapter highlights how and why animal-human relationships are changing in a location and across livelihoods commonly considered marginal in the context of Japan. The primary location, the place where this ethnographic research is situated, is a large municipality in the north-central Tokachi region of Hokkaido. There is a parallel development of practices in this setting, an ever expanding and industrializing dairy industry alongside the “semi-commercialization” of deer hunting. Deer hunting has long been conducted in the area for reasons outlined below, but making money has recently become one key consideration. From a distance, one might consider hunting incompatible with industrialized agribusiness; perhaps these examples even seem ripe for a comparison of “premodern” versus contemporary livelihoods. Uniting notions of place and practice in what follows, however, I outline how industrial farming and commercial hunting are interdependent, multispecies dependent, and translocal practices. Informed by long-term ethnographic research and using approaches and concepts largely borrowed from anthropology, critical theory, ecology, and geography, this chapter questions spatial and social divisions often taken for granted such as a clear rural and urban divide (see Kühn 2015; Woods 2007) or the separation of human and non-human health (see Blaser 2016; Rock 2017; Smart and Smart 2017). Moreover, concomitantly, in moving beyond the macro-level abstraction of “space,” this study underscores how “place” influences practice and practices shape any given place (see DeLanda 2016; Foucault 1984; Kitano 2009; Scott 2009). By focusing on particularities (micro-level individuations of place, practice, and person) and thinking through the experiential and embodied aspects of being and becoming both in and of a location—see Ingold (2011) as opposed to Massey (2005), for example—one is forced to concretize and operationalize otherwise suppositious

28  Paul Hansen

generalizations regarding binary classifications or notions of equally weighted networks of exchange and interaction (Hansen 2018a).When space is experienced, it is experienced as thought: absolutely real, arguably physical. However, place is, at least as utilized in this chapter, more tangible and material. In a word: locatable. Simply put, global flows clearly have local eddies and currents: from the layout of a certain farm to a given farmer’s relations with the regional cooperative association and subsequent relations to global markets; from one’s direct neighbors to family and associates living in other parts of the country or indeed other countries; down to the fact that local police must enforce national legislation that is often in comparative conversation with policy and legal systems in other nations. One can always abstract analysis from a location outwards, that is, think about other spaces. However, the focus herein takes as its starting point the particularity of localized place, person, and processes: individuations where binary divisions such as local and newcomer or urban and rural are hard to maintain. In other words, through a “placed” reading, more macro-oriented area studies depicting relations of core versus periphery— e.g., a bounded urban Kantō dominant over a distant rural Hokkaido—ought to be questioned, augmented, or even abandoned in favor of more idiosyncratic and accurate modes of representation availed by ethnographic study. Of course, even from a distance place is always particular. Home to 4.2 percent of Japan’s population, over 50 percent of Hokkaido’s 5,300,167 people live in urban or high population density centers such as Sapporo at 1,954,674, Asahikawa at 337,061, or Tokachi’s capital Obihiro at 166,799 alongside suburbs and bed towns (Hokkaido Government 2019; figures as of January 31, 2019). This means that the majority of Hokkaido’s landmass, 22 percent of Japan as a whole, is sparsely populated in ways incomparable to the lion’s share of Japan. Unsurprisingly, despite a comparatively short growing season, the region is a key player in the production of Japan’s raw food. On the whole, the prefecture is responsible for 23.8 percent of the nation’s food supply producing 79.5 percent of the nation’s potatoes, 66.3 percent of its wheat, and, central to what follows, 53.1 percent of Japan’s milk (MAFF 2018). The sub-prefecture of Tokachi is the largest by area in Hokkaido at 10,831.6 square kilometers and contains 19 municipalities. Narrowing the scope further, northern Tokachi houses some of the largest agricultural operations in Hokkaido including the biggest, in terms of holdings and output, dairy farm. I have given that farm the pseudonym “Great Hopes Farm” in my research, and though it is the largest, there are several expanding operations in the area that are not far behind it.Though there are comparatively few human residents, the area is densely populated by Holstein cows and a final point of place important to what follows. The location where many of these mega dairy farms are situated butts against the Tokachi mountains and Daisetsuzan, Japan’s largest national park famous for outdoor pursuits, such as hiking or backcountry skiing, and home to a variety of wildlife, such as deer or bear. In one capacity or another, I have lived in this region for over a decade. I first conducted doctoral fieldwork laboring as a dairy hand on Great Hopes Farm in 2006–2007 (Hansen 2010a). I continued research on the industrialization of dairy farming in Tokachi as a post-doctoral researcher from 2008–2009 (Hansen 2014a,

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2014b). In addition, from 2011, I have been a weekly commuter and holiday resident. My spouse, originally from Kyoto, has worked as nurse in the area for 15 years and our Obihiro-born son attends the local primary school at the time of writing (see Hansen 2018b for more discussion beyond the need to detail here). In sum, over ten years as a local “participant and observer” I have witnessed northern Tokachi increasingly industrializing with farms expanding in size, farm owners retiring, young migrants—both domestic and international—moving in to work on the remaining and ever-growing operations (see Hansen 2010b on the experience of Chinese laborers on such farms). The central town, herein given the pseudonym Gensan, has a population of around 5,000 registered residents and is 35 kilometers from the nearest rail link, but in its 1960s heyday it had over 16,000 residents as well as a Japan Rail line and a private line. Today, both locals and newcomers alike typically refer to it as inaka (a pejorative framing of rurality or the countryside in Japanese). Thus, on the surface northern Tokachi, Gensan, and Great Hopes Farm comprise a familiar tale to those researching rural Japan: political marginalization, aging populations, depopulating towns, and fewer but larger farms due to deskilling, industrialization, and mechanization brought about by open markets and the threat of increasing global competition (see Matanle, Rausch, and the Shrinking Regions Research Group 2011; Takenaka 2018). However, alongside this discourse of decline, recent ethnographic research has also underscored that rural places even within a single prefecture do not fit the same mold (see Kelly 2006; Kitano 2009; Wood 2015). Moreover, in what follows, I further suggest that it is problematic for “rural” to be conceived as a singular descriptive term for a location, that is, as a binary category viewed in sharp opposition to “urban.” This location is what Soja (2007) calls a real and imagined “Thirdspace” and, given the points I make later, it is what I might prefer to ground and call a place of liminality (Hansen 2018b). From an anthropological perspective, Candea (2010) expresses the dilemma of trying to categorize particular places too simply, “places come to seem messy, disintegrated, or difficult to study not because they are, but because of the assumptions we have about what they should be like” (Candea 2010: 25; italics Candea’s).To be sure, in northern Tokachi there are instances where the aforementioned “rural Japan” as a stand-in for “spatialized socioeconomic stagnation” exists. However, I argue that Gensan and its dairy farmers and deer hunters do not neatly fit this pattern nor do they view their places and practices as waning. Adding theory to ethnography, this chapter buttresses the argument that in order to understand the complex inter- (and enter-) relations of a particular place and its people, such as Gensan and its human and non-human residents, one must contend with its distinct “assemblages”: expanded upon in what follows, heterogeneous and co-functioning linkages rooted in varying parameters of territorialization and coding (DeLanda 2016 via Deleuze and Guattari 1987). Though some aspects of Tokachi are clearly comparable with settler colonial projects found in other countries—notwithstanding that Hokkaido is seldom brought into such global discussions (see, as exceptions, Irish 2009; Manzenreiter 2018; Shigematsu 2004)— other elements are particular to Tokachi’s north. In sum, the devil is in the details,

30  Paul Hansen

in the unpacking of particular relationships of person and place, both in the past and the ever-transforming present. In the final analysis, this chapter contends that dairy farmers and deer hunters in northern Tokachi can be better understood and comparatively conceptualized through concepts like a “global countryside” (Woods 2007), a localized “shatter zone” (Scott 2009), or a “heterotopia” (Foucault 1984) than being classified as ideal or typical example of “rural Japan in decline.” That is to say, naming only a few elements: The region’s history, its isolation from the mainland, its landscape, climate, and, most important to what follows, the individual livelihoods and life ways made possible by these entanglements or “meshworks” (Ingold 2011: 63–94) are what have drawn and continue to attract both escapees and exiles from Japan’s mainland (Guarné and Hansen 2018) making comparisons to other parts of Japan possible but not by necessity the principal point of researching rural Hokkaido.

“Placing” Hokkaido, northern Tokachi, and Gensan Hokkaido is home to a host of anomalies in the context of Japan from climate to culture too numerous to account for here (see Irish 2009; Mock 1999). Important for the case at hand and unlike other Japanese islands, it is a 19th century settler colony that was made part of the modern Japanese nation-state in many ways that mirror Australia or Canada’s incorporation into the British Empire. In sum, the birth of Hokkaido from what was called Ezo ga shima (Barbarian Island) until 1869, rests on quashed rebellions and the centrally planned violent subjugation of local populations, human and non-human. Key here was a reimaging of a “space,” a vague imaginary of wilderness and opportunity, into a “place,” a location of occupation, dwelling, and, in time, livelihood (see Figure 2.1). The majority of Hokkaido’s Japanese settlers arrived in two consecutive waves, first in the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō periods (1912–1926) and then again after the Second World War (ca. 1945–1960). The first wave of successful colonizers were farmer warriors (tondenhei), followed by prison laborers and, soon after, peasant settlers (Seki et al. 2006). Responsible to the Meiji government-backed Kaitakushi (Development Commission) from 1869 to 1882, early tondenhei were often destitute and recently disenfranchised samurai. They were essentially charged equally with clearing and making land productive while simultaneously acting as a vanguard against Ainu rebellion and incursions into Hokkaido, notably from the Russian east. The base infrastructure of central Hokkaido was largely laid by prison laborers (Shigematsu 2004), many of whom, if they survived their term of incarceration, settled in the area as they lacked the means or the will to return to the mainland. From the 1880s, peasant settlers frequently came in groups from particularly deprived locations elsewhere in Japan often bringing with them distinctive architectural styles and food ways. In the Gensan area, for example, many of the early settlers (often more akin to indentured laborers) migrated from Gifu Prefecture in central Japan escaping poverty and hoping to find opportunity usually via homesteading agriculture (Kamishihoro Chōshihen Iinkai 1992).

From agribusiness to deer hunter  31

FIGURE 2.1 Taishō

migration promotion posters highlighting Tokachi as a place of individuated opportunity and alternative agriculture

Source: Images care of Hokkaido University’s Northern Studies Center.

The postwar boom included a mix of returning imperial army personnel stationed on northern frontiers such as Manchuria, conscripted Korean laborers unable to return home, and those from areas of Honshu devastated by bombing. Though the industries overlap and continue to support families in northern Tokachi, there was a postwar boom in the production of lumber to rebuild Japan (1946–1960; see Figure 2.2), followed by several state funded hydro-dam projects (1955–1970) with the increasing expansion of farming beyond subsistence levels from the mid-1960s until today. Because of this history of place and practice, Tokachi, like much of Hokkaido, is romanticized in binary terms. On the one hand, it is imagined as a wild and open “frontier.” On the other hand, it is clearly at the core of modernity and national hopes of cultivating, misguided as it may be, resource self-sustainability. This can be seen in its classic periphery-to-core mode of colonial development. In primary industries—from forestry to mining to fisheries to agriculture—the top-down focus was—and indeed remains—on sustaining and profiting the mainland.

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FIGURE 2.2 

Large-scale forestry in the “Gensan” area circa 1955

Note: Extraction roads are literally made with logs. The Daisetsu range is in the background. Much of this deforested land would become the expansive grazing and farmland discussed later. Source: Private photo collection scanned with the permission of Nitta Katsuyoshi.

Commercial agriculture and animal husbandry practices have gradually come to dominate inland areas of the island spurred on by the subduing or eradication of multiple species. For example, the predatory ezo wolf was made extinct with strychnine—one early modern livestock-keeping practice among many others that were adopted and adapted from the American West (Walker 2004). Alongside this non-human predator destruction was the mass curtailing of the hunting and gathering livelihood of the Ainu people (Siddle 1996; Walker 2001). The annihilation or suppression of livestock predators mirrored, indeed largely mimicked, the “settlement” of, for example, North America or Australia. This enabled the expansion of farming land, at the expense of indigenous life and livelihood, to the central reaches of the island concomitant with a steady rise in government-backed Japanese farmer-settlers (Mason 2012). Today, Holstein dairy cows are synonymous with the popular image of Hokkaido and especially Tokachi (Mason 2016). Other frontier tropes, factual and fictional, are also ubiquitous: expansive land,“wildlife,” and the appropriation of “Wild West” themes such as Native American teepees and cowboys (Hansen 2014a). All of these elements add to the region’s pop-cultural patina of being not quite “properly Japanese” by many on the mainland. However, this alterity goes beyond this particular history and spatial imagination. In official statistics, such as those issued by the

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Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF or Nōrin Suisanshō) or the National Union of Agricultural Cooperatives ( Japan Agriculture or JA Zenchū), Hokkaido is frequently set aside from statistical accounts of “national” agriculture. Often its numbers are offered a segregated rubric contrasted with collections of the other prefectures, or indeed, “Japan” as a whole. Such officially ascribed otherness is also rooted in place and practice; for example, the comparatively large size of farm holdings and the prevalence of full-time farmers found in Hokkaido, Tokachi, let alone expansive and isolated Gensan, frustrate meaningful comparisons to “typical” agriculture in Japan, where operations tend to be small scale and employment part-time.

The emergence of Great Hopes The story of Great Hopes Farm must be situated in this distinct context of Hokkaido broadly and Gensan specifically (for more detail see Hansen 2010a, 2010b, 2014a, 2014b). Mr.Wada, the pseudonym I gave the owner of the farm, was born in Tokachi. His parents, however, came during the first wave of migration, his father hailing from Gifu and his mother from Yamanashi. In concert with the rhythms of development in the area, the Wada homestead gradually shifted from a mixed farm through the 1960s and 1970s (producing dairy and vegetables such as potatoes, onions, and radish for home consumption and sale) to become an increasingly monoculture dairy-focused farm through the 1980s and 1990s. By 1998, Mr. Wada’s family held 120 dairy cows, about 20 percent above the then local average of 97, and the farm was largely self-contained. In other words, labor, like many operations in Gensan, was a highly gender-segmented affair. Sons and husbands milked and cared for the cows, while daughters and wives looked after the needs of the family and calves. Feed for cows was mostly (though by no means completely) produced on the farm from farm-owned or occasionally leased pasturelands with individually owned equipment. The key point here is that cows were cared for and milked by single family members using maximized familyowned resources, such as tractors or cropland.This is not to say that occasional help or leased cropland was not used, but utilization of shared or paid-for resources was ad hoc, individually negotiated, and dependent on seasonal arrangements. However, in 1997–1999 a series of policy and legal changes with the goal of “modernizing” agriculture were implemented including the Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas (Shokuryō nōgyō nōson kihon-hō). Taken as a whole, these acts represent a complex entanglement of actors such as the LDP (the nearperennial leading political party of Japan), MAFF, JA Zenchū—which also includes various internal bodies such as banks and insurance companies, the Hokkaido agricultural co-op Hokuren in negotiation with regional and international trade lobbies, bodies, and organizations. The minute details of the law and reformatted policies, at times controversial, are beyond the scope of this chapter aside from highlighting two key points (for a more detailed account of the impacts of the law see George Mulgan 2006; Mishima 2004).

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First, as a trading nation, the impact of global politics on local agriculture can be seen on any individual commercial farm in Japan, east or west. Without, for example, protectionist policies such as the often-cited 778 percent tariff on imported rice, much of Japanese commercial agriculture south of Hokkaido would fail. This is especially the case with dairy. Unlike cereal crops such as rice, it is impossible to stockpile dairy products without significant loss in value, for example turning spoilable raw milk into powder or the high overhead expenditure of producing aged or processed cheese. Add to this global commodities prices or fuel costs, and it is clear that while any particular farm is local, an innumerable number of complex, concrete, biological, local, and global associations influence its functions. The second key point is that as of 1999 (and even more so after subsequent amendments of the laws as in 2009) family farms could more easily amalgamate to become registered joint stock companies. In practice, this meant that larger farms were now encouraged to legally pool their resources into co-owned operations sharing equipment, expenses, and, important in what follows, land in order to promote efficiency. A somewhat confused logic remained, however. Harkening back to the protectionist agenda of the original law, subsidies continued for small “inefficient” farms while at the same time liberal loan schemes were offered to larger farms to expand with the goal being a move toward national agricultural selfsufficiency. In effect, this had the presumably unintended effect of Japanese farmers at differing scales competing with themselves by ironically protecting small farms from competition while concomitantly pushing industrialization for larger farms in order to better compete in a largely closed market system. Nevertheless, in late 1999 to 2000 and over numerous meetings, three other similar-sized and like-minded family farms opted to join with the ambitious Mr. Wada and his family.They could now apply for sizable government-backed loans to expand. And expand they did! Within a few months, the four co-owners consolidated their holdings by selling duplicate equipment, merging their herds, and combining and leasing homestead peripheral cropland from neighboring and defunct farms. While Great Hopes Farm is an outlier in terms of size—it was much larger than average even to start with four families and around 600 head of Holstein—and it went through the incorporation process early on, its amalgamation is consistent with common practices in the area: a decreasing number of farms and farm owners with a concomitant rise in the size of farms and number of laborers, two and fourlegged. One of the key factors in terms of enabling these shifts in practice and place has been the growing prevalence of the rotary parlor milking system. A brief explanation of this industrial milking system technology is essential because it is a radical departure in terms of production from hand milking or even earlier automated grid-style pipeline systems. More to the point, its increasing utilization in northern Tokachi has rapidly changed both place and dairying practice. Using a highly automated rotary parlor system, 40 to 60 cows can be milked at a time (see Figure 2.3). Obviously, efficiency depends on place and practice: the make and state of the equipment, the layout of a given farm, the competency of staff, and various other factors from bovine health, to period of lactation, to season

From agribusiness to deer hunter  35

FIGURE 2.3 

A bird’s eye view of a rotary parlor

Source: Photo taken by author.

and climate. Thus, the following are specific figures at Great Hopes Farm though they do underscore general trends in northern Tokachi. Over a working shift (there are three shifts over the 22 hours the parlor is in daily operation) about ten workers can do the work that, statistically speaking, over 100 did before. For example, at Great Hopes Farm, five work in the parlor doing the act of milking and holding itself and three to five others do related tasks such as shepherding cows from barn to barn. As such, the highly automated parlor milks around 250 cows an hour with approximately 18 seconds of parlor worker and cow contact. This technology and the related CAFO (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation outlined later) conditions required simultaneously affect the number of workers, human and non-human, to make it profitable (Hansen 2014b). Even at the commencement of Great Hopes Farm’s incorporation, social and geographical changes were immediately apparent. In terms of place, the increased herd size required the centralization of the farm’s location, most notably the parlor. This meant that newly built barns would adjoin the parlor. Cropland, mainly used for corn silage, would now radiate out in all directions from the central point of any working rotary parlor farm. In sum, formerly homesteaded land in more marginal and hilly areas (still farmable but unattractive to expand or build on) was used or leased off of retired farmers with buildings being neglected but the land seeded. This centralized the location of day-to-day practices like milking, pushing humans, cows, and their interactions away from the unused outbuildings. Progressively, cropland began to fringe the Daisetsuzan National Park foothills creating an expanding buffer zone of seasonally worked land between both the mountains and farms. Immediate shifts in social practice were as apparent. With the expansion in the number of cows, the human labor required to milk and tend to them on these

36  Paul Hansen

expanding farms became too great for the families involved. Though most men opted to continue working on the farm, daughters tended to retreat from farm work seeking employment or education opportunities elsewhere. As a result, local high school students—and later on students from Obihiro’s agricultural university— were increasingly hired on part-time to help at busy times of the year (for example during the corn harvest or calving season). These patterns were the origin of what has become an extensive non-family, contracted labor pool. From their incorporation in 1999, the four owners started both breeding and buying more Holstein cows. Growth continued amiably, ever accelerating until 2004 (at around 1,800 cows). Then several personal and business rifts started to grow amongst the families, largely due to some owners not wanting to continually expand. Between 2005 and 2013, two of the farm co-owners sold their shares and stopped farming. However, they continued to lease their land to Great Hopes Farm. In 2014, the remaining co-owner and Mr. Wada cordially decided to part ways. Through extensive government loans, Mr. Wada bought him out. To sum up, in just under 20 years this shift away from a 120-cow, family-run, mixed farm has resulted in major changes to place and practice. As of 2018, Great Hopes Farm owns almost 3,000 cows. It has a staff of over 50 employees, with specialized department heads spending at least some of their day in offices adjoining the now aging rotary parlor. About half of the staff are laborers with little hope of upward mobility as they are economic migrants—many on three-year “trainee” contracts usually coming from China, though this may change with Vietnamese workers already having more lax and liberal extendible visas and talk in the government of loosening labor regulations. Other than Mr.Wada and his eldest son, only a handful of locals work on the farm.The rest of the workforce are contracted laborers from other areas of Japan with a wide range of personal objectives for doing this sort of work from wanting industrial farm experience to traveling in Hokkaido (see Hansen 2010b for more detail).The farm has also expanded beyond producing milk to producing products. There is a shop and café that sells ice cream and cakes that Mr. Wada’s wife manages in the town of Gensan itself. In essence and taken as a whole, the operation has become a family-run factory and is a classic, if rather extreme, model of agricultural industrialization. In terms of changes to practice and place, Great Hopes Farm is an exceptional example, but in every dairy farming area of Tokachi there are complex domestic and global systems and connections, a decreasing number of farms and full-time farmers, while concomitantly there is an increasing number of cows, laborers, leased land, and debt per farm, alongside the need for CAFO herd management.

Enter the “deer problem”: placing non-human and human health issues The industrialization of dairy farming, however, has had impacts beyond those mentioned earlier. Multispecies health is one such issue, and the increasing intelligibility

From agribusiness to deer hunter  37

of the porousness of any rural-urban divide is another. Both issues converge in what has been called the deer problem (shika mondai). In sum, in order to fit the logic of CAFO-style agriculture, cows have been progressively shifted off pastureland (deranged as it were) for the monocrops planted to feed them (deranging or upsetting eco-systems—both economic and ecological). As such, traditional farming community structures and social relationships (human and bovine) are placed in disarray (greatly rearranged if not deranged); for example, there are individuals in Gensan who are adamantly pro- and anti-industrial farming, just as there are individuals who are open to the inclusion of foreign workers and others who are dead set against this intensifying hiring trend. To start unpacking these connections, human and non-human, local and nonlocal, it is crucial to understand that cows are highly social herd animals that maintain strict hierarchies. Forced into this system of milk production and biological reproduction, their health, and notably their immune systems, are greatly impacted. They must be kept in constantly shifting groups for this scale of equipment and degree of technology to remain functional and financially practical.Thus, the aforementioned rotary parlor and related regimes of biological surveillance and artificial insemination (AI) lead to particular bovine health problems, such as diseases like Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex (BRDC); excessive, and at times injurious, mounting displays to establish shifting in-group dominance; mastitis (an udder infection) from dirty and cramped conditions; and rising stomachs, a painful and often deadly condition in a quad-stomached animal from grain- and silage-heavy diets. All told, these conditions lead to greatly shortened lifespans compared to grazing cows. These four-hoofed laborers simply “burn out” in this industrial regimen, living to only about six years of age on average while human workers emerge with their own set of health problems. During fieldwork, I also wanted to find out what were the most common ailments for farmers aside from the odd broken bone or repetitive motion injuries common in any industrial setting. So I asked local doctors and nurses and found that the “top three” health issues in the area are: kaze or the common cold (predictable enough given the long hours, poor diet of instant foods like cup noodles, and work outdoors); mizu mushi or athlete’s foot (not surprising given that, rain or shine, minus 20 or plus 30 degrees, farmers are seldom out of rubber boots); and finally and most disturbingly, depression (utsubyō) and rising rates of suicide ( jisatsu) due to the stresses of old age, the failure to manage financial burdens, and rapid changes in community relations. Not having local family support in professional terms, such as the lack of a successor, or in personal terms, such as a dearth of familial care options for children or the elderly, were commonly discussed local issues. In first thinking through these health issues, many of the place-specific multispecies connections and practices outlined thus far might seem distinct: the eradication of wolves, the curtailing of indigenous hunting practices, and the previously noted “de-rangements” such as an increase in cows over farmers, cropland over pastureland, precarious laborers over aging homestead-bound locals, and sick and tired

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cows alongside sick and tired people. However, these factors entangle or assemble into the perfect storm for what has been called Japan’s—but especially Hokkaido’s—“deer problem” ( Joe 2009; Knight 2003; Noguchi 2017). While the deer problem is not new, it is prevalent in places where industrial agricultural practices such as those outlined earlier have taken hold: places with an abundance of both reverting pastureland and expansive cropland. In Tokachi, day-to-day work practices have receded from the margins and the main historic predators of deer have long been eradicated—wolves completely and Ainu hunters largely in order to establish early livestock farms. As such, there is an increasing abundance of deer and, essential to this multispecies puzzle, an abundance of retired dairy farmers replaced by larger farms and a precarious workforce. Less irksome than crows upsetting garbage or less threatening than a bear showing up in the Sapporo suburbs, why are deer seen as “a problem”? There are numerous reasons in fact. Vehicle and deer accidents are on the rise across Japan, but in Hokkaido 1,818 deer-car accidents were reported by insurance agencies in 2013 alone (Soga et al. 2015).1 In Gensan, the now depopulated land—or, more accurately, land that is seasonally repopulated with plant species like corn or less often barley—opens the way for deer, with few natural hindrances, to concomitantly devour crops and rapidly reproduce leading to record losses in harvest yields. Even when tenacious deer can be kept off roadways and croplands in Gensan, they head into the foothills at the edges of cultivated fields where they eat undergrowth and bark causing soil erosion and deforestation, which has in turn led to a spike in landslides—albeit a problem thought of as costly more than physically dangerous in such remote areas.Yet most important for the case at hand is actually the perception of potential threat: the multispecies health risk of numerous deer.There are increasing health worries amongst dairy farmers about transspecies prion diseases, viruses, or parasites being passed from deer to dairy cows or humans. Though transspecies contagion of many aliments is debated, the key point here is that Gensan farmers clearly think that deer are a more-than-human health nuisance. Their potential health danger, both physically and biologically for the previous reasons alone, have tagged deer, alongside foxes or pigeons, as pests in the area. Moreover, the government, both national and prefectural, have listened and acted upon farmers’ concerns through actively promoting deer hunting from 2000 (Ijima et al. 2015) even attempting to attract younger hunters (see Figure 2.4). Thus, interestingly and tellingly, while in terms of agricultural policy Japan is a nation famous, infamous perhaps, for its protectionist measures alongside numerous and convoluted regulations and rules, the practice of deer hunting—in the face of what is seen as an imminent multispecies threat—is remarkably free from restrictions.Though varying slightly from municipality to municipality in northern Tokachi, in Gensan general guidelines apply and what follows is largely triangulated from pamphlets like the one pictured in Figure 2.4 and interviews with hunters, the town hall, and local police. Since 2000, for 30 hunters (individuals registered by and cleared through the local police, as well as agreed upon by the local hunter’s association) there is no

From agribusiness to deer hunter  39

FIGURE 2.4    A pamphlet

“suggesting” how to be a good Hokkaido hunter that is clearly geared toward trying to attract younger and female practitioners

Source: Igota Hiromasa and the Rakuno Gakuen University Hunting Management Laboratory (2010) Hokkaidō-teki shuryō raifu no susume (Suggestions for a Hokkaido style hunting life: “Boys and girls, be responsible hunters”). Sapporo: Hokkaidō Ryōyūkai.

hunting season.They can hunt 365 days a year. Nevertheless, over the official hunting season, October to March, there is a loosely policed limit of 130 deer (“loosely” as there is no related system of tagging). Moreover, deer can be skinned in the bush, leaving what remains of the carcass where it lies with the well-founded presumption that other species will eat it: foxes, crows, and eventually worms. That is to say, while I have never witnessed a deer just being shot and left unharvested, there would be no law, certainly not a practicably enforceable one, against it.This literally amounts to a year-round open season on deer in Gensan for 30 hunters and four months of rather lax regulations for other hunters. Moreover, for the 30 year-round “semi-professional” hunters, the municipality will pay ¥6,600 (about US$60) for a single deer (shot outside of the hunting season when no money is offered), just as it will also pay for other species like pigeons at ¥600 (and many local dairy farmers will match this provided that the animal is shot on their land). Such hunters could earn a meager living just focusing on these municipal rewards, but hunting deer has become a lucrative commercial enterprise that transcends these local boundaries and bounties. Entangled in the industrialization process of dairy farming, deer hunting has emerged as a translocal and intensely multispecies practice. The more ambitious

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of the 30 selected hunters, and all but a few are former dairy farmers, have cooperative business networks reaching far beyond this rural community. They sell undamaged hides to a leather company near the prefectural capital of Sapporo for an average of about ¥7,000 a pelt. They directly process, sell, and ship sides of deer to upscale European-themed restaurants in urban centers like Tokyo and Kyoto where game meat fetches high prices from Japan’s culinary hipsters. Thus, much as the dairy industry has progressively linked Gensan to global commodity markets in terms of labor, feed or fuel prices, or the domestic ebb and flow of milk product markets branded as yōshoku (foreign foods) like yogurt or cheese, deer hunting similarly promotes the region as an example of a “global countryside” (Woods 2007) fusing people and practices in this “rural” municipality to Japan’s metropoles. There are other noteworthy instances whereby urban and rural, domestic and international practices prove permeable, however. Even gaining the rite and ability to hunt transgresses local, national, and international bounds. If the act of hunting is laxly policed, getting a license to hunt and to own a firearm is an extremely expensive and time-consuming affair. The cost of equipment, from guns to scopes to ammunition, is high as such products are largely imported from Europe and America. Domestically, hunters are subject to yearly weapons inspections, license renewals, and exams requiring both free time and disposable income. Indeed, to get a firearm license one must visit the police numerous times and take multiple exams. Police will interview one’s colleagues, past and present, and perform random home inspections to make sure the firearms and ammunition are securely stored. Those wanting a gun license must also obtain a certificate from a mental health professional. Because of these rather costly, extensive, and rather intrusive and subjective regulations, hunters under the age of 65 have been a rarity until recently. In Tokachi, people who are committed to hunting daily tend to be well-off local OBs (Old Boys), and these silver-age hunters approach hunting as a combination of leisure activity and a job. In 2017, the most successful hunter in the group of OBs who tolerate me as a prying anthropologist and hunting companion shot 243 deer during hunting season alone (an average of nearly three a day). Moreover, while luck certainly does play a role in the number that one can track and shoot, many of them approach hunting as a contemporary retirement profession. Some new hunters have slightly different priorities, however. Though still a minority, women in their 20s and 30s are the fastest growing group of hunters in Hokkaido, often citing as primary motives for hunting a co-mingling of health concerns, venison as healthy meat for their family, and protecting family farms from the deer problem (Narayama 2018). Thus, deer hunting is not a solely rural nor a pre-industrial practice, and what motivates people to participate varies from profit to protection. Again, like dairy farming it is linked to national legislation and international markets from equipment to the importation of food ways. Second, like modern mono-crop agriculture, it has become enmeshed in industrial and high-tech equipment and practices. These deer hunters use GPS technology to track past hunts; smart phones to keep in constant contact; cutting-edge guns, some with infrared scopes; and a variety of

From agribusiness to deer hunter  41

costly all-terrain vehicles from trucks to skidoos. Moreover, given the number of deer being processed daily, the act of rendering seems like working in a commercial butcher shop. Some former dairy farmers have converted their now unused and outdated parlors and barns into sizable slaughterhouses processing a dozen or so pooled deer a day. In short, industrial-grade heating and cleaning facilities, commercialsized refrigerators, and large restaurant-quality prep tables were already in place (see Figure 2.5). Introducing packaging options from canning equipment to vacuum

FIGURE 2.5 

Hunters processing after a morning out hunting

Source: Photo taken by author.

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pack machines was a minor alteration in an already well-oiled food production practice. In sum, the shift to contemporary deer hunter from dairy farmer in Gensan can mean little more, in commercial terms, than a shift in the food being produced. Hunting, like dairy farming, is of course rooted in place, in location. Yet location is ever liminal. It is constantly reinterpreted, reimagined, and repurposed, just as hunting is betwixt and between a business and hobby. Most hunters, certainly emerging young women hunters, also view it as a multifaceted and multispecies community service. First, despite many hunters being motivated by the profitability of bounty, hides, and venison, by the end of the season almost every hunter has more meat than they know what to do with. Throughout the year hunters are trying to give away venison to others in the community, and in some cases, especially for those living on marginal incomes, this is a much-appreciated welcomed food source. Second, retirees clearly find a new lease on life through hunting deer as a way to promote healthy dairy farming conditions. Third, it gets the retired hunters out of the house. Tromping around the bush, hefting heavy carcasses around in snow, or simply walking and skiing are all a physical workout. Fourth, as young hunting women are clearly aware, venison is far less fatty or salty than industrially produced meats like pork or beef. It is a healthy, abundant, and locally sourced protein and is increasingly being touted as such by prefectural officials (Narayama 2018). Finally, deer hunting provides these elderly men with a sense of local community, renewed belonging, and social exchange. As opposed to feeling isolated after retiring from dairy farming they are spending the days with other hunters and providing a mentoring role to new hunters, all the while animatedly gossiping about town politics, learning of one another’s various trials and tribulations with elderly health issues, and ceaselessly organizing small social events like sake-drinking and deer-eating parties.

Moving toward a comparative theorization of place and practice This chapter has underscored how the increased industrialization of the dairy industry has led to the semi-professionalization of deer hunting in the municipality of Gensan. It has highlighted the importance of place and practice through ethnographic accounts making the argument that there is no simple or binary divide between global and local, urban and rural, or human and non-human health in Tokachi, Hokkaido. While there is nothing inherently wrong with comparing locations within the nation-state of Japan, I conclude by proposing that there is also no necessity to frame research using “Japan,” rural or otherwise, as a cultural or spatial benchmark either. Indeed, framing relations in a more broadly comparative light is possible and possibly more productive, if aspects linking place and practice can move beyond the binary notion of a normative core ( Japan) and its many presumably “abnormal” peripheries—in this case Hokkaido, Tokachi, or Gensan (again see Kelly 2006 or Wood 2015). One way of understanding contemporary rurality as both part and

From agribusiness to deer hunter  43

apart from national associations has been found in concepts like hybridization, glocalization, or globalization. For Woods, for example, globalization remakes rural places not through a politics of domination and subordination, but through a micro politics of negotiation and hybridization.At the heart of this politics sits a tension.As globalization proceeds, political authority is displaced such that one characteristic of the global countryside that finds partial articulation in reconstituted rural places is the multiplication of new, distant, sites of authority; yet, because the reconstitution of rural places under globalization rests on associational power, local actors (human and non-human) retain agency in shaping the circumstances and character of their enrolment. (Woods 2007: 502) Thinking in this way, the dairy industry and the semi-commercial aspects of deer hunting are not “imposed” upon Gensan. These relations are classically heterotopic, multiply interpreted by a range of localized agents (see, e.g., Foucault 1984; Soja 2007). Gensan’s residents have chosen to negotiate roles in these globalized practices, and many are doing so very successfully.The “deer problem” can be viewed as a set of “place-based,” liminal “deer solutions” to some negative effects, for example the aforementioned issues regarding physical, mental, and community health, seen globally, in areas sharing a similar history and the present tense of agricultural industrialization whether it is in Alberta, Minnesota, Queensland, or areas of the Russian east. Elsewhere, I have discussed at length the need for micro-focused research on place and practice to utilize the Ingoldian concept of meshworks (Ingold 2011: 63–94) over the more abstract notion implied by nation or network (Hansen 2018a), notably in studies of Hokkaido (Hansen 2018b). Moreover, Hokkaido, Tokachi, and Gensan could be described, compared, and contrasted as a “Zomia” or “shatter zone”: a topographically distinct and separate region that historically has been viewed as at the frontier of state control.Thus, place and practice give rise to lifeways that do not fit with traditional epic discourses of state or national belonging and identity; it is “a space of political resistance but also a zone of cultural refusal” (Scott 2009: 20). Scott (2009: 26) calls for the establishment of a new kind of area studies not rooted in nation-state belonging, ethnicity, or classificatory gradations of person and place from hegemonic domination. This is a tall order and raises an obvious question: In looking at issues of relationality, who and what defines “the” periphery (Blaser 2016: 562–565; Kühn 2015: 376)? In the cases of Tokachi’s dairy farming and deer hunting and the concomitant entanglements with more-than-human complexities—from global commodity prices to imported firearms; from domestic products, such as venison, to cheese, perceived as foreign—an argument can be made that place and practices have only been marked as peripheral from the point of a hegemonic (and a largely imagined) common Japaneseness. However, it is essential to quickly emphasize that such a gesture is not a one-way erasure: simply defining what is not at the core of Japan. It also means that Hokkaido, Tokachi, and Gensan can be perceived as more connected to other parts of the world,

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with other zones of Zomia, other places rooted in settler colonization with a history of economically uneven resource extraction and sociocultural marginalization. This maneuver is part and parcel of our “forced cosmopolitan” times, where human and non-human entities are enfolded into relations not by choice or bounded by political borders (Beck 2009) but because Chinese workers, domestic deer, rotary parlor parts companies, harsh winters, lawmakers, and a host of other contingent components coalesce to influence place and practice and be influenced in return. A final fruitful way that comparisons of place and practice could be made while assuring relations of a national core and periphery do not dominate the analysis would be through assemblage theory wherein heterogeneous and retractable components, human and non-human, come together retaining their individuated historical identities while making emergent properties beyond themselves. In DeLanda’s (2016) operationalization of assemblage, for example, the intensity of an assemblage is dependent upon two adjustable and comparative parameters, territorialization and coding. Provided that these parameters do not break down into binary logic, they remain open to change, ever liminal, and, importantly, assemblages can be analyzed and compared. That is to say, a particular place can be relatively highly territorialized and coded (stratified) as compared to, perhaps, a territorialized and loosely coded place, but neither need to be governed or modulated by a nationstate orientation. National belonging may be seen as unimportant, for example, in places where environment or livelihood may be more influential in sustaining any given assemblage. Moreover, an unstratified assemblage and its various human and more-than-human components are never rooted in a single factor, never subject to a single, royal, or epic interpretation; there are always concomitantly comparable and open to change, liminal, novel, and heterotopic interpretations of place in an unstratified assemblage. Thus, while elements of Gensan and its practices are undeniably coded and territorialized as Japan, for example, there are laws that must be followed and perceptions of national or ethnic belonging that are largely agreed upon. There are also, for instance, deer, cows, farmers, hunters, climate, products, and a host of other “components” such as multispecies health that comprise the particular assemblage of practice and place in rural Tokachi that could—and in the view of this author should—be compared cross-culturally and internationally with other places and practices beyond the narrow frame of what might constitute “rural” Japan or being “properly” Japanese.

Acknowledgments University of Calgary’s Juliette Di Francesco very kindly organized a public seminar on multispecies health where many of the ideas for this chapter were first presented in 2017. I am ever encouraged by Ann Toohey, Melanie Rock, Alan Smart, and Josie Smart at the University of Calgary. A conference at the University of Vienna provided a second venue to think through the meshing of practice and place, and I thank Wolfram Manzenreiter and his colleagues for their hospitality and intellectual stimulation. Finally, I thank Nobuko Adachi, Hiroaki Kawamura, Seven

From agribusiness to deer hunter  45

Mattes, and Amanda Robinson (in spirit) for a lively panel discussion on these more-than-human themes at the 2018 AAA meeting in San Jose.

Note 1 Indeed, the author wrote off his car and suffered minor injuries hitting a deer in November of 2019!

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Smart, Alan, and Josie Smart. 2017. Posthumanism: Anthropological insights. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Soga, Akinao, Shin’ichiro Hamasaki, Noriko Yokoyama, Toshiyuki Sakai, and Koichi Kaji. 2015.“Relationship between spatial distribution of sika deer-train collisions and sika deer movement in Japan.” Human-Wildlife Interactions 9 (2), 198–210. Soja, Edward. 2007. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Malden: Blackwell Publishing. Takenaka, Kiyoshi. 2018. “Aging Japan: Akita Prefecture may be glimpse of country’s graying future.” Thomson Reuters World News Online. July 4. www.reuters.com/article/us-japanageing-akita/aging-japan-akita-prefecture-may-be-glimpse-of-countrys-graying-futureidUSKBN1JU0P0 (accessed August 9, 2018). Walker, Brett L. 2001. The conquest of Ainu lands: Ecology and culture in Japanese expansion, 1500–1800. Berkeley: University of California Press. ———. 2004. “Meiji modernization, scientific agriculture, and the destruction of Japan’s Hokkaido wolf.” Environmental History 9 (2), 248–274. Wood, Donald. 2015. Ogata-Mura: Sowing dissent and reclaiming identity in a Japanese village. New York: Berghahn Books. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507.

3 CORPORATIZATION AS HYBRIDIZATION IN RURAL JAPAN The case of Iwasaka in Shiga Prefecture Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba

Introduction Japanese rural sectors have experienced radical transformation both economically and socially. Therefore, rural residents can no longer assume the same conditions that sustained farming and local autonomy in the past. In particular, the proliferation of global market principles, classified as neoliberalism, into Japan’s rice sector has altered practices in paddy agriculture as well as the demographics of rural communities. There have been two noteworthy transformations within Japan’s agricultural sector. First, active farmers no longer necessarily constitute the majority of the rural population. In communities where farmers are confronted by the interests of non-farming community members, critical problems may arise as to how farmingrelated activities can be carried out (i.e., managed), including maintenance of communal farming assets such as paddies and irrigation systems and how they can steer decision-making (i.e., govern) over farming-related activities. Second, in many cases corporations have replaced traditional family-run farms as significant—and sometimes dominant—players in the agricultural sector. “Corporatization,” in this case the rise of corporate actors in rural areas, has been identified as a hallmark of the neoliberalization of the agri-food sector in Japan (Sekine and Bonanno 2016). Against this backdrop, in this chapter we will examine the processes used by the aging and depopulating rural community of Iwasaka, Japan, to sustain its farming legacy. Various forms of corporate involvement from inside and outside the community provide the key elements of our analysis, which illuminates the significance of corporatization—not as the one-sided domination of neoliberalism but as a hybridization that creates an amalgam of the actors, institutions, values, and norms ingrained in the political-economic, historical, and social fabrics of rural Japan.

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While it might be assumed that the global spread of neoliberalism is affecting all rural areas in the same fashion, rural communities are in fact responding to it with resilience in a variety of ways, based on their particular sociocultural and material heritage (Woods 2007). For instance, as we have documented (Iba and Sakamoto 2013), farming entities in Japan are increasingly expected to pursue hybrid goals that stretch to include non-economic values and social causes.Yet the compounding of very different roles poses a conundrum for rural actors, as it often results in competing perspectives (e.g., economic considerations vs. community values) (Lockie and Higgins 2007). This ongoing scholarly dialogue prompts us to explore Michael Wood’s (2007) concept of the “global countryside,” with particular attention to the hybridization occurring in rural areas. Our case study raises three questions. First, how did the residents of Iwasaka, despite facing a shortage of active farm operators, sustain their farms and preserve common agricultural resources, such as rice paddies, irrigation systems, and farm roads? Second, to what extent was Iwasaka’s agricultural transformation a reflection of global trends? Third, how did corporatization affect farming processes in Iwasaka? To tackle these questions, we first provide an overview of the corporatization of the agri-food sector in rural Japan. Next, we discuss the global hybridization of rural areas to elucidate the principal concept guiding our analysis. After a brief description of methodology, our case study explores how, in alliance with outside corporations, Iwasaka successfully sustained its farming legacy. In conclusion, we argue that the global proliferation of neoliberalism accelerated corporatization in rural Japan due to a complex interplay of local-level sociocultural backgrounds.

Corporatization of the agri-food rural sectors in Japan Historical overview In an increasingly competitive market economy, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) has continued to promote the incorporation of farming entities to increase the economic efficiency and competitiveness of the agri-food sector. However, the significant corporatization of this sector is a very recent phenomenon, as family-run farms have been dominant rural actors since the end of the Second World War. A 1947 rural land reform made tenant family farms into small-scale land-owning family farms. Concurrently, corporations were prevented from owning farmland due to skepticism that they would exploit community farming assets for profit, including through speculative investment in farmland, which could undermine the social foundation of rural communities. Strict conditions had to be met before a corporation (hōjin), especially a for-profit jointstock company (kabushiki kaisha), was permitted to engage in agricultural production. The 1962 amendment of the Agricultural Land Law (Nōchi-hō; hereafter ALL) allowed specific corporate entities engaged in agricultural production (nōgyō seisan hōjin) to own and cultivate farmland, although most corporate entities saw the legal requirements as overly stringent.

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Meanwhile, small-scale family-run farms remained dominant rural actors, seemingly rendering Japanese agriculture inefficient and uncompetitive. The government determined that restricting land tenure to family farms strained the fluidity of farmland use and resulted in inefficient agricultural production. One major reason behind the stagnation of farmlands was that rapid economic development during the 1960s and 1970s, along with technological advancements in agriculture, resulted in a substantial portion of land-owning family farmers reducing output and instead pursuing non-farming income sources, eventually coming to view their farmland as a speculative asset, rather than the foundation for agricultural production. Policy measures intended to facilitate land lease for selected large-scale farm operators were adopted after the 1970s. While 1970 amendments to the same law relaxed conditions of corporate eligibility for farmland use, fluidity in the farmland trade limited corporate actors’ ability to access arable lands. Thus the 1980 Agricultural Land Use Promotion Act (Nōyōchi riyō zōshin-hō), which aimed to ease land lease arrangements, in 1993 became the Law for the Enhancement of Agricultural Business Foundations (Nōgyō keiei kiban kyōka sokushin-hō; hereafter LEABF), intended to foster efficient and stable farm operators. Despite the changing laws controlling farmland ownership and use, most corporate actors remained virtually ineligible for farmland access until the 2000s, and the mini-farm agricultural structure, the purported cause of the sector’s inefficiency, remained intact. As global competition for agricultural products intensified, the late 20th and early 21st centuries witnessed radical changes in policies on corporate possession and use of farmlands. Efficiency, to be achieved through increased farm size (kibo kakudai), was the keyword for understanding farm policies in the 1980s and beyond, when a neoliberal surge hit Japan’s protectionist rural agri-food sector. The 1992 New Directions of Food, Agriculture and Rural Policies argued that efficient farming operations could be achieved by establishing new types of farming entities, especially corporations operated by accomplished business-minded managers with marketing skills (Tashiro 2014). In the 2000s, deregulation policies endorsed by the neoliberal ideology of the Koizumi administration drastically relaxed restrictions on corporate access to farmlands. For example, the 2001 and 2009 ALL amendments, the 2002 creation of Special Zones for Structural Reform (kōzō kaikaku tokku), and the 2005 amendment of the LEABF all allowed non-agricultural corporations, including for-profit joint-stock companies and non-profit organizations, to own, lease, and cultivate farmland. Koizumi’s reforms were influenced by pressures from non-agricultural business associations such as Keidanren (Morita 2008; Sekine and Bonanno 2016) and by economists and scholars promoting deregulation and market principles to boost the long-stagnant economy. After the 2000s, policy reforms affecting corporate access to farmland continued impacting not only traditional rural actors but also players in non-agricultural domains. The deregulation of policies that had barred joint-stock companies from farming brought in a flock of non-agricultural corporations in pursuit of agricultural businesses. Restaurant chains as well as corporations in non-agricultural

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sectors embarked on farming ventures as of the early 2000s, although not all were successful in their new domain (Muroya 2015). As a result of the reforms, the number of corporate actors in agriculture has increased, as has the consolidation of lands into large-scale farming entities and corporations. The political aim of improving efficiency and productivity in Japanese agriculture has been successful, signaling the penetration of neoliberal ideology into the country’s rural agri-food sector.

Critical assessments of corporatization Critics argue that this expanded involvement of corporations in Japan’s agri-food sectors has dismantled traditional farming communities ( Jussaume 1998; Sekine 2018; Sekine and Bonanno 2016; Sekine and Hisano 2009). While this is a valid point, we argue that the means through which neoliberalism allowed corporate involvement in farming are by no means monolithic or consistent. Rather, we see a hybridization of diverse actors, diverging expectations, and rationalities blended with different legal and financial institutions (Iba and Sakamoto 2018; Lockie and Higgins 2007; Woods 2009). With regard to neoliberalism and correlated increase in corporate involvement, a recent volume by Kae Sekine and Alessandro Bonanno (2016) offers an extensive review of existing works examining Japan’s agri-food sector.The book recounts the historical trajectory of Japan’s agriculture and rural areas after the Second World War, detailing how corporations expanded their influence and came to dominate much of the sector. Aligning with our overview earlier, the authors stress that policymaking in Japan after the 1980s steered toward neoliberal policies that supported the marketization of agri-food sectors. This created numerous problems; by its nature, neoliberalism is incompatible with the sociocultural foundations of traditional rural communities in Japan. That is, while neoliberalism exalts the individual freedoms of a laissez-faire market, disregarding democracy and collective values, Japan—with its social fabric of rural areas and collective commitments to sustained farming—would reject those very freedoms. The book also describes how transnational and large domestic corporations entered farming businesses without considering the volatility that might result from their propensity to search for better economic opportunities and their downplaying of local communities’ democratic values. Sekine and her colleagues (Sekine 2018; Sekine and Bonanno 2016; Sekine and Hisano 2009) formulate a compelling critique of the growing corporatization in Japan’s agri-food sector: “Farming, fishing, and their communities have been transformed from spaces of residence and production into loci in which economic revitalization translates into corporate investment and acquisition of financial assets” (Sekine and Bonanno 2016: 197). While valuable, Sekine and Bonanno’s accounts direct substantial critical attention to corporations from outside the farming sector. Indeed, it is also the case that, inspired by neoliberal beliefs, MAFF not only relaxed barriers for non-farmingsector corporations to enter the farming sector but also had long encouraged traditional family-run farms to incorporate in order to increase economic efficiency,

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tap into their entrepreneurial potential, become more competitive, and thrive in the global market. Farming corporations that originated from the family farms of traditional rural communities often demonstrate deep loyalty to their communities. Unlike volatile global corporations, they are rooted in jimoto (home community) and benefit from maintaining trustful relationships with local landowners and/or farmers, who provide access to vital resources (Sakamoto 2017). While recognizing the importance of attention to the methods through which corporate farms and local communities develop trustful relationships (Muroya 2007), Sekine and Bonanno do not analyze jimoto-based farming corporations; we will do so in the following sections. Their analysis also overlooks the fact that as MAFF was creating policies to encourage the corporatization of farming entities, it exhibited significant differences in its intentions and methods of promotion. For example, tokutei nōgyō hōjin (Special Agricultural Corporation; hereafter SAC) is a type of farming corporation ratified in the 1993 LEABF. Though created to enhance the economic efficiency and market competitiveness of Japanese farming entities, SACs were specifically tasked with assisting farming communities that suffered from a lack of active farm operators (ninaite). An SAC must accept requests from farming communities to tend their agricultural tracts, thereby maintaining their assets for future generations. In exchange, the SAC becomes eligible to receive certain privileges, including special consideration in matters of public financing and tax filing. To establish an SAC, community members hold discussions and create a special arrangement plan for farmland use (tokutei nōyōchi riyō kitei) in which the community members agree on how and who to take care of lands and carry out farming activities. In essence, this legal scheme supported by the national government embraces unique and contrasting multiple purposes, including establishing an efficient and competitive corporation, encouraging self-help in rural communities, and protecting farming-related agricultural resources.

Global countryside and hybridization Increasingly, agricultural production and rural communities across the world seem to be integrating a single set of global market principles (Bonanno 1994). However, the way that this has occurred could hardly be described as a uniform assimilation into the global market economy. Socio-technical integration around the world has occurred through complex means, bringing together global and local. It is reasonable to assume that rural areas have been incorporating socio-technical elements from the outside with their own local materials and traditional practices (Woods 2007). Hybridization occurs at the local level.Woods (2007: 497) says that “variations in the relative degree of integration of particular rural localities into global networks are not the product of the uneven operation of globalization as a top-down process, but of localized processes of place reconstitution.” Understanding globalization at the local level as hybridization means assembling heterogeneous actors, institutions,

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and values—both human and non-human (Anderson and McFarlane 2011; Woods 2007). In fact, non-human agents are particularly significant in creating networks of heterogenous entities in rural areas.The rural is a non-standardized domain, with unexpected differences in the agents and actors involved. Our analysis of Iwasaka’s struggle to preserve its farming legacy in the face of corporate involvement will utilize insights from discussions on rural hybridization. As “de-ruralization” progresses in Iwasaka, most community members have nonfarm income sources yet have not completely detached themselves from farming. While agriculture has thus far been sustained by traditional family-run operations, corporate entities embracing global neoliberalism—even tacitly—are expected to take over local farming. Iwasaka is at a crossroads where actors and institutions, global norms and local values, technological advancement, and cultural elements intersect, negotiate, and flow together.

Methods Based on the previous discussion of rural hybridization, we hypothesize that Iwasaka’s farming legacy has continued in part thanks to the coming together of diverse actors, institutions, norms, and values inherent to the rural community.The analysis then posits that governance over farmland management by the Iwasaka community reflects the global trend of hybridizing different actors and institutions, including private corporatization and public initiatives and material and discursive measures. We employ a case study approach to support our hypothesis, using in-depth interviews conducted with Iwasaka community members in 2017 and with representatives of the Shimada farming cooperation in November 2018.

Case study: Iwasaka hamlet and Shimada Farm Rural-industrial hybridization of Ko¯ka Iwasaka hamlet and Shimada Farm are located in Kōka City in southern Shiga Prefecture. The municipality of Kōka has approximately 91,000 inhabitants and is less than 100 kilometers away from both Osaka and Nagoya. Several major roads pass through the area: the Tōkaidō, one of the major ancient roads connecting Kyoto and Edo (old Tokyo), and its contemporary versions, including the National Highway No. 1 and the Shin-Meishin Expressway. In the Kōka area, agriculture has historically been a vital part of the economy, but other economic domains, including manufacturing and the service sector, have expanded since the second half of the 20th century. Today, manufacturing is the foundation of the city’s economy. In 2016, the primary sector generated only 0.2 percent of total sales revenues in all economic sectors within the city, whereas manufacturing generated 78.3 percent and the service sector 21.0 percent. With eleven industrial parks, Kōka’s manufacturing sector generates the largest sales revenue in the prefecture (Kōka City Office 2018). The area is known for its heritage,

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which includes ninja warriors and Shigaraki-yaki, i.e., traditional ceramics, making tourism an important industry for the city. The legacies of traditional ceramics and ninja warriors, who purportedly had advanced medicinal knowledge, have carried forward to the important manufacturing subsectors of ceramic and pharmaceuticals. Rice and green tea are the principal crops grown in the area, and a variety of vegetables are also cultivated. Still, in 2015 only 3.9 percent of the city’s total working population of about 45,800 were engaged in the primary sector (mostly in agriculture), while 39.5 percent worked in the secondary sector and 54.4 percent in the tertiary sector. Although the economic and demographic footprint of the agricultural sector has shrunk, agricultural communities in Kōka—which have seen deepening hybridization among rural and urban and farming and industrial elements—have not completely discarded their farming legacy.

Iwasaka hamlet and its farming legacy Situated in the northern part of the central region of Kōka and comprising 18 households, Iwasaka is a farming community whose deep commitment has helped preserve its farming legacy. While the residents have long engaged in farming, the majority now have principal occupations in either the manufacturing or service sectors. Earlier land-improvement projects reconfigured Iwasaka’s paddies in rectangles of 0.2 to 0.3 hectares to improve the maneuverability of farm machinery (see Figure 3.1). However, productivity remains sub-par due to a hilly topography that limits sunlight exposure, and recent crop damage by wild animals has exacerbated the production problem. Poor productivity is one factor driving full-time farmers to non-agricultural employment. Still, 16 out of 18 households own a total of 9.2 hectares of paddies and continue striving to preserve their farming legacy in Kōka, which in the last several decades has witnessed a dramatic push toward industrialization. The situation in Iwasaka is emblematic of rural Japan, where demographic and socioeconomic hybridization has deepened. During the rapid recovery after the Second World War and the major economic expansion that followed, many rural farmers began to farm only part time. Even so, they remained reluctant to give up farming entirely, even after they began generating most of their income through non-agricultural activities. When faced with the region’s industrialization, many farmers in Iwasaka opted to become part-time operators. As their non-farming earnings surpassed those from farming, the non-agricultural jobs became their principal occupations. And as parents grew older, their children did not consider inefficient, small-scale paddy farming promising enough to take over. When labor shortages then made it difficult to get farm work done, farming families began renting out their land or entrusting operations to other active farmers in Iwasaka. The volume of paddies rented or leased increased, and the demand for outsourcing farming operations soon exceeded the capacity of the few remaining operators.

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FIGURE 3.1 

Paddy field in Iwasaka

Note: Following land improvement projects, land tracts are now organized in rectangles.

Against this backdrop, Shimada Farm became the primary farming operator in Iwasaka. As recently as about 50 years ago, when industrialization arrived in the region, the father of the current president (Mr.Yukihiro Shimada) of today’s Shimada Farm started renting paddies in Iwasaka, at the request of its residents. As a certified farm operator (nintei nōgyō-sha), the Shimada gradually increased the acreage contracted to them. This will be detailed later. To gain LEABF-certified farm operator status, farmers submit an agricultural business improvement plan to local government. Once the plan is approved and they are certified as farm operators, farmers become eligible to receive a variety of governmental support, including financial benefits, and they are expected to run an efficient and stable operation. By the early 2000s, the primary agricultural producers in Iwasaka were Shimada and another outside farming corporation, Kyōdō Farm, of which Yukihiro is a member. Kyōdō Farm eventually retreated from Iwasaka and began cultivating wheat and soybeans in more productive paddies. These two crops, called tensaku sakumotsu (crops grown in paddies in order to reduce rice production), are subject to premium subsidies. Currently, landowners in Iwasaka rent almost all of their farmland to Shimada Farm; all but one of the landowners have become “non-farming farmland owners.” Community members take care of supplementary tasks, including cleaning up

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irrigation canals to preserve communal agricultural resources. However, residents have grave concerns about whether Shimada Farm should continue to cultivate their paddies, not all of which have been maintained in optimal condition. Because farming families are no longer involved in production yet wish to retain their family paddies, maintaining the community’s common agricultural resources becomes increasingly challenging. Even if they could lease lands and commission farming operations, there is no guarantee that Shimada Farm would willingly commit extra resources to maintain common agricultural assets in top condition. As a result, the community is adapting its organizational structure to support sound and democratic decision-making that protects agricultural resources while also supporting its relationship with the outside farming corporation. Concerned about the feasibility of continuing farming and preserving common farming assets, Mr. Okuno, leader of the Iwasaka Nōchi Kairyō Kumiai (Iwasaka Farming Improvement Association), determined that the community needed to develop a solid and collaborative relationship with Shimada Farm. Prompted by national policies promoting the corporatization of the farming sector, Iwasaka residents founded an SAC to preserve the paddies and related agricultural resources. As explained earlier, an SAC is a corporate entity that helps rural communities without active farm successors formulate plans and establish organizations to sustain their resources, while pursuing management efficiency and economic competitiveness. Through this plan, Iwasaka residents arranged the farmland lease to Shimada Farm and re-established community organizations to oversee maintenance of their communal farming assets. This is explored in detail later.

Shimada Farm In 2005 the Shimada family farm was incorporated as a yūgen gaisha (limited company), becoming Shimada Farm (see Figure 3.2). However, its history and its relationship with the farm families in Iwasaka date back half a century. Mr. Masuhiro Shimada, father of the current Shimada Farm president, was a leading farmer in his community. With financial support from the local Japan Agricultural Cooperative ( JA), he was involved in establishing a farm-machine bank, which rented farm machinery and equipment to local farmers.This enabled farmers without their own equipment to complete work on their paddies more efficiently and cost-effectively. Masuhiro was responsible for coordinating the bank’s services in his hamlet. Wishing to save time and cost, part-time farmers, including those living outside of his hamlet, eventually contracted with him to commission work on paddies. As more farmers shifted away from agricultural work, they increasingly contacted Masuhiro to take care of their land. Masuhiro successfully managed an increasing number of paddies, burnishing his reputation as a trustworthy steward. By the end of the 1990s, when his son Yukihiro joined the family farming business, the total area managed by the Shimada had grown to 25 hectares across several hamlets. After completing studies at a Tokyo agricultural college,Yukihiro returned home to take over the family business in 1998. He worked under his father’s guidance

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FIGURE 3.2 

Office and greenhouses of Shimada Farm

Note: The building behind the office is a factory in an industrial park, underscoring the industrialization of the area.

for seven years before he and his younger brother, Toyohiko, who began farming in 2000, decided to incorporate Shimada Farm.The decision to incorporate was made not in pursuit of managerial efficiency or competitiveness but to take advantage of social welfare benefits that incorporated entities could provide their employees. As Shimada Farm hired additional staff members to provide labor for their growing total acreage, these benefits became essential. One significant factor pushing the Shimada family toward incorporation was bookkeeping. Yukihiro attended courses to learn double-entry bookkeeping, an essential skill for professional farm operators. At that time, personal computers became increasingly accessible for ordinary people, as did the bookkeeping software through which young farmers like Yukihiro learned basic accounting. The bookkeeping knowledge, along with a friend’s encouragement to take the accounting course, galvanized Yukihiro to consider incorporation and aoiro shinkoku (“blue tax filing”), a business tax filing form based on double-entry bookkeeping. This would bring a variety of tax benefits. The Shimada’s transformation from a family farm to the business-oriented Shimada Farm was in line with MAFF’s campaign to encourage incorporation and nurture farm operators who showed promise in business and management.

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Once it was incorporated, Shimada Farm received significant social welfare and other benefits. Yukihiro held that a corporate entity, expected to run sound businesses, was responsible enough to be entrusted with the management of paddies, which are important family assets. Following its 2005 incorporation, the volume of farmland entrusted or leased to Shimada Farm rose significantly. As the number of active farmers in the hamlet shrank from 80 to 25 over three decades, the Shimada came to be recognized as reliable caretakers of paddies in eight area hamlets, including Iwasaka. Based on this decades-long bond, the Shimada family farm and the Iwasaka community negotiated a variety of conditions—including legal, institutional, organizational, and physical circumstances—and agreed on the current farm lease arrangements.

The arrangement between Iwasaka and Shimada Farm Three factors in particular supported the successful commission of Iwasaka farmland to Shimada Farm. First, Iwasaka landowners agreed that any farmland rented to Shimada Farm should be maintained in good condition for future generations. Second, the community had a strong leader who pursued new policy measures to preserve the community’s land. Third, Shimada Farm had gained solid trust among community members, which eased the process. As requested by community members, Shimada Farm willingly took care of its paddies, regardless of how productive they were. As mentioned earlier, another important factor in building trust was Shimada Farm’s status as a corporation, which helped streamline its operations and brought financial advantages provided by the national government. In addition, the residents of Iwasaka maintained close-knit relationships and were involved in community activities.This solidarity, along with the factors mentioned earlier, enabled the community to reach a consensus about working with an outside farming corporation. The community of Iwasaka made the agreement for farmland use with Shimada Farm in 2005. One year later, the arrangement allowed Shimada Farm to rent and cultivate 8.1 hectares, equivalent to 88 percent of the total acreage cultivated in Iwasaka. In 2016, the commissioned acreage increased to approximately nine hectares, almost all of the hamlet’s farmland. Of note is an institutional arrangement that led to the consolidation of additional lands into Shimada Farm. The additional commission was arranged by the Organization for Mediation and Control of Farmlands (Nōchi Chūkan Kanri Kikō; hereafter OMCF).The OMCF, also known as Nōchi Bank (Farmland Bank), was established in 2014 under the Law for the Promotion of Mediation and Control of Farmlands (Nōchi chūkan kanri jigyō no suishin ni kansuru-hō). As a quasipublic organization, one OMCF is established in each prefecture and is expected to facilitate land lease and acquisition arrangements between landowners and renters within its jurisdiction. In 2017, Iwasaka community members began to settle on a Hito nōchi puran (People and Farmland Plan). This is a program through which rural stakeholders

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find solutions for problems relating to farmland and farm operators. Launched in 2012 and reinforced through a 2014 supplementary resolution to the Law for the Promotion of Mediation and Control of Farmlands, the MAFF encourages farming communities to establish Hito nōchi plans. In discussions to finalize their Hito nōchi plan, led by Mr. Okuno, Iwasaka residents decided to appoint two outside corporations, Shimada Farm and Kyōdō Farm, as principal farm operators. Though it had once retreated from Iwasaka, Kyōdō Farm participated, making it possible for the two corporate farms and Iwasaka itself to take full advantage of the premium subsidies on wheat and soybean crops, in which Kyōdō Farm specializes. The arrangement to commission farming operations to Shimada Farm has also altered the governance and organizational structure in Iwasaka. Although the Iwasaka Farming Improvement Association remains functional and has played a pivotal role in coordinating communal agricultural and agriculture-related activities, its primary responsibilities have shrunk such that it is now a proxy agency for the local government, handling only legal and administrative affairs in farmland ownership. As the majority of its member households retreated from active farming, the association’s primary role of coordinating farming operations became increasingly irrelevant. Instead, a new community organization that included all households, Iwasaka Furusato o Mamoru-kai (Iwasaka Association for the Preservation of the Home Village), was founded in 2006. Using a government subsidy earmarked to support communities committed to conserving local resources, the Mamoru-kai organizes activities that preserve agricultural resources, such as irrigation systems and farm roads. This association represents all Iwasaka landowners who rent land to Shimada Farm. The activities organized by the Mamoru-kai are essential to raising awareness about preserving the community’s farming legacy.While landowners in Iwasaka are no longer directly engaged in farming, they still commit themselves to such organized activities as cleaning irrigation canals and ponds and mowing paddy levees and farm roads. In fact, mowing paddy levees is one of the costliest and most arduous tasks in rice production today; deciding who should be responsible for it is one of the primary concerns between farmland owners and renters. In Iwasaka’s case, Shimada Farm mows most paddy levees using an efficient mowing machine.Villagers’ mowing-related labor loads have decreased substantially. Iwasaka villagers’ involvement in maintaining farming resources has been highly beneficial for Shimada Farm, which consistently looks to streamline operation costs. Unquestionably, the mutually beneficial relationship between Iwasaka villagers and Shimada Farm is essential in sustaining local farming operations.

Analysis: corporatization as hybridization in rural Japan Corporatization is considered a prominent example of the neoliberalization of Japan’s agri-food sector (Sekine and Bonanno 2016). In Sekine and Bonanno’s argument, neoliberalism favors corporations and glorifies marketization and

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individualism, with their ability to maximize overall welfare in the market while disregarding the sociocultural values that are the foundation of traditional social systems in rural Japan. At best, Sekine and Bonanno say, neoliberalism is incompatible with the fundamental fabric of agriculture in Japan. Our observations of the processes and consequences of corporate involvement in sustaining agriculture in Iwasaka underscore the complexity of neoliberalization in rural Japan. We argue that Iwasaka’s recent experiences are better understood as processes that brought together a variety of actors, institutions, values, and beliefs. While the national policies prompting incorporation were born from the neoliberal beliefs of policymakers, including those at the MAFF, the methods that corporations employed to manage paddies and agricultural resources integrated local physical conditions and value systems. It is overly simplistic to focus solely on whether the proliferation of corporatization into rural Japan constitutes neoliberalization. Our analysis, while still compatible with the results presented by Sekine and her colleagues, is more thorough. Neoliberalism itself is multifaceted and comprised of contradictions. It is clear that Shimada Farm’s survival strategy is to pursue economic efficiency by expanding its acreage and business operations. Nonetheless, its survival hinges on hybrid operational systems, including pluri-activities, institutional benefits such as tax incentives and other administrative support, and trust and loyalty linked to the values of local farming communities who want to preserve their legacies. Shimada Farm cultivates approximately 300 paddies in eight surrounding hamlets, including Iwasaka. About 97 percent of the area’s total acreage (75 hectares) is leased. Since its foundation, the farm has diversified into producing and selling vegetables, supplying rice seedlings, and drying rice for surrounding rice growers. If this corporate farm is to grow by accumulating more land, it must remain a trusted partner for farm families in the region. As noted by Sekine and Bonanno (2016) and Sekine and Hisano (2009), transnational corporations involved in the Japanese agri-food sector tend to be volatile in their search for superior economic opportunities. However, Shimada Farm’s success arises from a trust born of its local roots and responsible cultivation of extensive local acreage. For Shimada Farm, relocating would be unrealistic and counterproductive. The corporatization process in Iwasaka reflects its hybrid nature as well. The establishment and involvement of the corporations, namely Iwasaka SAC and Shimada Farm, in arranging the land lease and operation commission was critical in sustaining farming in Iwasaka hamlet. As represented by MAFF, the government has long promoted the corporatization of farming entities for financial efficiency and competitiveness in globalizing markets through expansion of operating scales. In a sense, public support to foster private actors with entrepreneurial minds could be deemed as an eclectic—thus hybrid—political approach for transforming rural sectors in Japan. MAFF has highlighted some of the advantages of incorporation, including improvements in managerial capability, robust accounting that is separate from household expenses, social welfare that benefits employees, credibility as a business

Corporatization as hybridization in rural Japan  61

entity and the consequent sales expansion, smooth transfer to the successor, and tax cuts (MAFF 2013). Many of these advantages stem not from the intrinsic nature of a corporation but rather from administratively constructed political incentives to galvanize corporatization in the Japanese agricultural sector. Yukihiro Shimada, the president of Shimada Farm, initially sought incorporation only for the practical benefits—namely, the social welfare provisions for employees—rather than as an entrepreneurial and business-minded pursuit of efficiency and competitiveness. At any rate, the transformation of the Shimada family is an exemplary model of corporatization arising from a traditional family farm; Shimada Farm has not only achieved economies of scale by accumulating farmland from eight neighboring hamlets, but it is also diversifying its crops and agriculture-related businesses. In the meantime, Iwasaka SAC is a corporation founded for specific political and administrative purposes. This corporation is designed to support community farmland that suffers from a lack of labor and successors. The SAC plan takes MAFF’s approach toward policymaking and implementation by hybridizing different value orientations. The SAC, together with other institutions such as the Hito nōchi plan and OMCF, is designed to pursue economic efficiency while simultaneously ensuring that farmland is used as community members agree it should. In accordance with Iwasaka’s special plan for farmland use, the Iwasaka SAC is legally bound to accept any parcel of land that its landowner wishes to entrust to it. In exchange for undertaking this responsibility, the SAC receives special financing and tax considerations. Unlike Shimada Farm, the Iwasaka SAC is not so much an entrepreneurial venture expected to compete in and survive agri-food marketization as it is a government-designed entity intended to help noncompetitive farming communities sustain their agricultural resources and legacy. Changing techno-material conditions surrounding the farming sector—such as land improvement measures, a computer-supported accounting system, and a stateof-the-art mower—all contributed to the incorporation of Shimada Farm and its arrangement with the Iwasaka community. In essence, the relationship between Shimada and Iwasaka developed through a mix of technology, institutions, human actors, and materials.

Conclusion In this chapter we raised three questions: first, how did the residents of Iwasaka, who lacked active farm operators, manage to sustain their farming traditions and preserve common agricultural resources, such as paddies, irrigation systems, and farm roads; second, to what extent could the transformation of farming in Iwasaka be considered a global phenomenon; and third, how did corporatization transform farming in Iwasaka? As detailed earlier, Iwasaka’s agricultural community has sustained its farming legacy by tapping a variety of available resources, including their relationship with outsider farm corporations, their own labor, and organizations and institutional supports such as the governmental campaign to incorporate farming entities.

62  Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba

The path taken by Shimada Farm and the Iwasaka community in an effort to sustain their legacy might not initially seem consistent with global trends. We argued, however, that the plight faced by Iwasaka residents, stemming from globalization and, in particular, neoliberalism, is typical throughout rural Japan. Factors that led the residents of Iwasaka to turn over farming operations to Shimada Farm include the proliferation of market principles; the decline in agricultural prices and reduced fiscal support; the withdrawal of governmental support to rural communities; and the area’s aging population, depopulation, and the consequent lack of farm successors. Our case study illuminated how globally proliferating values, epitomized as neoliberalism, accelerated corporatization in rural Japan through a complex interplay with local-level sociocultural backdrops. Positing that neoliberalization does not transpire as a one-way, “top-down” imposition of market rules but rather as a more nuanced and subtle interplay with local actors, our analysis described a rural community that has faced dramatic demographic, economic, and material changes related to its agricultural production. Although our narrative about Iwasaka in rural Japan may appear unique in a global context, Larner (2003: 510) holds that “developments in the ‘periphery’ may be as significant, if not more so, as those in the ‘core’ in explaining the spread of neoliberalism” and argues that Iwasaka’s experiences parallel global trends. One of our analytical focal points was the involvement of a corporation, Shimada Farm, in a land lease and agricultural operations in Iwasaka.This collaboration is significant because critical literature contends that corporations, often encouraged by neoliberal-leaning governments to enter the agri-food sector globally, tend to be mobile and volatile, lack loyalty to local communities, and downplay local democracy and collective social values in exchange for their entrepreneurial and competitive edge in global market competition. Those holding a critical opinion of increasing corporatization in the global agri-food sector (e.g., Jussaume 1998; Sekine and Bonanno 2016; Sekine and Hisano 2009) might assume that our narrative documents another tragic example of large-scale transnational corporatization in rural Japan. Admittedly, the farm corporations we identified as committed to sustaining farming in Iwasaka were incorporated under the national government’s initiative to make farm business more efficient. However, with its local roots and origin as a family-run farm, Shimada Farm seems unlikely to abandon the area, since their competitive edge exists in the trust of those who allow Shimada Farm to cultivate their lands. Iwasaka’s SAC was incorporated not only to increase efficiency and competitiveness but also to facilitate community discussion about the land-use arrangement and to oversee the preservation of communal agricultural assets. This unique arrangement came about through the range of purposes and values embraced by these corporations and through their nuanced interactions and relationships with diverse actors. To conclude, it is important to remember that although MAFF has been associated with self-interest and an interventionist propensity (George Mulgan 2004), the ministry itself is a hybrid consisting of varying and perhaps conflicting interests and

Corporatization as hybridization in rural Japan  63

beliefs, thus dramatically complicating local implementation of its policies. Even if it employs a single slogan—“Be efficient!”—to promote corporatization, our case study demonstrates that the same goal could be achieved in a variety of ways. Similarly, to the varying degrees that Shimada Farm and Iwasaka are considered successful examples of corporatization, narratives describing their experiences will elicit differing responses and assessments; some might reinforce a political discourse infused with neoliberalism that would benefit volatile transnational corporate actors. Yet, regardless of the responses elicited by our narrative, the vital question concerns not whether corporatization and neoliberalism shatter the farming legacies preserved in Iwasaka but how the local people could contrive hybrids that combine different actors, materials, institutions, and values to help sustain their legacies.

References Anderson, Ben, and Colin McFarlane. 2011. “Assemblage and geography.” Area 43 (2), 124–127. Bonanno, Alessandro. 1994. From Columbus to ConAgra:The globalization of agriculture and food. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. George Mulgan, Aurelia. 2004. Japan’s interventionist state: The role of the MAFF. London: Routledge. Iba, Haruhiko, and Kiyohiko Sakamoto. 2013. “Beyond farming: Cases of revitalization of rural communities through social service provision by community farming enterprises.” Steven A. Wolf and Alessandro Bonanno (eds.), The neoliberal regime in the agri-food sector: Crisis, resilience, and restructuring, 129–149. London: Routledge. ———. 2018. “Killing two (or more) birds with one stone? The case of governance through multifuncionality payments in Japan.” Jérémie Forney, Chris Rosin, and Hugh Campbell (eds.), Agri-environmental governance as an assemblage, 59–75. London: Routledge. Jussaume, Raymond A. 1998. “Globalization, agriculture, and rural social change in Japan.” Environment and Planning A 30 (3), 401–413. Kōka City Office. 2018. “Kōka-shi shisei yōran 2018” [2018 summary of socioeconomic conditions of the city]. www.city.koka.lg.jp/8583.htm (accessed March 28, 2019). Larner, Wendy. 2003. “Neoliberalism?” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 21 (5), 509–512. Lockie, Stewart, and Vaughan Higgins. 2007. “Roll-out neoliberalism and hybrid practices of regulation in Australian agri-environmental governance.” Journal of Rural Studies 23 (1), 1–11. MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery of Japan). 2013.“Hōjin keiei no me­r itto” [Merits of the corporate farming business]. www.maff.go.jp/j/kobetu_ninaite/n_seido/ houjin_merit.html (accessed March 28, 2019). Morita, Kiyohide. 2008. Nōchi seido kaikaku no kadai: hontō no kaikaku to wa dono yō-na mono ka [Challenges of the reform of farmland regulations: What does the real reform look like] (= NIRA monograph series; 23). www.nira.or.jp/pdf/nogyo3.pdf (accessed March 28, 2019). Muroya, Arihiro. 2007. “Kigyō no nōgyō sannyū no genjō to kadai: chiiki to no renkei o jiku to suru sannyū kigyō no jitsuzō” [State and challenges in corporations entering farming]. Nōrin Kin’yū 60 (7), 13–26. ———. 2015. “Naze kigyō no nōgyō sannyū wa zōka keikō ga tsuzuku no ka” [Why the trend of corporate entries in farming continues]. Nōrin Kin’yū 68 (5), 20–35.

64  Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba

Sakamoto, Kiyohiko. 2017.“Senshinteki nōgyō keieitai to chiiki nōgyō, shakai: shin-jiyūshugiteki gabamentariti o shiten to shita shakaigaku-teki sekkin” [Farms on the cuttingedge of innovation: A sociological analysis on the relevance of local agriculture and community under neoliberal governmentality]. Nōgyō Keizai Kenkyū 89 (2), 106–118. Sekine, Kae. 2018. “Transition of agriculture and agricultural policies in Japan: From postwar to the neoliberal era.” Alessandro Bonanno and Lawrence Busch (eds.), Handbook of the international political economy of agriculture and food, 156–172. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Sekine, Kae, and Alessandro Bonanno. 2016. The contradictions of neoliberal agri-food: Corporations, resistance, and disasters in Japan. Morgantown: West Virginia University Press. Sekine, Kae, and Shūji Hisano. 2009. “Agribusiness involvement in local agriculture as a ‘white knight’? A case study of Dole Japan’s fresh vegetable business.” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 16 (29), 70–89. Tashiro,Yōichi. 2014. “Hōjin-ka suishin seisaku no kōzai” [Merits and demerits brought by policies to promote corporatization]. Nōgyō to Keizai 80 (6), 14–24. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507. ———. 2009. “Rural geography: Blurring boundaries and making connections.” Progress in Human Geography 33 (6), 849–858.

4 SEA PINEAPPLES IN TROUBLED WATERS On the local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt (hoya) industry in the aftermath of the 3.11 disaster Johannes Wilhelm Introduction On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m., the Pacific coast of northeastern Japan (Tōhoku) was devastated by an earthquake of magnitude M9.0 and a subsequent tsunami. The fisheries industry in the region, of great importance within Japan and characterized by numerous small aquaculture enterprises, came to a standstill. Soon after the natural disaster, multiple nuclear accidents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant created anxiety about radiation among consumers at home and abroad, a “fourth disaster” for the regional fisheries sector. This added another component to the precarious situation faced by local fisheries and the primary industry: the “damage caused by rumors” (fuhyō higai). Within the fisheries sector, the species most affected were those which, before the catastrophe, relied mainly on exports, including sea squirt (hoya or maboya [Halocynthia roretzi], sometimes simply called “sea pineapples”; hereafter hoya or “sea squirt”). In 2010, up to 70 percent (about 7,300 tons) of total sea squirt production was exported to South Korea. Sea squirt cultivation requires three to four years from start to finish, while other cultivated species such as oysters, scallops (when implanting spats), or seaweed need only one year to mature. Consequently, cultivation of sea squirt during reconstruction following the 2011 disaster took longer than for other cultivated marine products. Immediately after the nuclear disaster, numerous states imposed general import restrictions. In the years that followed, the restrictions were eased and applied only to particular products or, in some cases, were lifted completely. In the summer of 2014, three years after the catastrophe, the first sea squirt cultivated during reconstruction could finally be delivered. Suddenly, South Korea imposed an import ban on sea products from several prefectures in northern Japan. The affected sea squirt fishers were devastated by South Korea’s politically motivated decision, spreading

66  Johannes Wilhelm

confusion after a difficult period of reconstruction and crushing their hopes for better days. Since 2016, approximately 10,000 tons of sea squirt have been destroyed in Miyagi Prefecture with the purpose of creating market shortages that would stabilize prices in order to overcome the crisis, at least in the short term. However, in a spring 2018 policy shift, Miyagi authorities introduced significantly reduced production targets to address the ineffectual production and burning of vast quantities of sea squirt. At present, producers are hoping for a positive outcome from World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations of Japan’s appeal of South Korea’s import ban. Meanwhile, Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) is compensating producers for damages incurred from the loss of exports. This is not only an extremely inefficient form of subsidized fishing, but it also creates wider dependencies, which the regional administration is gradually addressing. In an attempt to disentangle the complex web of connections and constraints between local and global actors in order to explain the problem of sea squirt cultivation in post-disaster Pacific Tōhoku, this chapter asks the following: 1 2 3 4

What are the characteristics of sea squirt cultivation? How did the current problems come about? What are the current conditions for the industry and its stakeholders? What are the expected consequences of the current situation?

To find answers, we first look closer at research on the subject of the fisheries economy and a social scientific approach within disaster studies. Next, we describe basic features of the fisheries industry in northern Pacific Tōhoku, an area characterized by a large proportion of cultivated aquatic products in small—most often family-run—enterprises. We then explore the cultivation of sea squirt to explain how the process differs from other aquaculture sectors, next looking at current problems with producing and selling sea squirt. This main section deals with the export dependency of the sea squirt industry in connection with the South Korean import ban, focusing on the micro-level of fishing villages, where sea squirt is primarily produced. We hear from producers, sellers, and representatives of fisheries cooperatives and high dependencies that have arisen in the course of post-disaster reconstruction. This illustrates the real problem; the condition of the industrial sector and its actors in a virtually unplanned network of dependencies at the local, regional, national, and global levels. It becomes evident that the local production of hoya and its actors are operating in a hybrid space, which Woods (2007) describes as part of the “global countryside.” This form of hybridity emerged clearly after the catastrophe and the problems that arose from the nuclear incident.

Previous research and method An overwhelming number of scientists rushed to the region shortly after the catastrophe, subsequently publishing numerous papers and reports. However, with the exception of a few relevant topics, there is little structured response and no theoretical development in research on the 3.11 catastrophe. In Japan, where the topic

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  67

received special attention for obvious reasons, the work of foreign colleagues was hardly considered—nor was the fact that outside Japan far more discussion centered around the Fukushima nuclear disaster than around the problems of reconstruction in the affected coastal regions. In this chapter I focus on Japanese research, since most of the papers relevant to the topic were published in Japan, creating an opportunity to observe a more differentiated research situation. I am also interested in bringing Japanese studies and trends to the attention of foreign researchers. When focusing on local communities affected by the disaster, four overview articles address the topic from a social scientific perspective: papers by Monma (2013), Ōsumi (2013), Sasaki (2014), and Oyamada and Itō (2016). Monma (2013) focuses on the disaster’s effects on agriculture (including fisheries) and food safety, reviewing symposia and reports from several academic societies and other sources. Ōsumi targets food safety and consumer behavior, while Sasaki explores the reconstruction and revitalization of affected communities. Both Ōsumi and Sasaki present brief overviews, and the state of research has progressed in the years since. The paper by Oyamada and Itō, which explicitly refers to the agricultural sector (including fisheries) and social scientific studies, is based on the three reviews mentioned earlier and builds on them, excluding the areas already covered.Their methodology distinguishes itself from the other works cited, representing a first attempt to systematize research based on a keyword search in the comprehensive CiNii database of Japanese academic sources and then identifying topic clusters in chronological order. In this chapter, I refer primarily to the latter summary while simultaneously including non-Japanese research, since Oyamada and Itō do not consider it. It is interesting to note that most papers in their overview were published between 2011 (37) and 2013 (36), with a peak of 58 papers in 2012. In the period immediately following the disaster and up to about 2013, many papers concern future projections about the disaster area in the broadest sense. In 2012, a remarkable number of works were published on topics such as the local population, social disparities, and economic aspects including trade and distribution. At the same time, between 2012 and 2013 there was an increase in work that merely skimmed the surface, a trend that has ebbed since 2014. In view of the declining number of publications since 2013, Oyamada and Itō (2016: 339) conclude that interest in the disaster has generally declined. Though follow-up studies are rare in the fields of agricultural economy and sociology, the authors explicitly emphasize their importance for appropriately assessing reconstruction measures and the individual aspects of development. Such information will be valuable in responding to future natural and nuclear catastrophes. A similar situation can be observed in issues concerning the regional fisheries economy and regional studies on the society and economy of the Oshika region in particular. Some studies on the peninsula appeared around 2014, yet these field reports by young architects or geographers reproduce outcomes from older studies and thus lack scientific relevance. Hamada (2013) produced an extensive monograph on fisheries and the 3.11 disaster, yet apart from Demura’s (2013) review of the facts no meta-scientific overview or study on the sea squirt industry in the context of disaster is available. Satō (2015) offers a simple analysis of the fishing villages

68  Johannes Wilhelm

on Oshika Peninsula based on data from the 10th Fishery Census of 2008. Wilhelm (2018) utilizes data from the 10th and 11th Fishery Census and the national Population Census of 2015 in addition to information collected during extensive mid- to long-term fieldwork. Katayama (2016) presents a general critique of reconstruction policies in the coastal area and its fisheries sector, yet his data is no longer as current as it was at the time of publication. His critique of reconstruction policies does not focus on fisheries alone, pointing instead to a phenomenon that the editors of the book in which Katayama’s article appeared coined “reconstruction led by political opportunities” (sanji binjō-gata fukkō). In the field of agricultural economics, which is of particular relevance to this study, the primary research topics include the distribution of goods and products, food security, and consumer behavior (see, for instance, Kurihara et al. 2012; Reiher 2017; Ujiie 2011). However, even though some case studies focus on the micro level—i.e., how local producers are coping with disaster while trying to sell their products (Wilhelm and Delaney 2013)—virtually no study examines a particular product, a niche product, or the relationship between the location of production and its larger geographical setting and institutional arrangement within global market flows after a disaster. Another unexamined aspect is the relationship between certain problems. These either have a weak theoretical foundation, or they represent case studies without considering the larger context. This is particularly the case in the cultivation of sea squirt, since the South Korean import ban is often cited as justification for the current crisis. In my opinion, the import ban is part of the problem but not the cause. Accordingly, in the following I will try to fill these gaps by exploring the problems surrounding the post-disaster sea squirt industry in Japan, both by asking why coastal Pacific Tōhoku experienced a crisis related to sea squirt after the disaster and by asking what kind of underlying structures can expose a problem that seems restricted to a rural locality but actually results from the embedding of rural locality in a global context. In terms of methodology, my strategy is twofold. On the one hand, main trends and statistical data were collected in publicly available sources such as newspapers or government sources, such as the Fisheries Census, which has been conducted every five years since 1948. On the other hand, much of the data and information was obtained through interviews with stakeholders, including information from longterm field studies conducted since 2003 in the fishing village of Yoriiso. During my latest field visit, in November 2018, I conducted several semi-structured interviews with producers, wholesalers, representatives of local and prefectural fisheries cooperatives, and local residents. They shared valuable information, and I would like to thank everyone involved for their cooperation and support.

The sea squirt cultivation industry within Japan’s fisheries Soon after the opening of the country and the introduction of modern shipyards and catch-improving techniques from the West during the second half of the 19th

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  69 30000

40% 35%

25000

30%

20000

25%

15000

20% 15%

10000

10%

5000

5% 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

0

Marine fisheries

FIGURE 4.1 

Culvaon

0%

% Culvaon

Production value and share of cultivation fisheries (1960–2016)

Note: All statistics on Japanese fisheries have been obtained online from the publicly accessible database of the Japanese fisheries authorities. Since the individual databases cannot be displayed via a direct link, only the gateway page is mentioned here: www.maff.go.jp/j/tokei/kouhyou/kensaku/bunya6.html (accessed September 1, 2018). Source: MAFF.

century, Japan expanded its fishery policy to include the open seas in order to meet the protein needs of the rapidly growing population. This policy was continued vigorously even after the Second World War; consequently, it was said that the Japanese fishing industry was exploiting the world’s oceans and fishery resources. However, during the final years of the Shōwa period (1926–1989) in the mid1980s, Japan’s expanding fisheries production collapsed, especially the pelagic fisheries sector on international waters. Several factors were responsible: Most notably, global fishery resources were gradually approaching the top limits that could still ensure sustainable exploitation, which was reinforced by the emergence of new players such as China, Indonesia, and Chile. These nations overtook Japan in global ranking of fisheries production more than three decades ago. Looking at four categories of Japan’s fisheries production—pelagic fishing, deep-sea fisheries, coastal fisheries, and aquaculture in coastal waters—we see from Figure 4.1 that aquaculture and inshore fisheries have grown in comparison to the other sectors, especially since the collapse of pelagic fisheries in 1985. Around 1960, aquaculture accounted for only one-tenth of the value of all maritime fisheries. By the mid-1980s, the share had almost doubled, and it has since increased to almost one-third. Although the growth of aquaculture is not quite as pronounced in terms of the weight of the total catch in maritime fisheries, it has more than doubled over the past three and a half decades—from around ten percent to 22 percent today. In terms of profit share, the aquaculture sector has steadily increased its quota compared to total sea fishing, from around ten percent in 1960 to 35 percent in 2016. In simple terms, the switch from traditional fishing to aquaculture and the specialization of inshore fishers in high-value species has stabilized profits, since such fishing is less subject to chance or luck. The rise of cultivation fisheries has absorbed the impact of the decline in Japanese deep-sea fishing, providing seasonal work for many inshore fishers, and cushioned the demographic impact of the aging and depopulation trends in rural Japan.

70  Johannes Wilhelm

The cultivation fisheries sector in Sanriku The Pacific coast of Tōhoku can be divided into two different sectors with specific topographic features. The southern coast from the shores of Fukushima Prefecture in the south up to Mangokuura near Ishinomaki is characterized by sandy beaches, while the northern part up to Hachinohe in southern Aomori Prefecture is characterized by rocky cliffs, with many inlets referred to as “rias.” A ria (from Spanish or Portuguese ria, or rio, i.e., river) is a drowned river valley that remains open to the sea, often with partially submerged peaks protruding from the ocean surface. A coastline of parallel rias separated by prominent ridges is called a ria coast. This is why this region is also known as riasu-shiki kaigan (literally “rias-style coastline”) or simply “Sanriku kaigan.” Sanriku, literally “three riku,” refers to the three Meiji-era provinces of Rikuzen, Rikuchū, and Rikuō (also read Mutsu) that share the Chinese character for “ashore” as part of their name. These ria inlets are well-suited for the cultivation of a variety of marine products, including salmon, sea bream, oyster, scallop, seaweed (wakame and konbu), laver (nori), abalone, and sea squirt. The regional importance of this fisheries sector becomes apparent when plotting corresponding data (primary fisheries by type) from the latest (2013) Fisheries Census along Sanriku from north to south (see Figure 4.2). The coastline between Miyako and Ishinomaki intensely utilizes coastal waters for cultivation fisheries. The data indicate that not all fishers pursue their “primary fishing species” alone, but they often cultivate multiple species or—similar to the agricultural sector—are only part-time fishers, earning their primary income in construction or trade. In terms of types of operational management among Sanriku fishers, about a third (in Iwate) to a half (in Miyagi and Aomori each) are full-time fishers, while a quarter to a third are each part-time fishers earning their main income either from fishing or from alternative sources. In about 95 percent of all cases, fisheries enterprises are run by individuals or families, and most of these are engaged in cultivation fisheries. In many cases these are family-run companies in which the percentage of women among the labor force is higher compared to

95.7%

800 700

600

44.0%

400 300

30.9%

200 100

% 2.4% %5.4% 0.2% %0.7%

0.5% %1.1%

40.4% 4% 37.3% 32.6%

12.1% 11.3% 9.9% %

5.7%

7.7%

Sai Ōma Kazamaura Mutsu Higashidōri Rokkasho Misawa Oirase Hachinohe Kaiage Yōno Kuji Noda Fudai Tanohata Iwaizumi Miyako Yamada Ōtsuchi Kamaishi Ōfunato Rikuzentakata Kesennuma Minamisanriku Ishinomaki Onagawa Higashimatsushima Matsushima Rifu Shiogama Tagajō Shichigahama Sendai Natori Iwanuma Watari Yamamoto Shinchi Sōma Minamisōma Namie Futaba Ōkuma Tomioka Naraha Hirano Iwaki

0

16.0%

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

70.5% 65.0% 61.6% 58.9% 53.6% 6% 52.6% 50.2%

58.6%

500

100.0%

Aomori

Iwate

Common Fisheries

FIGURE 4.2 

Miyagi

Culvaon

Primary fisheries by type (2013)

Source: MAFF, Fisheries Census 2013.

Share of Culvaon

Fukushima

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  71 24.50

1200

25

1000 800 5.89

5.00

600

5

4.00 2.98

400

2.91

2.47 1.57

200

2.30

1.80 1.75

1.52

1.40

1.93 1.49

1.30

1.10

1.79

1.71

2.03 1.98

1.81

3.27

2.78

3.24

2.84

2.62

2.03 2.06 1.91

2.00 1.67

1.61

1.55

1.42

1.33

1.25

Aomori

Male above 60

Female above 60

Iwaki

Hirano

Naraha

Tomioka

Futaba

Ōkuma

Sōma

Namie

Minamisōma

Watari

Miyagi

Female 15 to 59

Shinchi

Yamamoto

Natori

Iwanuma

Tagajō

Sendai

Shichigahama

Rifu

Shiogama

Matsushima

Onagawa

Ishinomaki

Iwate

Male 15 to 59

Higashimatsushima

Kesennuma

Minamisanriku

Ōfunato

Kamaishi

Rikuzentakata

Miyako

Ōtsuchi

Yamada

Iwaizumi

Tanohata

Kuji

Fudai

Yōno

Noda

Kaiage

Oirase

Misawa

Hachinohe

Mutsu

Rokkasho

Higashidōri

Sai

Ōma

1 Kazamaura

0

Fukushima

etc. Av. Size

FIGURE 4.3 Age

structure in Sanriku’s fisheries companies and their average size by age groups and gender (2013)

Source: MAFF, Fisheries Census 2013.

other fisheries sectors. The aging trend among the workforce (see Figure 4.3) is another striking feature, reflecting the general pattern of demographic aging in rural Japan. However, the aftermath of the 3.11 disaster has had a particularly strong impact on population change and other facets of fisheries within the disaster-struck region (Wilhelm 2018). The cultivation industry in this region was introduced after the Second World War, when brown seaweed (wakame) was first successfully cultivated near the town of Onagawa. Today, this regional seaweed is known throughout the country for its high quality. However, as more and more competitors appeared over time, seaweed producers tried to diversify their portfolios, first by switching to oysters, which had similar cultivation methods. Salmon, scallops, and other species became common later. In the early 1970s, the cultivation of sea squirt began, limited to the bay of Samenoura until the early 1990s and then gradually spreading further north.This industry has been especially prosperous in the region around the Oshika Peninsula (Ishinomaki and Onagawa) in Miyagi Prefecture. This is fitting because, as Oshika’s alias, Toshima (lit. “distant island,” even if the area actually is part of the mainland), suggests, Oshika simultaneously represents a rural periphery in the region.This is also why the Onagawa nuclear power plant is located on the east side of the Oshika Peninsula. At the same time, the hoya business itself can be regarded as a marginal niche within the country’s fishery and cultivation, as the following subsection will illustrate.

The sea squirt cultivation industry As mentioned earlier, sea squirt production constitutes less than one percent (in both weight and value) of the total Japanese aquaculture industry, and it also represents a product niche within the fisheries aquaculture industry. Its marginal status also holds true geographically, since sea squirt production is currently limited to the four prefectures of Hokkaido, Aomori, Iwate, and Miyagi. Even in the regions’ peripheries, outside of ria inlets, rough waters with open access to the ocean

72  Johannes Wilhelm TABLE 4.1  Sea squirt production and share by prefectures, 2007–2015 (in tons and percent)

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

Hokkaido

Aomori

Iwate

Miyagi

63 (0.6%) 33 (0.3%) 26 (0.2%) 36 (0.4%) – 356 (58.3%) 566 (63.7%) 989 (18.5%) 2721 (32.8%)

485 (4.8%) 325 (3.0%) 440 (4.0%) 479 (4.7%) 464 (67.0%) 255 (41.7%) 225 (25.3%) 55 (1.0%) 250 (3.0%)

1337 (13.1%) 1419 (13.2%) 1485 (13.6%) 1093 (10.6%) 71 (10.2%) – 4 (0.4%) 231 (4.3%) 443 (5.3%)

8284 (81.5%) 9002 (83.5%) 8986 (82.2%) 8663 (84.3%) – – 94 (10.6%) 4069 (76.1%) 4873 (58.8%)

Source: MAFF, Fisheries Census 2013.

provide particularly suitable conditions for hoya cultivation. The “Mecca of hoya production,” accounting for about 85 percent of all production, is located in the region around the Oshika Peninsula (Ishinomaki and Onagawa). Hoya production output for the years 2007–2015 and the respective share by prefectures are shown in Table  4.1. The data indicate three distinct characteristics. First, more than 80 percent of Japan’s domestic production of cultivated sea squirt occurs in Miyagi Prefecture, and second, the importance of Hokkaido as a new player in the market has increased significantly since the 3.11 disaster, when production in the other prefectures virtually halted for three years. As briefly mentioned earlier, the cultivation of hoya requires at least a three-year lead time. Consequently, Hokkaido was able to establish itself as a major player in the industry during the years immediately following the disaster. Even after production was restored in the traditional areas, Hokkaido has retained its ranking as the second-largest domestic producer of sea squirt. Producers in Miyagi Prefecture were able to regain their leading position in 2014, but as early as 2015 it became apparent that the domestic market in Japan was diversifying. A third important feature of the sea squirt cultivation industry is its high dependence on exports, primarily to South Korea. As can be seen in Table 4.2, approximately 70 percent of all cultivated sea squirt were exported in 2010. In the years immediately following the disaster, however, the small quantity of exports was limited to either natural (non-cultivated) sea squirt or those in Hokkaido’s gradually growing industry.

Sea squirt cultivation in troubled waters When the sea squirt cultivators affected by the disaster were finally ready to harvest in the summer of 2014, they were hit by another disaster just a few weeks later, this time a political one. On September 6, 2014, South Korea imposed an import ban on marine products from eight Japanese prefectures: Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi,

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  73 TABLE 4.2  Sea squirt exports (in tons and percent)

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Production (A)

Export (B)

(A)−(B)

% (B)/(A)

8624 9804 10169 10779 10937 10272 693 610 889 5344 8288 18271 19600

2812 5025 6707 6705 7318 7277 990 705 701 1552 2617 3262 5114

5812 4779 3462 4074 3619 2995 – – 188 3792 5671 15009 14486

32.6% 51.3% 66.0% 62.2% 66.9% 70.8% – – 78.9% 29.0% 31.6% 17.9% 26.1%

Note: The data is based on two different statistical materials from the MAFF for production and the Ministry of Finance (MOF) for exports (trade statistics). Since the numbers for 2011 and 2012 make no sense and the amount is insignificant compared to other years, the calculations in the two columns on the right have been omitted. The product codes for the exports within MOF’s trade statistics are 030791200 until 2011 and 030890110 afterwards, respectively. Sources: MAFF and MOF.

Fukushima, Ibaraki, Gunma, Tochigi, and Chiba, citing radiation contamination from the Fukushima nuclear disaster despite the fact that Japanese authorities never found any measurable radiation in cultivated hoya from Miyagi (Miyagi-ken 2018).1 The poorly managed information strategy of state authorities in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster led to considerable distrust of products from Japan and the affected areas in Tōhoku, both at home and abroad (for details, see Aldrich 2017; Reiher 2017). The ban was a blow for the export-dependent sector of the cultivated hoya, which has also relied on traditional distribution structures (including exports) since the catastrophe. Interestingly, South Korea announced its import ban just one day before the decision announcing the host country for the 2020 Summer Olympics, with Tokyo and Istanbul as final candidates. Whether the ban was related to Prime Minister Abe’s nationalist and anti-Korean agenda remains a matter of speculation. It is noteworthy that—as happened in Hokkaido—production of cultivated sea squirt in South Korea increased significantly in the years following the 3.11 disaster (see Figure 4.4).The total increase accounts for roughly double the amount of sea squirt imported from pre-disaster Japan; we can assume that the South Korean market has been almost saturated with domestic production since that time. In 2015, the revitalization of the sea squirt industry, which had begun with confidence in the export market but also in anticipation of an overwhelming consumer rush on “the first hoya after 3.11,” inevitably led to overproduction. A record yield

74  Johannes Wilhelm 60000

$2.50

50000

$2.00

40000

$1.50

30000 $1.00

20000

Tons

FIGURE 4.4 

US$ 1000

2016

2015

2014

2012

2013

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

1999

2000

1998

1997

1996

1995

1994

1993

1992

1991

1990

1989

1988

1987

$0.00

1986

0

1985

$0.50

1984

10000

US$ per kg

Sea squirt production in South Korea (weight and value)

Source: FAO FishStatJ.

of well over 10,000 tons was expected in 2016, and in June of that year Miyagi Prefecture made the difficult decision to incinerate up to 10,000 tons of cultivated sea squirt, both for environmental considerations and in order to keep prices stable through orchestrated scarcity. Eventually, 7,600 tons in 2016 and 6,900 tons in 2017 (Minato Shinbun 2018) were discarded or partly processed for cattle feed. This is a common practice in Japan, often a by-product of institutional constraints within Japan’s administration. For example, salmon taken out of rivers managed by MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism) during construction projects are forcibly processed into fertilizers, since the fishing rights that are a prerequisite for sale as food for human consumption are only granted by MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). These types of institutional restrictions are a common feature of Japanese policy practice. The disposal policy is managed through an arrangement between the prefectural authorities, the fisheries cooperative association JF Miyagi representing the cultivators, and TEPCO as the responsible party. On behalf of these parties, disposal is being carried out by JF Miyagi, which recoups the associated costs from TEPCO. TEPCO provided compensation for the decline in domestic selling prices for 2014 and 2015. With the advent of disposal in 2016 and 2017, TEPCO compensated for the decline in sales due to disposal. Based on 2016 and 2017 production, compensation for an upper limit of approximately 6,900 tons has been agreed upon for 2018 (Kahoku Shinpō 2018b). This means that producers receive an additional compensation payment via the local cooperative, roughly corresponding to their income from the actual yield of hoya production. Compensation payments vary according to the size of the individual cultivation enterprise, averaging around ¥10 million annually (about ¥6 million for single-producer households). According to local producers and representatives of the cooperative, this creates a de facto double income for producers. Some parties admitted that this fact alone kept them in the village after the disaster, and a cooperative representative voiced fears that residents would leave as soon as the compensations were terminated. The cultivators themselves are uncomfortable with the fact that almost half of their hoya production goes to waste in an orchestrated disposal practice. Because the

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  75

very nature of hoya cultivation is such that it must be planned at least three years in advance, short-term changes are difficult to respond to. However, as long as they are compensated for losses resulting from the disposal policy, cultivators say they can live with the situation.As a hasty countermeasure, domestic consumers have been courted since South Korea’s import ban in an attempt to widen at least the Japanese market. Due to advertising efforts by government agencies, JF Miyagi, and even local volunteers, domestic consumption of hoya has more than doubled, from approximately 2,000 tons in 2010 to 4,800 tons in 2017. Examples of local promotion include the decorative hoyapai (lit. “hoya boobs”) by the artist Ōta Kazumi, which are a big hit at any local festivity around Ishinomaki or Onagawa, and the figure of Hoyabōya (lit. “hoya boy”), originally invented by students of Waseda University, which became a popular mascot around the city of Kesennuma (see Figures 4.5 and 4.6).

FIGURE 4.5 

Persons with a hoyapai at a local festival

Source: Photo courtesy of Duccio Gasparri (date and place unknown).

76  Johannes Wilhelm

FIGURE 4.6 Comic foreground for visitor’s photographs (kao-paneru) of Hoyabōya in the

port area of Kesennuma Source: Photo taken by author (August 2, 2016).

On the other hand, the producers and specialized wholesalers of sea squirt are working to find their own solutions to cope with the situation. For example, a local producer in Yoriiso, Mr. M. (see Wilhelm 2018) has been extremely successful in rebranding his products by relying on small quantities and fancy packaging, a change from his previous practices. He has also diversified production in order to not rely solely on sea squirt. However, methods of diversification are limited, especially as only a maximum of three different crops may be cultivated in a fishing right zone, which are only awarded every five years. In addition, a consensus among all participants in the village is necessary for a new declaration of fishing rights, since the water zones for cultivation represent large areas of joint use. At present, those interviewed indicate it is difficult to establish new crops, at least in Yoriiso, as the majority of the parties hope the situation will improve, and introducing new products requires significant investment.

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  77

Mr. M. is exploring the field of further-processed sea squirt—for example, experimenting with drying techniques that make the product attractive for Chinese customers. This is also an attempt to overcome dependency on consumers in Korea. In addition, he reaches out to Korean expat communities, for example in the USA, to promote his products, but it is clear to him that these efforts can recoup only a fraction of the lost South Korean market. M.’s agility, cosmopolitanism, and resulting success are remarkable. In 2016, he added Vietnamese “interns” to his company’s workforce as part of a government program. However, the interns can stay in the village only temporarily and prefer to remain in the shadows. Nevertheless, these trends clearly show that Yoriiso producers have pursued numerous global connections after the natural disaster. Another actor, the wholesaler Mr. K., who was also referred to in my aforementioned essay, moved to the nearby urban area of Ishinomaki after the catastrophe. Second-generation Vietnamese interns now work in his trading company near Ishinomaki’s large fishing port. Before the disaster, a transporter with a large tank loaded vast quantities of sea squirt every morning and then departed to South Korea via Shimonoseki. Mr. K. handled about 90 percent of all exports to South Korea at the time and has been particularly affected by the import ban. According to Mr. M. from the JF Miyagi branch in Yoriiso, Mr. K. earned as much as ¥1,000,000 during a single transport of such a truck. Mr. K. now concentrates on diesel fuel distribution, but he still has his eye on the sea squirt industry and is looking for new distribution and processing opportunities. For example, he expressed a hope in the potential of sea squirt as a raw material in the pharmaceutical industry (food supplements) and in the field of nanotechnology. He is not yet involved in these new areas, and a large company currently manages the nation-wide distribution of hoya as a food supplement. In any case, potentially producing hoya for nanotechnology or the pharmaceutical industry would not be overseen solely by MAFF, resulting in differences from traditional fisheries management and policy. Meanwhile, in April 2018, the prefectural authorities and JF Miyagi set a maximum production limit of approximately 4,800 tons based on de facto domestic sales in the previous years, aiming to avoid disposal of excess yield (Kahoku Shinpō 2018a). On August 30, details surfaced about negotiations between Miyagi Prefecture and TEPCO, indicating there was an agreement to suspend the compensation payments starting in 2021. Until then, the compensation payments will be gradually reduced; current compensation will be maintained for 2019, but only half will be paid in 2020, and all payments will be suspended as of 2021 (Kahoku Shinpō 2018b). Additional background is required for context. In early 2015, Japan filed a complaint with the WTO against South Korea’s import restrictions. In early 2018, the appeal was granted in the first instance, whereupon TEPCO regarded the WTO complaint as being settled and cited this as the primary reason for the cessation of compensations.2 Politically, the hoya debate has highlighted diplomatic friction between South Korea and Japan in a way similar to another situation concerning fisheries and diplomacy: the whaling issue. This will change since Japan left the International

78  Johannes Wilhelm

Whaling Commission in 2019. The debates reflect an existential crisis for those involved in fishing villages. For political actors, however, these issues concern useful political resources; though they affect marginal economic sectors with a relatively small employee base, they have great political impact in the international arena. From this perspective, the actors of the hoya industry are being exploited as political playthings. Given these uncertainties about their industry’s future, sea squirt cultivators are concerned, though the doubling of domestic production since before 3.11 offers some hope. At this stage, production needs to be reduced in order to ensure price stability, but it is unclear whether an artificial shortage is enforceable among local producers. The relatively long time needed for raising sea squirt compared to other species makes them vulnerable to market developments or other ad hoc changes. Considering all these factors affecting the sea squirt cultivation industry, the sector appears to be in troubled waters.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have outlined how the regionally or even locally limited production of a niche product in the Japanese aquaculture industry was affected by a natural and nuclear disaster and its consequences. Until 2010, the cultivation of sea squirt was largely based on the southern Sanriku Coast of Japan, in particular the region around the Oshika Peninsula. This has also held true since 2014, when production resumed following reconstruction. The local practice of the sea squirt cultivation industry, however, had its global dimensions already prior to the disaster in March 2011, due to interregional flows of commodities, consumer preferences, and a heavy dependence on exports to South Korea. Distrust in food security after the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant revealed this sector’s hidden vulnerabilities with respect to changes in the market or framing conditions. Furthermore, the reconstruction phase in the disaster-struck regions provided a window of opportunity for producers in Hokkaido and South Korea to gain ground as latecomers to the sea squirt business. Blaming industry difficulties on South Korea’s import ban tells only half of the story—and perhaps is merely another nationalist narrative to perpetuate tensions between the countries. However, the sudden, unexpected South Korean import ban on marine products from the disaster region in September 2014—just as the first post-disaster hoya were ready for cultivation—plunged the entire industry into a severe crisis, the “hoya crisis.” A heavy dependence on exports and the three-year lead time required for cultivation slow the sea squirt industry’s ability to respond to external influences such as the South Korean import ban or the appearance of new players in the market. Consequently, domestic reconstruction efforts in the sea squirt cultivation industry were more in line with global rather than domestic markets, especially in assessing possible radiation threats resulting from the accident in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Local-global interdependencies of the sea squirt industry  79

On the other hand, there have been numerous post-disaster changes in the fishing villages of Sanriku. One serious threat is the decline in population. As pointed out in Wilhelm (2018), in Yoriiso, which has experienced less of a decline than other affected coastal villages, primarily older people moved away, hoping to avoid the hardships created by reconstruction work. It remains to be seen whether Yoriiso will be affected by increased out-migration when TEPCO’s compensation payments expire in 2021. There have also been positive changes since the disaster. As the case of Mr. M. illustrates, the trend toward diversification and development in local branding and marketing represents a promising new attempt within the village to keep pace with developments elsewhere. The introduction of Vietnamese interns as part of bordercrossing labor mobility with an impact on the local population is another element of changes that relate local developments to globalization trends (see Woods 2007). It remains to be seen whether the cultivators in Yoriiso can reach a consensus on new products or market strategies before the next allocation of fishing rights in 2023. Since the compensation payments will have expired in April 2022, it could also be that in 2023 the village and its fishers will go through a further transformation and that fishing rights in the area will not be reallocated until 2028 at the earliest. We should mention another more recent development: the revision of the Fisheries Law in December 2018, 70 years after its implementation following the Second World War. In light of the declining number of fishers among the Japanese population, legislators were compelled to strongly consider external investors’ rights when granting fishing rights and licenses. This new allocation practice, to be implemented in September 2023, corresponds to the “Special Zones for Fisheries” (Suisan tokku) addressed by Wilhelm (2013).The amendment also includes so-called quotas (Total Allowable Catches; TACs), which are intended to reduce the impact on aquatic resources; however, such quotas often affect fisheries other than the sea squirt industry. Although the domestic market for sea squirt has expanded considerably, recent developments indicate that producers in the small coastal settlements face an uncertain future; it may take months or years before those affected are able to reorient themselves.Yet TEPCO’s threat of suspending compensation after 2020 means that a revision of current practices will soon be inevitable, requiring action and flexibility from all the actors involved, whether they are villagers on the ground or distant politicians.

Notes 1 The measurement of marine products in Miyagi Prefecture is conducted by JF Miyagi, prefectural authorities, and larger landing ports. I am referring here to data provided by the authorities at: www.pref.miyagi.jp/soshiki/syokushin/nuclear-index.html (accessed September 1, 2018). 2 South Korea, however, appealed on February of that year, and in April 2019 the WTO— quite unexpectedly—eventually decided in favor of South Korea.

80  Johannes Wilhelm

References Aldrich, Daniel P. 2017. “Trust deficit: Japanese communities and the challenge of rebuilding Tohoku.” Japan Forum 29 (1), 39–52. Demura, Masaharu. 2013. “Nōchūsōken zuji hasshin repōto 2013: Miyagi-ken ni okeru hoya yōshoku no fukkō jōkyō” [State of reconstruction of ascidian aquaculture in Miyagi Prefecture]. www.nochuri.co.jp/genba/pdf/otr130109-2.pdf (accessed September 1, 2018). Hamada,Takeshi. 2013. Gyogyō to shinsai [Fisheries and quake disaster].Tokyo: Misuzu Shobō. Kahoku Shinpō. 2018a. “Yōshoku hoya konki seisan chōsei: Miyagi-ken gyokyō hōshin shōkyaku shobun no kaihi” [Cultivated hoya production regulated: JF Miyagi to avoid planned incineration plans]. February 10. www.kahoku.co.jp/tohokun ews/201802/20180210_12052.html (accessed September 1, 2018). ———. 2018b. “Miyagi kensan hoya baishō: 20-nen de shūryō. Ken gyokyō to tōden ōsuji gōi” [Compensations for hoya produced in Miyagi Prefecture terminated end of 2020: Agreement in principle between JF Miyagi and TEPCO]. August 31. www.kahoku. co.jp/tohokunews/201808/20180831_13035.html (accessed September 1, 2018). Katayama, Satoshi. 2016. “Ōtsunami-go no gyogyō, gyoson to jinkō ryūshutsu” [Fisheries and fishing villages after the great tsunami and the problem of depopulation]. Fujio Tsunashima, Tomohiro Okada, Yoshimitsu Shiozaki, and Kōichi Miyairi (eds.), Higashi Nihon daishinsai fukkō no kenshō: dono yō ni shite “sanji-jōbin-gata fukkō” o norikoeru ka [A critical view on reconstruction after the Great Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami: How to overcome “opportunity-led disaster reconstruction”], 189–208. Tokyo: Gōdō Shuppan. Kurihara, Shinichi, Atsushi Maruyama, and A. E. Luloff. 2012. “Analysis of consumer behavior in the Tokyo metropolitan area after the Great East Japan earthquake.” Fūdo Shisutemu Kenkyū 18 (4), 415–426. MAFF (Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). 2013. “Fisheries Census 2013 and statistics on fisheries [no explicit naming].” www.maff.go.jp/j/tokei/kouhyou/kensaku/ bunya6.html (accessed September 1, 2018). Minato Shinbun. 2018. “Miyagi-ken yōshoku hoya seisan chōsei: JF Miyagi kokunai-muke tekisei-ka 4800 ton e” [Regulation of cultivated hoya production in Miyagi Prefecture: JF Miyagi to adjust to 4,800 tons]. April 9. www.minato-yamaguchi.co.jp/minato/ e-minato/articles/79128 (accessed September 1, 2018). Miyagi-ken. 2018. “Miyagi-ken-nai nōrin suisanbutsu no hōshanō sokutei kekka ni tsuite” [Results of measurement of radioactive contamination of agricultural products in Miyagi Prefecture]. www.pref.miyagi.jp/soshiki/syokushin/nuclear-index.html (accessed September 1, 2018). Monma, Toshiyuki. 2013. “Hōshanō osen chiiki no nōgyō, shokuryō shōhi ni kansuru kenkyū dōkō” [Research trends of radioactive contamination influences on agriculture and food consumption behavior]. Nōgyō Keizai Kenkyū ( Journal of Rural Economics) 85 (1), 16–27. Ōsumi, Azusa. 2013. “Fūdo shisutemu, shōhin sangyō, ryūtsū: Higashi Nihon daishinsai, oroshiuri shijō no henka o chūshin ni” [Foodsystem, commodities, distribution: Focusing on changes at wholesale markets]. Nōgyō to Keizai 79 (6), 94–95. Oyamada, Shin, and Fusao Itō. 2016. “Higashi Nihon daishinsai, tsunami higai kara no nōgyō fukkō ni kansuru kenkyū dōkō” [Research trends in agriculture reconstruction studies after the 3.11 tsunami disaster: Targeting social science literature]. Nōgyō Keizai Kenkyū ( Journal of Rural Economics) 87 (4), 335–340. Reiher, Cornelia. 2017. “Food safety and consumer trust in post-Fukushima Japan.” Japan Forum 29 (1), 53–76.

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Sasaki,Takako. 2014.“Higashi Nihon daishinsai no chiiki komyunitī fukkō ni kansuru kenkyū dōkō: fukkō shien oyobi chiiki komyunitī no saisei ni chakumoku shite” [Research overview on regional community reconstruction after the Great Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami: With a focus on the revitalization of regional communities]. Nōgyō to Keizai 80 (7), 108–111, 113. Satō, Toshiaki. 2015. “Tsunami hisai izen ni okeru Oshika hantō gyoson no gyogyō kōzō: dai 10-ji gyogyō sensasu (1998) no dēta kara” [Structure of fishery and fishing village at Oshika Peninsula before the Great East earthquake and tsunami: Analysis of the 1999 (10th) fishery Census of Japan]. Ishinomaki Senshū Daigaku Kiyō 26, 151–160. Ujiie, Kiyokazu. 2011. “Hōshasei busshitsu osen no osore ga aru nōsanbutsu ni taisuru shōhisha hyōka” [Consumer evaluation of agricultural products believed to be affected by radiation]. Nōsanbutsu Ryūtsū Gijutsu Kenkyūkai Nenpō 2011, 91–96. Wilhelm, Johannes. 2013. “Der Wiederaufbau der Fischerei Sanrikus zwischen Sonderzonen und Fischereigenossenschaften.” Verena Blechinger-Talcott, Christoph Brumann, and David Chiavacci (eds.), Ein neues Japan? Politischer und sozialer Wandel seit den 1990er Jahren (= Asiatische Studien/Études Asiatiques; 67/2), 625–650. Bern: Peter Lang. ———. 2018. “Seven years after disaster: Fisheries communities in coastal Pacific Tōhoku.” Giovanni Bulian and Yasushi Nakano (eds.), Small-scale fisheries in Japan: Environmental and socio-cultural perspectives (= Ca’ Foscari Japanese Studies; 8), 129–152. Venice: Ca’ Foscari University Press. Wilhelm, Johannes, and Alyne Delaney. 2013. “No homes, no boats, no rafts: Miyagi coastal people in the aftermath of disaster.” Tom Gill, Brigitte Steger, and David H. Slater (eds.), Japan copes with calamity: Ethnographies of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters of March 2011, 99–124. Oxford: Peter Lang. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507.

5 RECLAIMING THE GLOBAL COUNTRYSIDE? Decline and diversification in Saga Genkai coastal fisheries Sonja Ganseforth

Introduction Decline is a dominant theme in Japanese coastal fisheries, particularly so in the Saga Genkai area in northern Kyushu. No fish, no fishermen, no future—this was the basic message of many interviews with fishers, fishery cooperative staff, bureaucrats and other experts during fieldwork in 2010, 2017, and 2018. “Have you come to witness the end of our fishery?,” I was greeted during my first visit of a fishery cooperative in the fishing port of Yobuko, now a part of Karatsu City (Ganseforth 2015). This independent cooperative does not exist anymore today; it has merged with seven others in 2012, one of the major changes in recent years. Growing resource problems, volatile fuel and stagnating fish prices have contributed to the declining profitability of Japanese coastal fisheries, which used to offer good earning opportunities to young Japanese men a few decades before. With plummeting total numbers and more than 50 percent of employees in Japanese fisheries above the age of 60, largely family-operated fishing businesses are facing a severe lack of successors. Not everyone, however, is simply resigned and discontent. From different positionalities, fishers, planners, bureaucrats and cooperatives are trying to come to terms with transformation processes that follow global patterns of peripheralization in rural areas. Drawing on research on rural experiences of globalization as well as critical analyses of development, growth and sustainability discourses, I examine the dynamics and frictions in local renegotiations of transformations that often originate outside of local actors’ sphere of influence. This analysis can contribute to the understanding of the challenges facing small-scale fishers and coastal fishing communities not only in Japan but also in other countries around the world. The next sections will position Saga Genkai coastal fisheries in the context of global and national transformations and analyze how different actors navigate and co-produce these changes, re-constituting Saga Genkai as part of a global countryside (Woods 2007).

Decline and diversification in Saga Genkai coastal fisheries  83

After drawing a statistical outline of fishing businesses in the Genkai area, I will introduce several exemplary cases in order to illustrate the numbers: two small family fishing businesses, the newly merged fishery cooperative that encompasses most of Saga Genkai fishing grounds as well as an NPO looking for new solutions for local small-scale fishers.

Locating Saga Genkai fisheries in the global countryside In the 20th century, growth-oriented “development” has become the dominant paradigm to think about marginalized regions and to shape policy interventions (Escobar 1995). In view of growing environmental degradation, a dramatic loss of biodiversity, climate change and the endangerment of other “planetary boundaries” (Rockström et al. 2009), “sustainability” and “sustainable growth” have become the new buzzwords of the 21st century, such as in the sustainable development goals of the United Nations. Sustainability also features prominently in recent policy papers and programs to reform the management of maritime spaces and promote the enhancement of “blue economies” and “blue growth” (Winder and Le Heron 2017). The oceans figure as one of the last frontiers open to human exploitation and economic growth. Considering the grave extent of overfishing and of the degradation, acidification and warming of maritime environments, however, this perpetuation of the growth paradigm is highly problematic and its supposed “sustainability” seems rather paradoxical. Activist-scientist proponents of “degrowth” (Demaria et al. 2013; Paulson 2017) contend instead that human consumption of planetary resources needs to be reduced dramatically in order to make future life on earth viable. Economic growth in Japan has been formidable for a period in time, but since the 1990s, its highly unequal effects are becoming increasingly acute—most visibly so in spatial relations. Japanese rural regions suffer from a detrimental relationship to the metropolitan core areas and an array of socioeconomic and political marginalizations, e.g., in respect to indicators such as wealth, income, employment rates or education levels (Tachibanaki 2006: 104–112). Rural areas have long served as a supply base of labor forces and resources for the center(s), a global pattern described by Brenner and Schmid (2015) in their disputed concept of “planetary urbanization” as the consumption of rural areas under the logic of city-driven capitalist exploitation. Long-term trends of rural depopulation and aging as well as the exodus from hard manual labor jobs in the primary sector are common in many industrialized countries, albeit in a more extreme form in Japan. A positive ecological impact of this demographic “degrowth” as a “depopulation dividend” (Matanle 2017) cannot (yet) be observed in Japan. National policies such as the “Trinity Reforms” as well as municipal and cooperative mergers in the 2000s have further contributed to the disintegration of rural communities. Similar processes of aging and depopulation are also taking place in fisheries in other industrialized countries (Cramer et al. 2018; Donkersloot and Carothers 2016; Reed et al. 2013; Russell et al. 2014). Indeed, Saga Genkai is exhibiting features consistent with Woods’ (2007: 492–494) characteristics of a global countryside, such as the effects of pervasive global commodity chains on the fishing sector,

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the commodification and degradation of nature as well as a pronounced social polarization leaving small-scale fishers on the losing side even in the context of already marginalized regions. This peripheralization (Kühn 2015) is especially salient in geographically isolated areas such as small islands, typically relying on fishery economies. The emergence of buyer-driven global commodity chains in fishery produce, the proliferation of large supermarket chains since the 1980s (Larke and Causton 2005), and a re-orientation of consumer preferences toward standardized, ready-made and increasingly imported seafood products and meat (Akiya 2007) constitute a profound shift in the power structures of the seafood business in Japan (Ganseforth 2015; Komatsu 2010: 52–70). These shifts in the global agri-food system (Friedman and McMichael 1987) are directly affecting small-scale producers in Japan as anywhere in the world. Finally, these processes are also accompanied by a considerable degree of contestation over the meaning of places and identity (Woods 2007: 494) of fishing communities. Romanticized imaginaries of a native rural homeland, the furusato (one’s hometown), loaded with nostalgic idealization, abound in Japanese place-making narratives as well as marketing campaigns (Robertson 1998).With fish being almost as emblematic as rice for Japanese cuisine or even the nation (Ohnuki-Tierney 1993), the fishing village lends itself as a topos of corny folk ballads (enka) or as a quaint tourist destination with fresh seafood meals performed in an authentic setting. This is the recipe followed by most fishers’ minshuku (boardinghouses), direct sales shops, municipal marketing departments and national rural revitalization programs. The latter have come to occupy a central place in domestic (development) policies (Kitano 2009; Rausch 2010). At the same time, these idylls are endangered by dwindling fish stocks, pollution and environmental degradation as well as conflicting industrial projects. In the Saga Genkai Sea area, such projects include the extraction of sand needed for construction projects as well as a nuclear power plant. Japanese fishing communities are also idealized as the last resorts of communal resource administration in an industrialized country. Japanese coastal fishing rights are largely controlled and administered collectively in territorial fishery cooperatives in a form of “sea tenure” (Ruddle and Akimichi 1989). In most countries in Europe, North America and Australia/New Zealand, the depletion of fish stocks has led to an increasing enclosure of fishing grounds and the introduction of alienable fishing rights based on private property and market mechanisms. Noting that alternative, cooperative and supposedly pre-capitalistic forms of commons and resource management seem much more acceptable to policymakers when found in “Third World” countries, St. Martin (2005) criticizes the ontological binaries of contemporary fishery science and regulation: The result is an inevitable march toward privatization of resources abstractly understood and their utilization by individuals (or individual corporations) as capital.The Third World is allowed to diverge from this inevitability thanks to its inherent characteristics of subject and space read as fisheries-based community and territory. (St. Martin 2005: 975)

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Peripherality thus also allows for positive readings as a space of difference or heterotopia (Foucault 1986). Can fishers in Saga reclaim their peripherality in the global countryside as a place of alterity, albeit within a very capitalist setting?

Mapping and measuring Saga Genkai fisheries Fisheries in Saga are concentrated in two major fishing areas: the Ariake Sea in the south and the Genkai Sea in the north. While the Genkai Sea faces the open sea and a number of smaller islands in the Korea Strait/Tsushima Strait, the Ariake Sea is a large, shallow bay bordering the prefectures of Saga, Fukuoka, Kumamoto and Nagasaki. The Ariake Sea with its peculiar ecosystem enjoys national fame for its intensive cultivation of nori (edible seaweed), but the situation in the Genkai Sea hardly receives any public attention, even though drastic drops in fishery landings and revenues are eroding the economic viability of coastal fisheries in this area. Kobayashi (2016: 210) argues that the Genkai Sea presents a microcosmic picture of the crisis in Japanese fisheries in general, as the decline in fishery production is even more dramatic than the national average. This makes coastal fisheries in the Genkai Sea (see Figure 5.1) an important—though understudied—case study in order to understand the challenges facing coastal fishers all over Japan as well as fishing communities around the world struggling with resource depletion, income loss and a “graying of the fleet.” Income from wild fisheries mainly depends on two variables: the amount of fish caught and the price of fuel. Total catches in Japanese fisheries have decreased

FIGURE 5.1 

Fishing village at the Genkai Sea

Source: Photo taken by Jakob Günzler.

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by more than 25 percent in the decade from 2006 to 2016. While this decrease has been set off by the dramatic drop in the number of fishers over the same decade, and a slight increase in fish prices has improved revenues in recent years, there still was a reduction in revenues from fisheries in individual businesses—with considerable differences in revenues depending on the kind and scale of fishery as well as on the fishing area (MAFF 2017). Fishery production in the Genkai Sea has decreased from a peak in 1980 with around 45,000 tons to little more than 10,000 tons since 2010. The average production output per business in the Genkai area, which had been surpassing the national average by far since the 1960s, has also stayed below average since 1995, adding to an acute sense of crisis among fishing households (Kobayashi 2016: 119–123). In contrast, individual sales are much higher in the seaweed-dominated Ariake Sea (MAFF 2015). Fuel constitutes a large item of expenditure for operators of motorized fishing vessels; therefore, the volatility of the price of fuel has grave implications for the profitability of fishing businesses. Rising energy prices until the peak year of 2008 had put fishers in a very difficult economic position, but as fuel has become cheaper again, their profit margin has regained. Average annual income from fisheries for individually operated coastal fishing businesses in recent years ranged from ¥1,895,000 in 2013 to ¥2,349,000 in 2016 (MAFF 2018: 69–73).1 This still leaves fishers at a large comparative disadvantage: The average annual income per person in Saga Prefecture in 2013 was ¥2,513,000, ranking Saga 37th out of 47 Japanese prefectures. The difference to the national average of ¥2,845,000 is still not as stark as to the average income in Tokyo of ¥4,508,000 (SSTB 2017). This gap illustrates not only the economic marginalization of coastal fishers but also the immense inequality between metropolitan areas and the rest of Japan, one important factor pulling many young people away from rural regions and from coastal fisheries. The 2013 national Fishery Census (MAFF 2015) counts 1,871 fishery businesses in Saga (national total: 94,507), almost all of them operated by individuals and engaging in coastal fisheries (with boats up to ten tons, including aquaculture). Not even one third of businesses had any employees at all. With the number of persons working in fisheries in the Genkai Sea area alone decreased by 20.6 percent from 1,566 in 2008 to 1,244 in 2013, shrinkage is even more dramatic than the national average, and it is accelerating fast. Only 25 newcomers joined Genkai fisheries in this period. The lack of successors to take over the family business is especially severe among smaller fishing businesses and affects the ability to access credit and invest. Among the owners of boats of up to five tons and of boats with outboard engines—by far the most common types of boats registered in the Genkai Sea— only 10.7 percent are in the favorable position to have a successor. There has been a shift toward other sources of income: Of the 775 family businesses in the Genkai Sea, almost 60 percent have income from other occupations, half of which only conduct fishing as minor side business. Part-time fishing has increased considerably in recent years, corresponding to the rising share of fishers aged 60 years and above to 36.7 percent in 2013 (MAFF 2015). Boardinghouse

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and yūgyō (recreational fishing/angling) businesses are traditional side businesses for fishers. However, in Saga Prefecture, only nine fishers ran a boardinghouse. The 65 yūgyō operators in Saga only received about half of the national average of customers, whereas in neighboring Nagasaki Prefecture with its attractive fishing grounds, the number of operators as well as their average number of customers were almost threefold (MAFF 2015). Saga Prefecture clearly has a weakness in this sector, which cannot provide sufficient income alternatives for family fishing businesses. According to Fukuhara,2 who has founded an NPO to support local fishers’ income, the heightened popularity of the Itoshima Peninsula (Fukuoka Prefecture) with its abundance of oyster shacks and arty cafés as well as a new highway diverting Fukuoka tourists to destinations in Nagasaki Prefecture has led to a decrease in tourists coming to Saga Prefecture.The Genkai area also lacks restaurants and hotels offering locally caught fish—with the only exception of the one famous local specialty: the preparation of live squid (ika no iki-zukuri). Most other fish is brought directly to Fukuoka from Saga, and most Saga restaurants conversely receive their seafood supplies from Fukuoka traders.

The fishing family businesses In order to lend a face to the numbers, I will introduce two family fishing businesses here: fisher Nishiguchi and his shrimp fishery, and fisher Shimazaki with a variety of fishing methods. Despite living in quite different settings, after the municipal and cooperative mergers of 2005 and 2012 respectively, both are now residents of the city of Karatsu and members of the Saga Genkai Fishery Cooperative. Fisher Nishiguchi is living in Okuhama (alias), a traditional fishing village on the Higashi Matsuura Peninsula. The local fishing port is listed as a port of national importance (one out of 101 ports in that category), but the local fishery is far from vibrant. Eto from the Okuhama cooperative branch relates that local cooperative membership numbers decreased from 86 members in 2010 to 60 members in 2017. According to the 2013 Fishery Census, there were 40 individually operated businesses and one cooperatively operated business; ten fishers worked full-time, 17 were part-time fishers with their main income from fisheries, and for 13, other sources of income were more important. The main other source of income is from employment outside of fisheries. Out of a total of 41 businesses, more than half (25) engage in coastal squid angling; the rest are active in angling, small trawl, boat seine and other fisheries, with just one business conducting aquaculture production of Japanese amberjack (buri) as their main activity. Other complementary activities include angling and small-scale aquaculture (providing only limited sales under one million yen). Only one individual business employed a person outside of the family for offshore work, and all except for eight went out to fish alone. There were only two women in their 50s working in fisheries; among the 47 men, one was below the age of 30, six were in their 40s, twelve in their 50s, eleven in their 60s and 17 aged 70 or above.The average age calculated by taking a medium value for each age

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range (e.g., 37 for age 35–39 and 77 for 75 and above) was 62.8 years in 2013. Among the 155 members of fishing households, only 18 were aged 14 or below (MAFF 2015; SKSH 2015). Nishiguchi has a shrimp trawling business and, in his early 50s, is one of the youngest fishers in Okuhama. His father started the shrimp ground net fishing business, returning to Okuhama after working in the city when shrimp fishing was still a lucrative endeavor promising to support a family. In the past, Nishiguchi used to go out to sea with his father, who has now become too old and frail to work. His wife took over as a coworker for a while, but she could not endure the strain. Instead, she started a fish peddling (akigai) business. She would go meet her husband at the harbor around 2 a.m. in the very early morning, help him sort the catch, buy some additional fish at the 3 a.m. auction at the Okuhama market as well as at the later Karatsu market and then do her rounds in a little truck, visiting her regular customers at their homes (Ganseforth 2015). This work used to be a good way to diversify the household income, but in 2017 she gave up because her husband did not catch enough anymore, and she found more stable income from an employment as a nurse. The couple does not want their two sons and one daughter to become fishers anymore. The husband is quite frustrated that now he is back at selling his catch on the market for a low price and without the consumers’ direct feedback. He does not even bring other fish (bycatch) back to shore anymore because it is not worth the

FIGURE 5.2 

Local morning market at the Genkai Sea

Source: Photo taken by author.

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trouble selling it on the market in Okuhama. Nishiguchi feels his situation is getting worse every year. He is now mostly focusing on catching shrimp for bait, but these are decreasing dramatically. Nishiguchi tries to avoid selling through the cooperative market but rather to deal directly with other fishers who need shrimp as bait for their angling tourist guests. If he has no orders for bait shrimp, he often does not even bother to start his boat in the evening. Instead, he has recently turned to going out angling by himself during the day, hoping to bring a handful of valuable fish such as olive flounder (hirame) to the market.The cooperative has no other sales channels except for the market, but occasionally Nishiguchi can sell some shrimp through a local NPO partaking in the furusato nōzei (hometown tax) system (see below). A few years back, a supermarket buyer had shown some interest in establishing a direct sales contract with Nishiguchi, but the latter could not meet the requirements in terms of a stable year-round supply or a certain standard of hygiene and modern equipment. Nishiguchi’s other main strategy for income diversification is angling tourism. He regularly takes on board angling tourists, mostly old customers that his father already had. He does not have any other form of advertising, so he does not receive any new customers. Since 2015, his angling services are also listed in the previously mentioned NPO’s hometown tax thank-you catalog, but so far his angling customers have not greatly increased, he says. Summing up, the Nishiguchis’ livelihood strategies (Chambers and Conway 1992) comprise income diversification, a search for alternative sales channels and an increasing reliance on informal business relations. Their assets include fishing rights, a recreational angling business license, equipment such as a boat, gear and radar, as well as knowledge and fishing experience. They also have good connections to other fishers and neighbors, and, being among the younger fishers in the area, Nishiguchi had a leadership role in the fishery cooperative as the leader of the youth club (seinenbu). These assets, however, are offset by an array of vulnerabilities and weaknesses: an old boat (over 30 years old), growing resource problems, limited market access, stagnating fish prices, no successor, a lack of manpower and of fellow fishers (nakama) as well as a relatively weak cooperative (see below). Fisher Shimazaki works off Kojima (alias), a small volcanic island of less than three square kilometers north of Yobuko on the Higashi Matsuura Peninsula with 131 inhabitants remaining in 2015. Fishing is the main economic activity on the island, and according to the 2013 Fishery Census there are 33 individually operated businesses, 20 of which are full-time fishers, eight are part-time fishers and five are part-time fishers relying mainly on other sources of income, including recreational angling, boardinghouses and employment. The high rate of full-time fishers in comparison to Okuhama is likely due to the lack of alternatives on this rather isolated island. Thirteen businesses engage in coastal squid angling, nine in shell and seaweed collecting and the rest in trolling, gill net, angling, set-net and other angling fisheries as their main activity. A number of businesses combine their main fishery with other common fishing techniques as well as the cultivation of shells in their portfolio of business activities. No business had any employees outside of

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the family for offshore or onshore work, and all except for four went fishing alone. There were only four women (age 65 and above) working in fisheries; among the 33 men, two were in their late 30s, six were in their 40s, nine were in their 50s, ten were in their 60s and six were aged 70 and above. The average age was 59.2 years. Among the 93 members of fishing households, there were no children aged 14 or below (MAFF 2015; SKSH 2015). Fisher Shimazaki’s family has been living on Kojima for eleven generations, after their ancestor was relegated there by his feudal lord for disciplinary reasons to serve as a lookout post overseeing the maritime boundaries toward the west. Shimazaki’s parents were neighbors in a tiny hamlet on the northern tip of the island, which they never left. Of the former seven houses, only three are inhabited now, the mother’s childhood home being completely overgrown by the island’s abundant flora. After almost 300 years, however, Shimazaki’s generation is going to be the last one on the island. He met his wife when she was sent to the island temporarily as a young teacher. Her parents had opposed the marriage of their only daughter to an islander first-born son because both families would traditionally expect their children to take over the parental household and care for their parents in old age. As a compromise, the family now stays in their house in mainland Karatsu City, where the wife worked as a teacher. Shimazaki returns from the island every night, parks his boat in Yobuko harbor and drives home to his wife. His younger brother, single and childless, returned to the island around ten years ago to stay with the old parents and help with the fishery. Shimazaki does not expect his two sons to ever live on the island, where there is only an elementary and middle school currently educating four students (including one domestic exchange student) in 2018. Shimazaki combines a variety of fishing methods: gill net, set net as well as the cultivation of abalones (awabi). He has been growing abalones for over 30 years now, but 2018 will be the last year because he cannot compete with cheaper imported products. There used to be a number of abalone cultivators on Kojima, but now he is the last one to leave the business. Shimazaki also has a license for hosting angling tourists; his bait shrimp is supplied by Nishiguchi. Shimazaki estimated the situation of his business in 2017 as similar to 2010, but he has accumulated a greater variety of instruments and equipment. He can thus adapt more flexibly to fluctuating resource and market situations for different species. In this sense, his situation has improved, but aging equipment generates considerable maintenance and repair expenses. Shimazaki has no successor and does not expect anyone to take over his business, especially since one would probably lead a lonely life without any fellow fishers. His neighbor in the same hamlet is still in business but also has no successor. The two fishing families have the entire harbor to themselves.Therefore, Shimazaki expects that in the near future there will be no more fishers on Kojima. In comparison to Nishiguchi, Shimazaki’s income diversification methods are more focused on a variety of different fishing methods, rather than looking for new sales channels. Until her recent retirement, he also benefited from his wife’s income as a teacher, which allowed the family to lead a rather comfortable life. In this way, both fishing enterprises are subsidized by the women’s employment, a

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pattern NPO-founder Fukuhara thinks is quite common in Saga fisheries. Angling tourism is another important source of income for Shimazaki as well. Even though Shimazaki faces the same structural problems as Nishiguchi and even greater geographic marginalization and isolation from other fishers, he manages to balance island and mainland life well and is in a more comfortable position in terms of family support and physical assets (two boats, a variety of gears, stationary net, and aquaculture frame). Both fishers consider the weakness of the cooperative a serious grievance.

The cooperative Similar to the wave of municipal mergers in the 2000s, most fishery cooperatives were forced to merge in order to cope with contracting membership numbers and financial constraints, leading to a disenfranchisement of fishers from these traditionally important communal institutions. The national guideline for cooperative mergers preferred unifying all cooperatives of one prefecture as in Kumamoto and Ōita (Hokimoto 2009: 56). However, in view of the strong division between the Genkai Sea and the Ariake Sea, one cooperative was to be formed for each sea in Saga. This was successful in the Ariake area, but in the Genkai area, other divisions arose as Eto, the director of the cooperative branch in Okuhama, relates. In the end, only eight of the total 13 Genkai cooperatives joined the merger in 2012. The two cooperatives in Genkai-chō, the independent town hosting the Genkai Nuclear Power Plant, and three cooperatives from Karatsu refused to merge. According to the director of a small cooperative in Genkai Town, the economic gap between the cooperatives was the main reason to abstain. While cooperatives in Genkai Town profit from power plant compensation payments, some cooperatives participating in the merger were highly indebted. Sinister rumors abound about mismanagement, nepotism, illegitimate loan practices, corruption, connections to organized crime and even murder involving the former Saga Genkai cooperative leadership. Off the record, many interview partners noted the cooperative was unable and unwilling to effectively help improve their members’ income because they were too preoccupied with their own financial troubles. Shrinking membership remains a serious problem.The entire Saga Genkai Fishery Cooperative had 954 members in 2017, down from 977 the year before (Saga Genkai Fishery Cooperative 2017: 8). Most fishers do not have successors; Eto explains that others saw their sons leave after getting married because they needed money to sustain their own households, and the parents could not pay a sufficient monthly wage of around ¥200,000.The drop in fishers and fish entails a downward spiral of further decline.The consequences of this contraction are felt up and down stream as suppliers prefer not to keep large stock of fishing tools such as nets or lines anymore. Fishers like Nishiguchi therefore do not find the necessary supplies in their local cooperative anymore and face longer waiting times. Besides the procurement of tools, fuel or ice, the cooperative also acts as liaison officer for a number of public support programs. A major focus is the promotion

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of newcomers into fisheries; in Saga Genkai, there were a few cases of outsiders joining aquaculture businesses, but generally the success rate is low. While fishers and cooperatives had been claiming financial assistance from the state during fuel price hikes, they are now asked to enter a common “safety net” to cover possible income losses, with the state sharing the burden. Other programs include investment subsidies. According to Eto, no new boat has been acquired in Okuhama for 30 years, and the entire cooperative has only seen two new boats since the merger in 2012. Since the boats are not made of wood anymore but of fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP), they last for decades if the machinery is exchanged regularly. Until 2016, fishers could receive funding for half the costs of exchanging their engines. The cooperative has procured two boats under a new subsidy program providing support for cooperatives to purchase new boats and lease them to fishers (rīsu jigyō) since 2017. However, they had to resort to second-hand boats because the shipyards were already working above capacity replacing boats destroyed in the 2011 tsunami in northeastern Japan. Only fishers up to the age of 55 or with a younger successor are eligible for this program, and businesses with a successor are treated favorably. While these preconditions are economically comprehensible, they do exclude the majority of today’s family fishing businesses, as Nishiguchi complains: “Businesses without a successor, like ours, are not even included in the allocating lottery, so we are left out.” These subsidies are part of the “Emergency Measures to Strengthen the Competitiveness of the Fishery Sector” (Suisangyō kyōsōryoku kyōka kinkyū jigyō) program, commonly understood as payments to ease resistance among fishers against free-trade agreements such as the EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). Eto, however, is not worried about more foreign seafood flooding the Japanese market and affecting producer prices. This was already the case now, he said, and with few exceptions such as clams (asari) or abalones, there were not too many species and market segments facing real global competition. Instead, he sees aging, the gruesome labor conditions and the generally low prices as their biggest problem. The effects of global commodity chains might be hard to fathom, but other global flows are perceived more directly.Trying to make sense of resource problems and environmental degradation, most interview partners were hesitant to identify definite causes but pointed in the direction of outside, even global influences: Foreign species migrating from southern seas are considered a possible indicator for the transformative effects of climate change and ocean warming, with changes in sea currents being another worrisome factor. An interviewee at the cooperative main office even complained that recovering whale populations swallowed up large amounts of fish due to foreign restrictions on whaling. Eto and Nishiguchi evoked foreign waste—identified by their Korean and Chinese inscriptions and other markers— drifting over and entangling the screw propellers of local boats as the embodiment of maritime pollution. Intensified fishing efforts by Chinese and Korean industrial fishing fleets are another common suspect, while Nishiguchi also laid some blame on large Japanese trawlers. Closer to home, the extractive sand industry in the Genkai Sea was considered highly detrimental to the marine environment.3 According

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to a retired Prefectural Fisheries Bureau official, the bureau as well as some fishers had been lobbying to close down this industry—amidst whispered accusations against the fishery cooperative supporting its continuation in return for generous compensation payments, as Shimazaki and Fukuhara relate. Fishers in Okuhama are complaining that low catches are not offset by significantly higher producer prices, even though the MAFF Fisheries White Paper does show a correlating trend for some species, especially Pacific saury (sanma) and Japanese flying squid (surume ika); overall fish prices have been on a slow but continuous rise since 2012 (MAFF 2018: 68). Eto suspects this is due to a defunct marketing system, where intermediaries take a large share of the profit, as well as to customers’ unwillingness to buy seafood if prices get too high.While many of these issues may have causes outside of the fishers’ sphere of agency, it is also one of the traditional functions of the fishery cooperative to achieve the best price possible for their members’ produce. Some fishers in Okuhama are seeking better prices in other cities as far as Fukuoka, but most do not have the capacities to drive this far. The geographic disadvantage of relatively remote location leaves the market in Karatsu as the only viable, yet demanding, alternative for fishers like Nishiguchi, even though prices there are still rather low. Already in 2010, there was talk of closing down the cooperative fish market in Okuhama because it was receiving too little produce, and with just five registered nakagai (intermediary wholesalers), the morning auctions are very slow, Eto explains. Karatsu market has been newly constructed in 2010, and the new building conforms to HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) food safety standards. Even in Karatsu, one cooperative market administrator complained that intermediary wholesalers formed a very exclusive and nontransparent club with high entry barriers into their traders’ cooperative, prone to price fixing agreements. Another cooperative department head at the Karatsu fish market confirmed the impedimental requirement by the wholesaler cooperative to present a guarantor and a considerable amount of capital to prove one’s solvency. He saw the biggest problems of the market in severely decreased landings and stagnant prices. Eto reports that in order to provide some direct sales opportunities to the fishers, the Okuhama cooperative branch had started a morning market on Sundays (similar to that shown in Figure 5.2 above), but sales were not high enough to cover the market fees, so the event was canceled. The plan to attract regional tourists failed because of the geographic distance and a disconnect in lifestyles: By the time the urban day-trippers reached Okuhama, it was eight or nine o’clock, and there was no fish left. Local costumers would make sure to finish their shopping early, by seven at the latest. After the cooperative merger, the impetus to focus on just the one market location is even stronger. Seven years before, in 2010, Nishiguchi had still been appreciative of the local market as a vital factor keeping the village alive and an important local infrastructure especially for elderly people unable to drive to Karatsu. In 2017, Nishiguchi’s biggest dissatisfaction with the cooperative was the deferred market closure. He claims the market cannot effectively serve the interests of the local fishers anymore and keeps prices down. Auctions are also very early in the morning,

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at 3 a.m., because shipments have to reach larger regional markets afterwards, leaving fishers with little time to finish their last round and sort their catch. Therefore, many fishers prefer to ship their catch to the larger Karatsu fish market on their own account instead, hoping for more profits despite the extra hours and fuel costs. Even so, they do not only have to pay the handling fees at Karatsu market, but the Okuhama cooperative branch will also deduct their quota for being the fisher’s main affiliation. Nishiguchi claims this is unfair as fishers are charged twice despite making an extra effort but relates the local cooperative branch does not want to close the local market yet because it depends on the proceeds from the auctions. Instead of operating the market, Nishiguchi would rather have the cooperative supply delivery vans to bring the catch to Karatsu. The reduction of local infrastructures and services is counted among the major disadvantages of cooperative or municipal mergers for local fishers or citizens. In this light, the local fishers’ preference for reduction seems counterintuitive, but it is indicative of the diminishing role of fishery cooperatives, when fishers seem to be working for the cooperative rather than the other way around.

New alternatives As the cooperative fails to meet fishers’ expectations of selling their produce profitably, other forms of marketing come to the fore. According to the 2013 Fishery Census (MAFF 2015) and based on my own calculations, around three fourths of fishery businesses sell their catch through cooperative markets and sorting stations. This rate is stable both on the national as well as on the prefectural (Saga) and municipal level. Sales on other wholesale markets were more relevant in Saga Prefecture as a whole (24%) as well as in Karatsu (31%) in comparison to the national average (18%). The gap is even more significant in sales to trading and processing companies with 17 percent of businesses including this route in Saga Prefecture as well as in Karatsu as opposed to only nine percent in the national average. Participation rates are also slightly elevated in Karatsu for small traders (12% vs. 5%), direct sales points (9% vs. 3%) and own sales (17% vs. 12%).This points to the weakness of local cooperative functions and reveals fishers’ pursuit of alternative sales channels and diversification strategies. National revitalization policies for agriculture and fisheries reflect these tendencies and strongly promote the involvement of producers in the second and third sector in a form of skewed mathematics adding up to a “sixth sector” (rokuji sangyō). The aim is to connect the primary sector with subsequent processing and services in order to create value-added products and improve producer prices (Oda et al. 2016). This slogan is just the newest packaging of the idea of connecting the primary sector to tourism and adding value to the original produce. Cooperatives are often the main actors in these projects, but in many cases, individual households or groups are coming up with their own marketing strategies. New transport and communication infrastructures such as air freight and online auctions also allow

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for direct connections to restaurants in Tokyo or even abroad, offering more profitable outlets for locally caught fresh fish in global networks (Kawasaki 2018). The NPO “Hama-machi Kōryū Netto Karatsu” (Shore-Town Exchange Net Karatsu) was founded in 2008 to improve local fishers’ income and support their livelihoods. According to the founder, Fukuhara, the pronounced goal of the NPO is to promote the exchange of citizens with fishers and to spread information and knowledge about local fisheries and fish cuisine. In his opinion, institutions such as fishery cooperatives and the Japanese fish market system are failing to achieve adequate producer prices. Fukuhara gauges the Saga Genkai fishers’ income to be at the national coastal fishery average of around ¥1,900,000 per year. Because this is not sufficient to support a family, most wives have to find other employment, leaving the household no capacities to pursue additional sixth sector activities. Instead, the NPO is testing ways to produce attractive frozen seafood products and is looking for direct export destinations in Taiwan and Korea. Since 2014, the NPO can also be chosen as a recipient of hometown tax money, a newly created system in which urban taxpayers make a donation to a municipality of their choice and have almost the entire amount (minus ¥2,000) deducted from their income tax payments. Originally intended as a way for rural-urban migrants to support their hometowns from afar, this national rural revitalization program has become popular amongst many urbanites, often with no particular ties to the recipient localities. This is largely due to the variety of thank-you gifts that “donators” receive as incentives, usually a choice of locally produced foods and crafts (Rausch 2017). Of the 36 NPO members, 20 fishers and aquaculturalists or their wives are currently offering their goods or services in the NPO’s thank-you catalog. Nishiguchi is also a member, offering either a kilo of fresh shrimps (until early August) for a donation of ¥10,000 or an angling trip with his boat for up to four persons for ¥70,000. When an order comes in, the NPO sends a fax to the fisher, who will prepare the shipment with a specified NPO label and leave it in his own refrigerator. An NPO staff goes around all the participating villages and towns to collect the parcels and brings them to a shipper from Fukuoka, who trucks them to the airport. This way, Nishiguchi’s shrimp can be delivered anywhere in Japan the following day.The producer receives around a third of the donated amount—much more than the wholesale price. Fukuhara estimates an average additional yearly revenue of about ¥500,000 per participating member. Another alternative to the conventional market channels are direct sales points such as the michi no eki, road stations that have sprung up all around the Japanese countryside in the last decade (MLIT 2014; Parker 2010) and are still quite popular, get a lot of produce and generally manage to attract enough consumers from the larger cities to be profitable. Fishers like Nishiguchi or Shimazaki, however, are too far removed from the relevant locations to be able to seize these alternative possibilities. The distance from more profitable markets and urban consumers is often not only geographical but also social and cultural. As public revitalization programs promote the individual innovation and marketing of value-added products by

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entrepreneurial fishers, many fishers cannot keep up. Their processed fish products do not sell well, they are ignorant of urban customers’ preferences, supermarket buyers looking for direct sales contracts are appalled by their simple equipment and hygiene standards, and they are struggling to attract more angling tourists. Fukuhara harbors big expectations for the occasional urban fishing newcomer who might bring knowledge of urban tastes and some marketing expertise to find ways to add value to the local catch. He complains: “Gyogyōsha tte iu no wa ikura sō iu no o oshiete mo rikai dekinai” (I can teach the fishers as much as I want; they just don’t get it).

Reclaiming the global countryside? While located in the national periphery, fishing communities are at the center of contact zones with maritime spaces, encountering and co-producing a multiplicity of global flows of water, acidification, climate change, trash, plastic, pollution, radioactivity and schools of fish. The highly sensitive political ecology of fisheries must be a central concern when discussing the future of this sector of food production. Examining these contact zones as more-than-human assemblages (Bear 2012) could be a promising change of perspective for future analyses. Other global flows such as the global trade in seafood might be less tangible but have pervasive effects on local fishers—an experience shared with other small-scale producers in the “global countryside” (Woods 2007). Studies of rural regions are often dominated by a growth-oriented development paradigm, and Japanese national rural policies abound with recipes to develop and “revitalize” rural economies, where aging, depopulation and economic malaise are perceived with an acute sense of crisis. Shrinkage, rather than growth, does permeate Japanese coastal fisheries and certainly exudes a pervasive atmosphere of loss and decay in contracting fishing towns. However, in view of the high ecological burden of human growth-related activities and the growing intensity of global overfishing, “degrowth,” rather than growth, could be a desirable direction. New ways of production, marketing and consumption are needed to appreciate and valorize small-scale, seasonal and regional fish products as well as the richness of rural landscapes (Lam and Pitcher 2012) without increasing pressure on ecosystems or generating exclusive and self-exoticizing versions of rural identities and places. The creation of direct producer-consumer connections and of value-based commodity chains (Ostrom et al. 2017) does hold the promise of offering alternative markets that circumvent the large-scale commodity chain marketing that in most cases disadvantages small producers. In the case of the hometown tax system, however, the original intention of solidarity with marginalized regions has been perverted by an escalating competition to solicit donations by offering increasingly valuable thank-you gifts. Instead of commodifying nature, tradition and places and leaving fisher folk to fight individual marketing struggles in a purely marketbased competition, meaningful connections to urban populations could transcend existing divisions. Otherwise, processes of neoliberal marketization and individualization against the backdrop of weakening older common institutions are prone to

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expedite existing marginalization. It now depends on their endowment with physical, financial as well as social and cultural assets whether fishers can successfully navigate revitalization programs and have the agency to actively participate and co-produce these new market spaces. Despite the growing importance of new forms of expertise, informal knowledge, experience and the art of “reading the wind” passed down generations remain crucial skills in fisheries. However, economic and ecological constraints undermine former livelihood configurations and limit fishers’ scope of action. The reliance on short-term solutions as described by Nishiguchi can lead to long-term resource depletion and the self-inflicted erosion of livelihoods. Traditional institutions and regulations can also themselves pose impediments, such as in the case of market organization or hierarchical and undemocratic structures in cooperatives abetting mismanagement and excluding women and other outsiders. Rather than simply focusing on economic rationality and austerity through mergers, cooperatives need a reform strengthening democratic and accountable structures and innovative ideas. However, it is doubtful if coastal fishers can reclaim their peripherality as alterity when the government is aiming for “blue growth” and is promoting a fishing rights reform in order to encourage the entrance of corporate actors into coastal fisheries and expand Japanese aquaculture production. Similar to de-peasantization processes in the “global countryside” (Woods 2007: 498), the corporatization of Japanese coastal fisheries as one of the last vestiges of commonly administered resources is more likely to lead to the further disenfranchisement and exodus of small-scale family fishing businesses.

Notes 1 Numbers do not include Fukushima Prefecture because of the damages to the local fishing industry after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident in 2011. 2 In order to protect the interviewees’ privacy, most names have been replaced with aliases. 3 According to Eto, some fishers, however, reported increased catches in affected areas, most likely due to an increased dispersion of small shrimp, squid and plankton to higher ocean spheres, attracting preying fish that the fishers in turn could prey on. A prefecture-led research team found no solid proof for the industry’s detrimental effects.

References Akiya, Shigeo. 2007. Nihonjin wa sakana o tabete iru ka [Are the Japanese eating fish?]. Tokyo: Hokuto Shobō. Bear, Christopher. 2012.“Assembling the sea: Materiality, movement and regulatory practices in the Cardigan Bay scallop fishery.” Cultural Geographies 20 (1), 21–41. Brenner, Neil, and Christian Schmid. 2015. “Towards a new epistemology of the urban?” City 19 (2–3), 151–182. Chambers, Robert, and Gordon R. Conway. 1992. “Sustainable rural livelihoods: Practical concepts for the 21st century” (= IDS Discussion Paper; 296). Brighton: IDS. Cramer, Lori A., Courtney Flathers, Deanna Caracciolo, Suzanne M. Russell, and Flaxen Conway. 2018. “Graying of the fleet: Perceived impacts on coastal resilience and local policy.” Marine Policy 96, 27–35.

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Demaria, Federico, François Schneider, Filka Sekulova, and Joan Martinez-Alier. 2013. “What is degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement.” Environmental Values 22 (2), 191–215. Donkersloot, Rachel, and Courtney Carothers. 2016. “The graying of the Alaskan fishing fleet.” Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development 58 (3), 30–42. Escobar, Arturo. 1995. Encountering development: The making and unmaking of the Third World. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Foucault, Michel. 1986. “Of other spaces.” Diacritics 16 (1), 22–27. Friedman, Harriet, and Philip McMichael. 1987. “Agriculture and the state system: The rise and decline of national agricultures, 1870 to the present.” Sociologia Ruralis 29 (2), 93–117. Ganseforth, Sonja. 2015. “Fisch in Japan: Machtverschiebungen im Fischereisektor, Revita­ lisierungsstrategien und nationale Konsumdiskurse.” Sarah Sippel and Cornelia Reiher (eds.), Umkämpftes Essen: Produktion, Handel und Konsum von Lebensmitteln in globalen Kontexten, 227–246. Göttingen:Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hokimoto, Ken. 2009. “The present situation and problems of the FCA in Japan.” Journal of National Fisheries University 58 (1), 53–58. Kawasaki, Yuko. 2018. “How the catch of the day lands on Tokyo dinner plates in hours.” The Asahi Shimbun. November 7. www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201811070017.html (accessed November 7, 2018). Kitano, Sho. 2009. Space, planning and rurality: Uneven rural development in Japan.Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing. Kobayashi, Tsuneo. 2016. Saga nōgyogyō no kingen daishi: rekishi, chiiki, bumon [Modern and contemporary history of agriculture and fishery in Saga Prefecture: History, regions, sectors]. Tokyo: Nōrin Tōkei Shuppan. Komatsu, Masayuki. 2010. Nihon no shokutaku kara sakana ga kieru hi [The day fish will disappear from the Japanese dining table]. Tokyo: Nikkei Shinbun Shuppansha. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Lam, Mimi E., and Tony J. Pitcher. 2012. “Fish commoditization: Sustainability strategies to protect living fish.” Bulletin of Science,Technology & Society 32 (1), 31–40. Larke, Roy, and Michael Causton. 2005. Japan: A modern retail power. London: Palgrave Macmillan. MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries). 2015. “2013-nen gyogyō sensasu” [2013 Fishery Census]. www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=da talist&toukei=00500210&tstat=000001033844&cycle=0&tclass1 = 000001066355& tclass2 = 000001066375&tclass3 = 000001077399&second2 = 1 (accessed August  13, 2018). ———. 2017. “Heisei 28-nen gyogyō keiei chōsa hōkoku” [2016 fishery business survey]. www.e-stat.go.jp/stat-search/files?page=1&layout=datalist&toukei=00500203& tstat=000001014581&cycle=7&month=0&tclass1 = 000001017157& tclass2 = 000001109655&cycle_facet=tclass1&second2 = 1 (accessed August  16, 2018). ———. 2018. “Heisei 29-nendo suisan hakusho” [2017 fisheries white paper]. www.jfa. maff.go.jp/j/kikaku/wpaper/29hakusyo/index.html (accessed August 15, 2018). Matanle, Peter. 2017. “Understanding the dynamics of regional growth and shrinkage in 21st century Japan: Towards the achievement of an Asia-Pacific ‘depopulation dividend’.” David Chiavacci and Carola Hommerich (eds.), Social inequality in postgrowth Japan: Transformation during economic and demographic stagnation, 213–230. London: Routledge. MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism). 2014. “Michi no eki annai: enkaku” [Overview of road stations: History]. http://mlit.go.jp/road/station/roadstation_hist.html (accessed June 23, 2014).

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Oda, Shigeaki, Kiyohiko Sakamoto, Noriaki Kawazaki, and Tasuku Nagatani. 2016. “Senshin-teki nōgyō keieitai ni okeru jigyō tenkai no ronri to hōkō: rokuji sangyō-ka to nōkyō no yakuwari ni chakumoku shite” [Logic and direction of business expansion in advanced agricultural enterprises: With attention to the sixth sector and the role of agricultural cooperatives]. Seibutsu Shigen Keizai Kenkyū 21, 17–27. https://repository. kulib.kyoto-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/2433/210279/1/nrer_21_17.pdf (accessed September 19, 2018). Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. 1993. Rice as self: Japanese identities through time. Princeton and Chichester: Princeton University Press. Ostrom, Marcia, Kathryn De Master, Egon Noe, and Markus Schermer. 2017. “Value-based food chains from a transatlantic perspective: Exploring a middle tier of agri-food system development.” International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture and Food 24 (1), 1–14. Parker, Gavin. 2010. “Michi no eki: An opportunity for the rural economy?” Town & Country Planning ( July–August), 342–346. Paulson, Susan. 2017. “Degrowth: Culture, power and change.” Journal of Political Ecology 24, 425–448. Rausch, Anthony. 2010. Cultural commodities in Japanese rural revitalization: Tsugaru Nuri Lacquerware and Tsugaru Shamisen. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2017. “A paradox of Japanese taxation: Analyzing the Furusato Nozei Tax System.” The Asia-Pacific Journal 15 (11–16). June 1. https://apjjf.org/2017/11/Rausch.html (accessed September 19, 2018). Reed, Matt, Paul Courtney, Julie Urquhart, and Natalie Ross. 2013. “Beyond fish as commodities: Understanding the socio-cultural role of inshore fisheries in England.” Marine Policy 37, 62–68. Robertson, Jennifer. 1998. “It takes a village: Internationalization and nostalgia in postwar Japan.” Stephen Vlastos (ed.), Mirror of modernity: Invented traditions of modern Japan, 110– 129. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rockström, Johan,Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Åsa Persson, F. Stuart III Chapin, Eric Lambin, Timothy M. Lenton, Marten Scheffer, Carl Folke, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, Björn Nykvist, Cynthia A. de Wit, Terry Hughes, Sander van der Leeuw, Henning Rodhe, Sverker Sörlin, Peter K. Snyder, Robert Costanza, Uno Svedin, Malin Falkenmark, Louise Karlberg, Robert W. Corell, Victoria J. Fabry, James Hansen, Brian Walker, Diana Liverman, Katherine Richardson, Paul Crutzen, and Jonathan Foley. 2009. “Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity.” Ecology and Society 14 (2), art. 32. www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/ (accessed September 19, 2018). Ruddle, Kenneth, and Tomoya Akimichi. 1989. “Sea tenure in Japan and the southwestern Ryukyus.” John Cordell (ed.), A sea of small boats, 337–370. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival Inc. Russell, Suzanne M., Kimberly Sparks, and Albert Arias-Arthur. 2014. “The Pacific groundfish fishery social study: An initial theme based report.” www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/ divisions/cb/ecosystem/humandim/documents/The%20Pacific%20Groundfish%20 Fishery%20An%20Initial%20Theme%20Based%20Report.pdf (accessed September 19, 2018). Saga Genkai Fishery Cooperative. 2017. Gyōmu hōkokusho [Business report]. Karatsu: Saga Genkai Fishery Cooperative. SKSH (Saga-ken Keiei Shien Honbu). 2015. “2013-nen gyogyō chōsa kekka hōkokusho” [Report of the 2013 fishery survey results]. www.pref.saga.lg.jp/toukei/kiji0039407/ index.html (accessed August 13, 2018). SSTB (Saga-ken Sōmu-bu Tōkei Bunseki-ka). 2017. “Saga-ken tōkei nenkan (Heisei 28-nenban)” [Saga Prefecture statistical yearbook (2016 edition)]. www.pref.saga.lg.jp/ toukei/kiji00359330/ (accessed August 17, 2018).

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St. Martin, Kevin. 2005. “Mapping economic diversity in the First World: The case of fisheries.” Environment and Planning A 37, 959–979. Tachibanaki, Toshiaki. 2006. Kakusa shakai: nani ga mondai na no ka [Disparity society: What is the problem?]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. Winder, Gordon, and Richard Le Heron. 2017.“Assembling a blue economy moment? Geographic engagement with globalizing biological-economic relations in multi-use marine environments.” Dialogues in Human Geography 7 (1), 3–26. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507.

PART II

Political innovations in rural Japan

6 LOCAL RENEWABLES Japan’s energy transformation and its potential for the remaking of rural communities Thomas Feldhoff and Daniel Kremers

Introduction An energy transformation based on renewable energies (RE) and more decentralized production and consumption patterns has the potential to meliorate three of Japan’s, if not humankind’s greatest challenges: to increase energy self-sufficiency and energy security; to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in order to combat global warming; and to provide a source of income and wealth for less developed, relatively poor rural areas. Japan’s energy policy has been called into question since the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, and the country still faces the necessity to shape a new national energy strategy. This involves political risk assessment of different scenarios calculating the impact of changes in future energy mixes (Chapman and Itaoka 2018; Homma and Akimoto 2013; Hong et al. 2013; McLellan et al. 2013; Science Council of Japan 2011; Zhang et al. 2012).The related challenges are systematically summed up in the World Energy Council’s “energy trilemma” concept, which involves balancing energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability goals (WEC 2016). The latest prediction (announced in July 2018) by the Japanese government for 2030 indicates that fossil fuels and nuclear power will continue to dominate Japan’s power generation mix, while the share of several sources of renewable energy is expected to increase broadly. To deliver the necessary energy transformation and GHG emission reduction, RE were designated as a “main source of power generation” in the 2018 Strategic Energy Plan (Bungate 2018). Experiences from many countries have shown that community ownership of renewable energy projects can boost the transformation to decentralized systems (Cebotari and Benedek 2017; McLellan et al. 2013;TREC 2016;Wagner and Berlo 2015a, 2015b). The Renewables 2016 Global Status Report featured this trend for the first time (REN21 2016). Community energy also encourages new avenues

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for rejuvenation in rural peripheral areas by linking community resilience with improvements in self-reliance and local decision-making. Citizens in rural municipalities in Japan, supported by non-profit organizations such as the Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), now form part of a global “energy democracy” network, challenging conventional centralized energy systems from the bottom up. Such a “multiplication of new, distant sites of [decision-making] authority” is one aspect of the contingent and hybrid processes involved in remaking rural localities that are engaged with global networks and actors (Woods 2007: 501–502). What continuous local community and citizen initiative requires, however, is a supporting collaborative governance arrangement between public and private actors, which provides opportunity structures in national energy and regional policymaking (Innes and Booher 2018). Hence, energy transformation challenges highlight inherent tensions between autonomy and heteronomy in rural Japan, which comprise processes of spatial centralization and peripheralization in economic, political, social and environmental dimensions (Kühn 2015; Lützeler 2017; Matanle et al. 2011). Japan has long been harvesting the energetic potential of its rivers in hydroelectric dams, and over the last eight years it has made considerable progress in the installation of photovoltaic (PV) power generation capacity (Komiyama and Fujii 2017: 595–596). However, although available in abundance, other renewable energy resources such as wind, biomass and geothermal energy yet contribute very little to Japan’s energy mix (ISEP 2018). As Japan is the global leader in terms of relative renewable energy potential per square meter of land (DeWit 2014: 4), this chapter takes issue with Japan’s energy policies, situating rural localities as places for more participatory, decentralized, small-scale energy solutions within a wider political geography of scale.Very much in line with previous case-study research conducted in European countries, it argues that structural preconditions and current government policy rather than technology bear the responsibility for prevailing market and governance structures in Japan (Kunze and Busch 2011) and that more effective decentralization based on local ownership is essential for a greater leap toward more renewable energies (Wagner and Berlo 2015a, 2015b). The questions addressed in this chapter include: what are rural communities in Japan capable of in terms of renewable energy, what support do they receive from the national government, and what are the conditions for successfully implementing renewable energy at the local level in order to address the “energy trilemma” as well as to tackle peripherality issues. As a potential approach to reduce the tensions built into Japan’s energy governance, we also discuss collaborative planning and policy (Innes and Booher 2018). Japan makes for a particularly interesting case because of its infamously slow pace in carrying out structural reforms. It can be argued that this is due to centerperiphery relations, most prominently expressed in the low degree of local autonomy of Japan’s highly centralized political system and the stability of vested interests in Japan’s political economy (DeWit and Iida 2011; Feldhoff 2005, 2016; Kühn 2015; Matanle et al. 2011). The chapter concludes that a national mechanism for coordination and conflict management that brings together the top-down and

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bottom-up approaches, based on a consistent energy policy framework and support for community power engagement, remains a missing institutional link for a more participatory policy design aimed at strengthening local autonomy.

Revisiting peripherality in the context of collaborative policy and planning The description and analysis of the spatial organization of people and places at scales ranging from the local to the global is central to geography. The identification of scales does not indicate any separateness or uniformity of different systems at different scales but the need to address interactions and overlaps with other scales (Flint and Taylor 2007: 242–252). In political geography in particular, tensions between central-state authority and municipalities is a crucial theme in understanding the local nature of political activity and diversity (Agnew 1996). Uneven development is spatialized because localities have particular socioeconomic functions for people and within a larger national or global system. Even under globalization, “local actors (human and non-human) retain agency in shaping the circumstances and character of their enrollment” (Woods 2007: 502). It is therefore both an economic (efficiency) and a social (equity) issue that requires policy action toward the reorganization and re-evaluation of space in Japan’s “gap society.” The activation of local agency and local resources alike is a key factor. The reductionist concept of geographical centrality or peripherality regards distance from the center of economic activities as the major cause of uneven development. “It simply points out that geographical centrality is in itself a factor fostering development, while peripherality hampers it” (Capello 2016: 111).This also implies a hierarchy of spaces. It is important to note that central or peripheral regions usually do not have precise borders; they are human constructs whose delimitations and characteristics are derived from specific criteria. Peripherality is often associated with a lack of economic growth, unemployment and low per capita income, poor accessibility or even a collective consciousness of disadvantage and decline among citizens. Kühn (2015) reviews the research on “peripheralization,” which describes the production of peripheries through social relations and their spatial implications in a much more differentiated way. Bernt and Colini (2013) refer to the concepts of “exclusion” and “marginalization” interpreting peripheral positions of places as the outcome of discriminatory social relations that relegate powerless and discriminated individuals or groups to such places. Leibert and Golinski (2017) refer to “an abundance of promising suggestions to mitigate or even overcome the problems of dependence and disconnection, i.e., powerlessness and underfunding at the local level.”Therefore, what is “peripheral” and why can only be understood as the result of a process in which its economic, political, social and environmental dimensions are debated, contested and possibly re-imagined (Bernt and Colini 2013; FischerTahir and Naumann 2013; Kühn 2015). Accordingly, the construction of “peripherality” should be understood as a non-deterministic and dynamic process. This has practical implications for policymaking as it enables effective strategies that can

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drive this process of rural place-making, not exclusively but especially in the context of energy system transformations. The OECD made the case for a “multi-sectoral, place-based approach that aims to identify and exploit the varied development potential of rural areas” (OECD 2006: 59). It argued that endogenous local assets and resources, broadly based rural economies, investment rather than subsidy and supportive multi-level governance arrangements, underpinning the interdependence between the different levels of government and various local stakeholders that share policy responsibility, drive rural competitiveness. According to Cairney (2012: 261–262), there is increasing space for various societal actors at the local level who no longer accept the previous arrangements and are seeking more policy influence.With regard to the multi-level system of global climate governance, Jänicke (2017) illustrates that each level of the global system has its own specific responsibilities, challenges, opportunities and mechanisms for lesson drawing. As Schreurs (2008: 353) observed, “local government climate change actions are usually framed to aid with achieving multiple goals at once,” such as cost reduction and job creation. In particular, rural local communities are highlighted as potential areas of experiments and best practice ( Jänicke 2017: 114), counteracting processes of peripheralization. However, climate protection capacities in urban and rural local communities differ significantly. While densely populated urban municipalities have much greater potential to reduce GHG emissions through efficiency improvements, scarcely populated rural localities rich in natural resources have to focus on climate-friendly energy generation. Therefore, ambitious action plans and best practices focusing on transportation, housing, business regulations and consumer habits, which have been devised and successfully tested in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Kyoto (Sugiyama and Takeuchi 2008: 431), might prove ineffective or simply impossible to implement in rural areas. According to the European Spatial Planning Observation Network,“[p]eripherality, distance from centres of population, and geographical constraints can become an asset rather than a liability” (ESPON 2006: 52). It is important for such places to unlock their “hidden potential” and become attractive places offering equal opportunity for all groups. With regard to equity issues, empowering and encouraging peripheral communities to take a positive role in addressing the issues that affect them may contribute to the general objective of reducing inequality between individuals (Scottish Government 2007). Support for community-led initiatives, improvement of skills, knowledge and capacity were all highlighted to promote improved opportunities and a better quality of life. Such locally-based approaches to development build upon local strengths in sectors such as agriculture, tourism, local services, land and marine based natural resources including renewable energies, with each locality setting its own priorities. Maintaining and investing in the locality’s natural, cultural and community assets and supporting innovation in critical sectors of the economy forms an essential part of local agency. Community renewable energy projects in the context of asset-based approaches have been identified

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as one key element in supporting self-sufficient, independent and sustainable local developments in Japan (Feldhoff 2016, 2017; Raupach-Sumiya et al. 2015). The main challenge is to find a way for diverse actors to jointly develop, implement and manage these projects to improve their situation. Innes and Booher (2018) advocated the idea of “collaborative rationality,” bringing the various experiences and perspectives of the affected parties to the table to deliberate on the problems they face together. Of course, certain requirements must be met (e.g., all participants must be fully informed and able to express their views following clearly defined procedures), and there are limitations (e.g., when an immediate decision is needed to protect life). However, declaring collaborative dialogues inappropriate for certain policy fields per se ignores the complexities of modern societies and the ways political power is legitimized. Above all, the decisions reached by means of collaborative processes are rational, “not only in the sense of being well informed and in the spirit of democracy, but also in the sense that they represent a collective form of knowing and deciding” (Innes and Booher 2018: 9). Participants in collaborative planning develop new skills, build new networks and discover that the various institutional arrangements of traditional government sometimes constrain engagement and undermine developmental opportunities (Innes and Booher 2018: 12). Wagner and Berlo (2015a) stressed that implementing an independent energy policy at the local level is critical in creating a transformation to a sustainable energy system based on renewable energies and improved energy efficiency. Looking at the German case of local community-based energy transformation, they also identified endogenous obstacles, mainly in the form of monopolistic utilities, who have vested interests in a centralized energy system. Consequently, these structural elements oppose both a shift from fossils to RE and a shift from the centralized to a more decentralized energy system (Wagner and Berlo 2015b). Similarly, DeWit and Iida (2011) observed a vigorous “power elite,” comprising government bureaucrats, energy-intensive industry lobbyists and monopolistic utilities, who successfully stalled the energy transformation move and climate commitments in preFukushima Japan. The March 2011 nuclear accident, however, triggered a temporary nuclear shutdown and forced the Japanese government to revise its energy strategy (DeWit 2014: 1).

Japan’s energy transformation: directions and outcomes The Strategic Energy Plan (Enerugī kihon keikaku), compiled by the Ministry of Economy,Trade and Industry (METI), is Japan’s central energy policy document. It sets out the framework and specific priorities to achieve energy security, economic efficiency and environmental and safety targets, referred to as “3E + S” (METI 2014: 17). Periodic review of the plan is required every three years. The Strategic Policy Committee of the Advisory Committee initiated the review of the 2014 Strategic Energy Plan for Natural Resources and Energy in August 2017. Being in charge of the process, the METI also established a “Round Table for Studying

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Energy Situations,” an expert panel reviewing Japan’s energy strategy for 2050. Based on the panel’s recommendations, issued on April 10, 2018 (Enerugī Jōsei Kondankai 2018), the Abe Cabinet approved the new Strategic Energy Plan in July 2018. Its key element is Japan’s energy mix prediction for 2030. The plan sets forth a full range of power generation options, including both renewables (22 to 24 percent) and nuclear power (20 to 22 percent). While the proportions have remained unchanged from the previous plan, RE were for the first time designated as a “main source of power generation.” Some commentators interpret this as a major shift toward a government policy recognizing that in the future RE will become a baseload power source (Bungate 2018). Edahiro Junko, a panel member, environmental journalist and chief executive of the non-profit organization Japan for Sustainability ( JFS), in a contribution to the JFS Newsletter, reported how difficult it was to also establish a focus on local communities in the recommendations (Edahiro 2018). This is despite the fact that the strong upward trend in renewable energy can also be attributed to the considerable investments made by citizens, cooperatives and communities since the introduction of a new Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme in July 2012. Figure 6.1 indicates the impressive increase in the cumulative operational capacity of renewable energy facilities certified under the FiT scheme between 2012 and 2017.The government has not defined specific expansion targets for individual RE yet, but photovoltaic systems account for the large majority of new installations. This can be attributed to comparatively low cost, short implementation time to actual operation and less stringent regulations, particularly with regard to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) procedures, compared to other renewables. The systems are easy to install, the size of installation is flexible and the profitability is high (Kuramochi 2015: 1328–1329). The Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association ( JPEA 2018) estimated that the domestic solar power market has grown in volume from ¥545.5 billion in 2010 to more than ¥3.2 trillion in 2018. During the same period, the number of people being directly or indirectly employed in the industry grew from 29,700 to 382,419. The Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) further pointed out that, although RE investments shrank by 56 percent between 2015 and 2016, the installed PV capacity expanded, surpassing that of Germany (ISEP 2018: 3). The main reason for investment decline is not less market activity but cheaper production and installation costs making RE more competitive. Non-metropolitan prefectures such as Ōita, Akita, Kagoshima, Miyazaki and Gunma are leading the way in renewable energy self-sufficiency, with their energy production mix reflecting the regional natural resource assets (see Figure 6.2).With regard to PV, small-scale community-led developments were particularly encouraged by the generous FiT. Additionally, central government policy has been supportive of so-called “mega-solar” projects of more than 1 MW in output capacity, which creates a more attractive investment environment for enterprises to come forward with projects. Overall, the number of electricity and even energy selfsufficient municipalities has increased impressively between 2012 and 2017 (see Figure 6.3). Amongst the top 100 electricity self-sufficient municipalities, nine are

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FIGURE 6.1 Cumulative

operational renewable energy capacity certified under FiT

Unit: Gigawatts (GW), excluding geothermal energy (December 2012 to March 2017). Source: Data derived from REI (2018); graphic design by the authors.

larger “cities” (shi), 66 are small “towns” (machi) and 25 are villages (mura) (IPE 2018a). This is an outcome of the fact that the FiT scheme, in combination with the liberalization of the electricity and gas markets from April 2016, raised enduser awareness around energy technologies and energy policy tools (Chapman and Itaoka 2018; Chapman and Pambudi 2018). Despite the impressive increases in PV capacity and the high RE potential— indicating that a more diversified energy mix is possible—and while renewables including large-scale hydropower provided 14.9 percent of Japan’s electricity generation (ISEP 2018), renewable energies accounted for merely 7.3 percent of Japan’s total primary energy mix (including heat and transportation) at the end of Fiscal Year 2016 in March 2017 (see Figure 6.4).This is not much more than the 6.9 percent of 1990, and it is much less than the proportion of non-fossil, non-nuclear fuels in the global energy mix, which has remained flat over the last 40 years, at around 14 percent (IEA 2017). Among the renewable primary energy sources, hydropower was still the most widely used in Japan, ahead of biomass, solar and wind, while new renewable energy targets as set out in the 2018 Strategic Energy Plan remain significantly lower than similar targets set by other G7 countries. According to Sawa

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FIGURE 6.2 Renewable

energy self-sufficiency at the prefectural level (electricity for private household, business and agricultural use, excluding large-scale hydro)

Source: IPE (2018b); graphic design by the authors.

(2018), global warming requires more radical changes in energy supply and consumption.The question is about opportunities to improve Japan’s prevailing energy mix by tapping Japan’s untapped RE potential much faster. A proposal paper for policymaking and governmental action toward lowcarbon societies jointly issued by the Center for Low Carbon Society Strategy and the Japan Science and Technology Agency (2018) tackles some of the technological challenges that energy transformations entail. It argues that not enough public infrastructure has been established across the country to harness the country’s diverse and abundant RE sources because of the high initial cost of construction, especially for civil engineering works. The authors find a correlation between the amount of accredited capacity installed via the FiT scheme and the road network

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FIGURE 6.3 Japan’s

energy and electricity self-sufficient municipalities 2012–2017

Unit: Absolute numbers. Source: Data derived from IPE (2018a); graphic design by the authors.

density in that region and assume that the high density of the road network can be indicative of the ease of civil engineering work, thus reducing the construction costs. As a result, they claim that there are several municipalities with high road network density and potential distribution for small and medium-scale hydropower, photovoltaic and wood biomass power. Since the potentials are scattered at points close to each other within municipalities in such areas, it seems possible to share the common infrastructure costs by simultaneously promoting energy developments. A related technological challenge is grid connection. Matsubara (2016) points to the fact that coal thermal power, nuclear power and other existing power sources are still prioritized without much thought given to “priority connection” and “priority dispatching,” which is needed for the full-scale introduction of renewable energy sources. Grid access for renewables is hampered by the fact that regional power utility companies within monopolized service areas operate transmission grids. Consequently, actual ownership separation of power generation, power transmission and distribution should be achieved (Matsubara 2016). However, as Portugal-Pereira and Esteban (2014: 432) conclude, an immediate transition to grid-connected renewable energies is not realistic given infrastructure and technical constraints. Investments to develop low-cost storage and backup capacity demand response, and expansion of power line capacity, specific control equipment and control strategies are also required because of the intermittent nature of solar and wind power generation (Komiyama and Fujii 2017: 596; Zhang et al. 2012: 384). Central government-funded support for local initiatives is also critical for success. Various branches of the government and the ministerial bureaucracy have

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FIGURE 6.4 

Structure of Japan’s total primary energy supply in F.Y. 2010 and 2016

Unit: Petajoule (PJ). Source: Data derived from ANRE (2018); graphic design by the authors.

been carrying out rural revitalization projects that also involve the funding of RE utilization. For instance, based on the 2002 “Biomass Nippon General Strategy,” the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) launched the “Biomass Town” concept, which supports municipalities with the installation of local biomass energy systems (MAFF 2011). Moreover, the Headquarters for the Promotion of Regional Revitalization (Chihō Sōsei Suishin Jimukyoku) in the Prime Minister’s Office (Kantei) has been running the so-called Future City (Kankyō mirai toshi) and Eco-Model City (Kankyō moderu toshi) programs since 2008 (Kantei 2018). After the nuclear shutdown, energy became a stronger focus. So far, eleven municipalities have received support as designated “Future Cities,” while 23 participated in the “Eco-Model City” initiative (Future City 2016). In 2018, the government added the category of “Sustainable Development Goals Future City” (SDGs mirai toshi) (Kantei 2018).

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The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) launched a program for the “Promotion of the Regionally Autonomous Systemization of Biomass Energy,” which assists and consults local communities and businesses in project planning and implementation (NEDO 2018). In 2007, for example, the program assisted the town of Mogami in Yamagata Prefecture (8,329 inhabitants) with its “Wellness Town Mogami” Woody Biomass Energy Regional Cooling and Heating System Experimental Project. The town installed two wood chip boilers with a combined capacity of 1,250 kW at comprehensive medical care and welfare facilities, which are being used for district heating and cooling in conjunction with absorption refrigerators (F-Realize 2012). In fact, extracting heat and electric power from biomass and bio fuels could form a major pillar of sustainable agriculture and forestry in Japan (Aikawa 2018). However, what is currently labelled as “biomass electricity” in Japan is mostly non-renewable and not climate-friendly waste incineration. According to ISEP (2017), about 3.7 GW of the installed biomass power capacity was registered under the FiT scheme in March 2016, accounting for 1.7 percent of Japan’s total electric power capacity (ISEP 2017: 85; 2018). Thereof, 52 percent was generated from general waste, 30 percent from industrial waste, 16 percent from woody biomass and merely two percent from food and livestock waste (ISEP 2017: 86). Furthermore, a huge share of woody biomass that is used for electricity generation in Japan is residues from palm oil plantations imported from Indonesia and Malaysia. Additionally, using palm oil as biofuel as well as waste, coal power plants that are co-fired with biomass or waste have been classified as “biomass” (Aikawa 2018: 3–4).Thus, Japanese RE policies have to some degree incentivized forms of biomass electricity that are neither climate-friendly nor beneficial to the rural economy. Despite the various examples of innovative decentralized energy systems, the introduction of the FiT scheme and various forms of project-based government support, the utilization of RE in Japan is still lagging behind compared to what would be technically and economically possible and feasible. Introducing a series of case studies, the following section illustrates reasons for this and shows that, in some cases, the current regulations have even incentivized RE projects, which have become a cause of conflict between (often external) investors and local communities.

Local effects: ownership, business models and conflicts Previous research has shown that RE can be most efficiently utilized in a decentralized energy system (Raupach-Sumiya et al. 2015; Wagner and Berlo 2015a, 2015b). Therefore, a decentralized energy system will not only reap the greatest benefits and positive externalities, it can also help speed up the technological energy transformation. In this scenario, local stakeholders play a crucial role and are the first to benefit from energy transformation, while the shareholders of centralized utilities lose out. Though energy transformation is certainly on its way in Japan, it is delayed by a lack of agency and capital on the local level and the setting of inappropriate priorities favoring vested interests on the national level (DeWit and Iida 2011; DeWit

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and Tani 2008). Nonetheless, local actors became forerunners in implementing renewable energy projects, often with the support of specific government programs (Dimmer and Kremers 2017; Feldhoff 2016; Sugiyama and Takeuchi 2008). A research group working for the MAFF has identified three types of projects depending on the degree of involvement of local actors: (1) “local initiative projects,” (2) “collaborative projects” and (3) projects based on “external initiatives” (MAFF 2015: 2–5). RE projects are identified as “local initiatives” when local actors themselves carry the majority of the project costs and are actively involved in decisionmaking and project implementation. In such cases, the largest share of the revenues generated remains within the community. However, these projects require time, resources and a strong commitment from the members of the community. Depending on which actors are involved, the MAFF report differentiates between (1) “integrated agricultural management” and (2) “integrated communities.” While the latter involves the municipality, the former is mainly run by primary sector businesses or their respective local and regional co-operatives (kumiai). Such projects enable rural businesses to improve and diversify their income and have the side effect of stabilizing agricultural operations. Furthermore, they can reduce costs by boosting self-sufficiency in terms of energy use. “Collaborative projects” refers to projects that involve local actors but where the majority of investments comes from external partners. The report speaks of “local participation” when local actors hold a considerable minority share in projects that are collaboratively implemented together with external majority shareholders, for example in the form of a Special Purpose Company (SPC; tokubetsu mokuteki gaisha). Cases where local actors do not own the projects themselves but collaborate with external investors in order to build a consensus among local stakeholders and distribute profits locally are referred to as “local concern” (chiiki hairyo) oriented projects.The third type of projects identified in the MAFF report are “external initiatives” (gaibu shudō). Here, after the local government and landowners have given their permission, capital investment as well as decision-making rests completely with external actors, who have the necessary expertise and funds to quickly implement the project. According to data from METI’s Survey of Factory Location Trends (Kōjō ritchi dōkō chōsa), only 19 percent of PV capacity installed between January 2012 and December 2014 was “locally owned,” meaning within the municipality. Another 21 percent were owned by entities within the same prefecture, while 42 percent were owned by entities based in Tokyo or Osaka prefectures (MAFF 2018: 7). While it is generally accepted that external investors are moving faster to realize RE projects, they usually benefit the local community to a smaller degree. More importantly, they are also more prone to conflicts of interest and to community protests. Such projects are, in other words, socially less sustainable. The Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), a strong proponent of Japan’s energy transformation, published a report on local level protests against mega-solar installations across Japan in 2016 (Yamashita 2016). The examples were retrieved from 4,942 newspaper articles published in the Mainichi Shinbun between 2000 and 2015 and from articles

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published in 26 local newspapers between April 2013 and December 2015. Additionally, phone calls were made to business operators and local administrations. As a result, 50 disputed cases were identified and categorized according to their central conflict issues. The most common issue was “landscape” (22 cases), followed by concerns about disaster prevention (18 cases), the impact on the living environment (twelve cases), and nature conservation (nine cases). Differentiated by region, most conflicts were reported for Nagano Prefecture (nine cases), followed by seven cases in Ōita, five in Yamanashi, four in Hyōgo and three in Kōchi (Yamashita 2016: 7). In 20 cases, the installed capacity exceeded 10 MW covering several tens of hectares in area, while 16 cases had less than 10 MW, and eight cases less than 1 MW of installed capacity. This indicates that small-scale projects do not necessarily guarantee a smooth, conflict-free implementation (Yamashita 2016: 9). Yamashita (2016) also highlights that 31 out of the 50 disputed cases were developed with capital from outside the prefecture. In other cases, the projects were implemented by local SPCs, which made it difficult to attribute the actual ownership. For example, Yoshinogari Sōrā Gōdō Kaisha operates a troubled mega-solar plant and is based in Kanzaki City, Saga Prefecture, but it is a subsidiary of NTT Facilities based in Tokyo. The plant was built on land owned by the prefecture next to the archaeological site of Yoshinogari. Archaeologists raised concerns whether the construction could damage historic relicts, and local citizens protested against the use of herbicides to prohibit vegetation from reducing the operation’s viability (Yamashita 2016: 7). When the ISEP report was released, 22 projects were known to be operating and, in more than half of the cases, measures had been taken to reach a local consensus and to protect the natural environment. In six cases, plans were cancelled or withdrawn due to the opposition of local residents (Yamashita 2016: 9). In conclusion,Yamashita (2016: 11) stresses that in order to evaluate what kind of renewable energy project is desirable from the viewpoint of the locals and how the project will contribute to local sustainable development, a wide variety of stakeholders should be included in a collaborative planning process. Five case studies from the prefectures of Fukuoka, Kōchi, Nagano, Aomori and Hokkaido referred to in the next paragraphs illustrate the opportunities and challenges involved. The city of Iida in southern Nagano Prefecture (approx. 99,400 inhabitants) is a well-documented example of asset-based community development in the energy sector (Feldhoff 2016). The city’s focus on environmental protection and sustainability can be traced back to the 1990s, and since 2009 it has received governmental support under the “Eco-Model City” scheme. The major renewable energy source is solar power, but a couple of forestry businesses are also selling stoves and wood pellets for heating to local households. During its buildup of PV capacity, Iida City received consulting support from ISEP, and the present PV installations are mainly based on local initiatives and collaborative projects. Most prominent are the rooftop installations by a local company and several mega-solar plants, set up in cooperation between the municipality, Chubu Electric Power Corporation and local players. While the municipality consists of a number of rural communities, it also has a

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considerable manufacturing sector, and thus much of the installed equipment was locally produced (Feldhoff 2016; own field research 2017 and 2018). Two other municipalities that have received support as “Eco-Model Cities” are Yusuhara (approx. 3,500 inhabitants) in Kōchi Prefecture and Niseko (approx. 5,200 inhabitants) in Hokkaido. Because the regional utility Shikoku Electric Power Corporation operates three hydropower stations in the town, Yusuhara has been a net exporter of renewable energy since the 1930s. However, in the early 2000s, the town independently set up two wind turbines of 600 kW each and began selling electricity, which provided additional income. The town’s main renewable energy source, however, has been wood. Besides FSC-certified timber, the local forestry cooperative produces wood pellets. Together with the manufacturer Yazaki, the town has installed absorption chiller heaters fueled by locally produced pellets and climatized several public buildings. Most public buildings are zero energy buildings (ZEB) and constructed from locally resourced material (own field research 2016). The town of Niseko in Hokkaido is currently expanding its use of near-surface geothermal energy to climatize public buildings, and the local agricultural cooperative operates a snow cooled rice storage (own field research 2018). As a “Biomass Town,” Oki (approx. 14,000 inhabitants) in Fukuoka Prefecture received support from MAFF. It installed a 50 kW biogas plant fueled by methane produced from local sewage water and organic household waste. The plant is operated by a municipality-owned association that currently employs 20 people (own field research 2015 and 2018). The almost negligible electricity generation, however, is consumed locally and thus not subject to the FiT scheme. Rather than providing additional income, the plant has helped solve a local air and water quality crisis, as less waste was burned and less sewage contaminated freshwater supplies. In the village of Rokkasho in Aomori Prefecture, which is famous for enriching nuclear fuel, a Tokyo-based developer that is owned by the Development Bank of Japan (49.56%), Aomori Prefecture (15%) as well as 22 banks and insurance companies (35.44%), has installed 168 MW of PV capacity on 401 hectares of land and 21 wind turbines with a capacity of 1.5 MW each (own field research 2018). However, this exceeds the local electricity demand and cannot be fully sold due to limits in the local power grid. An additional 75 MW woody biomass power plant is being planned that will mainly be fueled by imported oil palm residues. While the first four municipalities are significantly different in size, economic outlook, climate and distance from the capital, a very common strength has been proactive governments closely cooperating with local residents and businesses. Moreover, they all received input from external consulting services and financial support from the central government. The fact that the municipalities rely on different technologies and resources points to another commonality, namely that renewable energies are not installed for the mere sake of revenue or prestige but as an integral part of the local economy and a form of sustainable development responding to local needs and local potentials. Rokkasho, on the other hand, presents an extreme case of external investor-driven development, where the interests of external investors and owners weigh so strong that the rural community and its needs are hardly recognizable.

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The current shift from the FiT to a bidding scheme is expected to accelerate the trend to large-scale, capital-intensive projects. Localized and case-by-case funding through individual branches of the national government has helped individual rural municipalities to establish advanced sustainable energy projects, however. At the same time, the liberalization of the electricity retail market together with the upcoming unbundling of utility and grid has given rise to new business models. While former monopolists venture into each other’s markets—the most prominent example being Tokyo Gas now selling electricity and TEPCO starting to offer gas—small-scale local energy providers focusing on RE electricity are reaching out for new customers. Under the label of “power shift,” 26 RE producers are now collaborating, including four municipal utilities, six consumer co-ops, twelve regional and four supra-regional businesses. The respective companies have joined up, setting certain standards of evaluation: (1) They disclose information concerning their power mix and environmental impacts in a way that is easily understandable to the general consumer, (2) they procure electricity from RE power plants, (3) they exclude electricity from nuclear or coal-fired power plants (except in times that necessitate regular backups), (4) they place an emphasis on renewable energy generation facilities that are regionally owned and citizen-based and (5) they have no capital relationship with major power companies (Power Shift 2016). These efforts might also help to tap Japan’s unused RE potential faster.

Conclusion The energy transformation challenge is two-fold: The energy system has to be transformed from a centralized into a decentralized one and from one that is based on imported fossil fuels to one that is based on domestic renewable energies.While decentralized RE systems help to decrease a locality’s external dependence, the installations also require new concepts of land use, organization, delegation and distribution. Such structural reforms have to be carried out against conventional wisdom, established practices and vested interests—and in some cases against local protest.While an energy transformation promises overall benefits in the long run, it inevitably comes with short-term losses for a number of powerful and firmly institutionalized stakeholders. As Japan’s energy system has been dominated by regional monopolies until very recently, it entailed an extremely high degree of local heteronomy, which added to the peripheralization of rural areas. This makes the energy transformation a conflictual and difficult process. While local actors need time and external support to tap into a policy field that was previously beyond their scope of governance, national policymaking is still situated between demands to protect vested interests on the one side and the need to innovate and revitalize the rural economy on the other. In a future decentralized energy system, the degree of local autonomy and responsibility will be greater, but in the present Japan’s local governments are not in a position to create the infrastructures, institutions and practices necessary for decentralization independently. Large-scale technology-based solutions that

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promote the dissemination of renewable energy usually entail an externally driven approach across different levels of government and massive public and private sector investment.This also implies eliminating the preferential conditions still in place for the established players and energy sources, i.e., the vested interests of for-profit energy corporations in the conventional energy system (Feldhoff 2016; Matsubara 2016).The switch to renewable energies will at least partly entail greater distributed energy production from small systems that no longer necessarily have to belong to large utility companies and their grid systems.Therefore, policy change must go further to also address non-technical aspects of the energy transformation challenge to enhance local renewable energy self-sufficiency. Having more decentralized systems where communities can use their own solar or wind power for self-consumption helps to reduce some of the risks associated with large investments and to increase energy system resilience in case of disruptions caused by natural disasters or blackouts (Portugal-Pereira and Esteban 2014: 432). Where local actors wish to retain agency for more participatory, decentralized, small-scale energy solutions, however, community-owned power projects create opportunities: “Community power refers to the direct participation in, ownership of, and sharing of collective benefits from renewable energy projects. It represents a form of ownership and production of renewable energy by and for a local community” (TREC 2016: 3). It is about actively engaging with and understanding local communities, about learning as a community how to activate local assets, skills and capacities in project development and management, and how to engage with policymakers in a multi-level governance environment. Involvement in community-led renewable energy projects can help to translate the “energy trilemma” goals of security, equity and sustainability into benefits for all by: (1) stimulating economic activity, entrepreneurship, local job and wealth creation; (2) increasing national grid resiliency and reliability, reducing the need for transmission; (3) improving equal energy accessibility at an affordable cost; (4) generating interest in the local area and sharing ownership; (5) strengthening place-attachment and local identity; (6) increasing public support for renewable energy; (7) decreasing the carbon footprint of local economies; (8) stimulating innovation in community development generating new ideas and testing solutions that have a tangible, long-lasting positive impact and (9) fostering democratic ownership processes and community empowerment (see Cebotari and Benedek 2017; Feldhoff 2016, 2017; McLellan et al. 2013;TREC 2016;Wagner and Berlo 2015a). Polèse (2015) stresses the importance of inherited development traits and that the forces driving path dependency are strong, but the reality of policymaking in a reasonably well-functioning state is not totally linear or locked-in. Taking the benefits of community power into account, the case studies presented illustrate that the widely assumed peripherality of rural localities might well be contested in all of its economic, political, social and environmental dimensions. Supportive governance and opportunity structures are certainly in need to increase the capacity at each level. As part of a participatory policy design, at the national level, policy coherence related to certain development objectives is fundamental to achieve coordination

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among actors at the multi-levels of governance effectively, based on an integrative policy framework, long-term investment plans and structural support for community building activities. Non-governmental organizations have a central role to play in building capacity across community networks nationwide to foster knowledge exchange, to display best practice and to learn how to design and maintain inclusive decision-making and collaborative planning processes. Certainly, a variety of funding sources for investment remains crucial. Rural communities that are unable to raise funds or solely rely on investors that opt for scale rather than sustainability will end up without renewable energy installations or with too large installations that do not benefit their community. Currently, the Japanese government is not making enough efforts to support renewable energy providers and retailers to gain foot in the liberalized energy market. While large utilities such as Tokyo Gas have massive PR budgets or are even backed up with government subsidies such as TEPCO, small local RE retailers are struggling to expand their existing consumer base. It seems that the Japanese government tries to protect vested interests by buying time for large-scale utilities to prepare for the unbundling of the transmission sector that will get under way from 2020 rather than to actively promote the necessary energy transformation. The recent growth in Japan’s PV capacity is impressive, but to make a significant impact the use of RE has to be made more effective by building up decentralized energy systems relying on combined heat and power (CHP) generation and encompassing a wide range of local renewable resources. In order to counter the peripheralization present in the energy system, the national government is pressed to decrease local heteronomy by enabling local actors to own and regulate local energy systems autonomously, while at the same time providing adequate legal regulations and economic incentives. So far, a national mechanism for coordination and conflict management that brings together the different approaches in a consistent energy policy framework remains a missing institutional link of a more participatory policy design aimed at strengthening community power and local autonomy. These aspects combined with a major coordinated communication campaign would certainly also have positive effects on improving social equity and the remaking of Japan’s rural localities.

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7 EMPOWERING RURAL COOPERATION Effects of agricultural policy intervention on rural social capital ¯suga and Shinya Ueno, Toshiki O Wolfram Manzenreiter

Introduction As in many highly industrialized countries, rural Japan is plagued by the consequences of outmigration, depopulation, and an aging society. One of the most extreme challenges faced by rural areas is maintaining functionality and social sustainability within local communities. The simplified formulas of “marginal settlements” and “regions at the brink of extinction” circulating widely among rural researchers and politicians alike in present-day Japan are precisely based on the calculation of the effects of diminishing subpopulations that are essential for a vibrant social life. These keywords of public debate reflect a discursive process of peripheralization, placing the blame on forces beyond the reach of governmental intervention. Particularly as global forces continue shaping national policies, the role of local communities in development outcome has become increasingly important (Barraket 2005: 74). Governments have long tried to mitigate the material effects through direct subsidies, strategic investments in redevelopment, and infrastructure projects that are key for rural society and the economy. As these policies failed to produce both a population and welfare turnaround, political interest has been shifting toward cost-saving approaches and immaterial resources, including local knowledge, problem-solving capacities of rural communities, issues of leadership, and connectedness among rural residents. Yet if the recalibration of regional politics at political centers goes hand-in-hand with the severing of fiscal subsidies and financial aid, we are likely to observe an even more prominent feature of what Kühn (2015: 367) theorized as peripheralization: “the production of peripheries through social relations and their spatial implications.” Social capital theory provides a foundation for the new interest in social relations and social dynamics. Researchers into social capital argue that social capital is in decline everywhere (Putnam 2000; Wellman 1979). But they also emphasize

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that “features of social organizations, such as networks, norms and trust that facilitate action and cooperation for mutual benefit” (Putnam 1995: 67) are more pronounced in small, traditional communities that endured the tides of change sweeping through urban conglomerates (Sampson et al. 2011: 101; Wiesinger 2007: 44). In Japan, too, traditional ways of living are reported to have resisted change in the countryside to a much larger degree than in urban settings (Manzenreiter 2018), even though in most places farming and fishing as the economic foundation of mutual assistance and reciprocity no longer constitute a significant portion of rural household income (Kelly 2006). Empirical research confirms that traditional neighborhoods and rural communities outperform newly built urban areas in providing opportunities for face-to-face interaction, trust, and social bonding (Hanibuchi et al. 2012; Nishide and Yamauchi 2005; Quality of Life Policy Bureau 2002; Tsuno and Yamazaki 2012). However, researchers have also criticized the apparent state interest in community self-help and social capital as an exercise in neoliberalism (Fitzsimons 2000) or simply as a folly, ignoring the issues of power involved in the production of community (DeFilippis 2001). This leaves in question the degree to which social capital can effectively substitute for diminishing government policies and funds or if strategic political intervention can ameliorate the effectiveness of social capital (as suggested, for example, by Ryu et al. 2018). To answer questions about the interaction and interdependency of public policy and social capital, this study uses survey data from social capital studies compiled by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) from 2006 to 2016. Over a period of ten years, more than a hundred settlements around Japan were surveyed twice, analyzing trends in social capital within agricultural communities and possible interactions with agricultural policies implemented by the Japanese government ( JIID 2018). This study also uses novel methodology to explore the structural relationships of community size, government policies, environmental factors, and the effect of past social capital on future social capital. In the next section, we will discuss the literature on social capital, public policy, and rural development before introducing our method and data. Results from qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) are discussed in the analysis section, followed by a concluding section in which we summarize our findings and return to the general literature and the question of peripheralization. Our analysis demonstrates that while social capital has been in decline everywhere in the past decade, the pace is slower in small communities that received support during the period of investigation ( JIID 2018; Ōsuga 2017).

Social capital, public policy, and regional revitalization Social capital theory postulates that social capital is of relevance as a political tool of social action and a useful instrument for addressing a number of market and government failures. Savioli and Patuelli (2016: 10) argue that basic problems such as freeloading, public good, external pressures, and incomplete information are better solved at the community level. The general take on social capital as a surrogate

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of formalized institutional power itself derives from the common suspicion that it is overly optimistic to presume that governments act solely in society’s best interests (Putnam et al. 1994). While social capital is “as devious as a public opinion poll,” requiring in-depth analysis to understand its potential for the policy process (Montgomery 2001: 227), academics and politicians alike are intrigued by the allure of treating social capital instrumentally, “as a kind of silent partner that can bring about desirable aspects of positive economic and political development” (Montgomery 2001: 228). Attention on social capital has been heightened among Japanese policymakers by academic developments that started in the field of political sciences and economics in the 1990s. Reflecting on international surveys or multi-country comparisons conducted by international organizations such as the OECD or the World Bank, the Quality-of-Life Policy Bureau of the Cabinet Office of Japan commissioned an initial survey on the relationship between social capital and civil society activities in 2002. Results confirmed a positive mutual reinforcement of trust, social norms, and participation in volunteer activities (Quality of Life Policy Bureau 2002). Another study identified a positive correlation between social capital and political participation in voluntary organizations, both at the individual and the bipartisan level, concluding that social networks are a low-cost means of obtaining political information and operate as a portal to the society itself (Ikeda 2002). However, social capital as a “natural policy resource” (Savioli and Patuelli 2016: 9) has been discovered to be heterogeneous, volatile, and, most of all, neutral. Its uses may increase the efficiency of a policy or strengthen the commitment to the organizations’ values and attributes, but it has yet to be concluded whether the effects on society as a whole are either positive or negative (Savioli and Patuelli 2016: 20).Woolcock (1998) assumed that the prevalence of embedded and autonomous structures is essential for overcoming micro-level bottom-up dilemmas of development—where integration and linkage are needed—and top-down dilemmas, where synergy and integrity are required.With regard to Japan, where networks of social capital tightly weave together government, business, and labor, Broadbent (2001) writes that differences of material interests weaken the integrative capacity of social capital: Even under favorable conditions, tension with more instrumental interest patterns exists. Likewise, Akazawa et al. (2009) argue that the impact of social capital on rural community development is rather small, as positive effects are easily offset by negative influences. Nonetheless, their study provides ample evidence that social capital has significant effects on rural community development directly and through the intermediary power of increased motivation among residents, consensus-building, and resource management in combination with the trust of neighbors and the existence of leaders. Similarly, Nishide and Yamauchi (2005) argue that government and business can play a facilitator role in the formation of social capital among citizens and nonprofit organizations, and that the utilization of social capital through partnerships within different sectors is vital for vibrant and sustainable communities.

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To address the bottom-up and top-down dilemma, this study utilizes survey data concerning social capital among agricultural communities compiled by MAFF between 2006 and 2016. A research group on the study of social capital in rural communities, to which the authors of this chapter belong, designed surveys to elucidate “cooperation in agricultural communities.” Social capital was understood in alignment with a definition by a MAFF Study Group on Social Capital in Rural Communities as the skills and functions designed to facilitate rural communities or complex entities that consist of rural communities and cities in their efforts to share goals, think for themselves, and cooperate in the formation of autonomy and consensus building for the purpose of invigorating rural communities. (MAFF Rural Development Bureau 2007) The 2006 study used a questionnaire survey of residents of individual communities and interviewed local administrators and leaders such as district heads about the characteristics of their communities. Factor analysis of this data led to the identification of “cooperative rural social capital” and “reciprocal rural social capital” as two variants of social capital factors.The former includes “components that mainly promote cooperation, such as participation in social activities and community-based cooperative activities,” while the latter consists of “mainly mutually-assistive components such as interaction among neighbors/friends, reciprocity and mutual aid.” In contrast to the first study, which presupposed the existence of “bonding social capital” among community members, the subsequent survey in 2009 focused on the identification of “bridging” social capital, which targets connections between people from different communities and “linking” social capital, which indicates links within a community social structure. Since then, a variety of attempts have been made to quantify social capital, reinvigorate rural communities, apply social capital to policy assessment, and measure the effects that cooperation in rural communities has on farmland development projects, disaster prevention, and other efforts. Survey findings were converted into a “rural cooperation calculation sheet” tool to be utilized by local government bodies for the purpose of informing participating municipalities about their communities’ rural social capital. Thus, the availability of these data created the benefit of allowing analysis and understanding the strengths, weaknesses, and characteristics of each community and their social capital-related community-building activities (Tanaka et al. 2009; Tanoi 2007). However, accumulating social capital in the form of community networks and trust takes time. Conducting surveys requires significant time, effort, and financial resources, making it difficult for local governments to conduct annual follow-up surveys. Hence, we are only able to discern the degree of social capital that exists at a given point in time. Earlier, social capital research on the effects of policy interventions largely relied on qualitative methods. Yet the case study approach, while dense with description, nonetheless suffers from

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describing only a theoretical causative model that supports the case being studied (Ueno 2010). There is a clear need for time-series data generated by analyzing a group over time and for understanding how social capital accumulates in a community, the types of dynamic changes it undergoes, and whether intervention in the form of government policies designed to increase social capital can be expected to be effective (Ueno 2018). For the time being, it is not known what sort of community features increase social capital. Is it capital that has accumulated in the past? Do new environments and interactions contribute to the accumulation of social capital? What types of agricultural measures can be linked to major increases in social capital? Answering these questions became possible in 2016 against the backdrop of MAFF’s Long-Term Farmland Development Plan. Its fundamental principles aimed at “passing on social capital, creating new value, and encouraging rural cooperation on a deeper level,” rather than only establishing infrastructure. Large-scale farmland development projects would seek ideas from local communities and prepare capital stock in the form of farmland and irrigation equipment, including initiatives designed to facilitate their use and maintenance. Social capital was not simply treated as the projects’ primary objective; rather, the focus was on how the processes of planning, implementing, and managing the projects could foster the revitalization of rural cooperation and increase a wide variety of preexisting potential capabilities within agriculture and rural communities. The Japanese Institute of Irrigation and Drainage, which in 2007 had designed an “investigative survey of methods of quantifying rural cooperation through land improvement programs,” ( JIID 2007) was contracted to survey the effect of project implementation on social capital and to classify the performance patterns that improved cooperation in rural communities. As far as is known, this was the first time that a rural social capital survey was implemented nationwide using the same questionnaire in the same communities over a ten-year period. Our analysis drew on results from previous studies and examined the effects of policy interventions such as multifaceted functional payment systems and farmland development projects against the trends in changing social capital values.

Data and methods The 2016 Rural Community Cooperation Survey was conducted from November 2016 to January 2017.The questionnaire featured the same set of questions that were used during previous surveys among the same communities stretching from Hokkaido to Kyushu. The questionnaires were distributed among 133 communities (10,922 residents) with the help of local community associations that were contacted via each municipality. Responses were returned by mail. Response rates were 28.5 percent (1,439 residents) in 2006 and 41.2 percent (2,420 residents) in 2009. A stratified random sample was selected from areas under the jurisdiction of the Rural Development Bureau in each regional block. Two types of analyses were conducted for the purposes of this study: (1) Situational analysis of the changes in

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social capital between the time of the previous survey and the current survey, and (2) analysis of the effects on changes in social capital resulting from implementation of farmland development programs and a multifaceted functional payment system. There were major differences in the questions included in the 2006 and the 2009 questionnaire. In this chapter, we use only data from communities surveyed in 2006 and 2016. Hazard ratios and odds ratios associated with policy-based intervention and changes in social capital were calculated to investigate whether policybased intervention improves social capital. Next, using fsQCA software, Crisp-Set QCA (qualitative comparative analysis) was conducted in order to, first, confirm whether policies such as farmland development programs are more effective when several programs are implemented at once rather than individually and separately and, second, to analyze the structural relationships these have with community features. One of the strong features of QCA analysis is its capability of handling small sets of cases and multiple variables (Kanomata et al. 2001; Rihoux and Ragin 2009). The sample featured 49 rural communities after excluding four due to missing data. Some data were binarized to 0/1 in order to reduce complexity.The truth table combines original data with dummy variables for the QCA analysis. The dummy variable for community size is based on the mean number of households per community (M = 98); therefore communities with 100 or more households were designated as “1” and those with fewer than 100 households as “0.” Dummy variables for outcome social capital were calculated by subtracting the 2006 value from the 2016 value. Positive outcome values were labeled as “1” and negative outcome values or those equal to zero as “0.” Means for cooperative social capital were 0.03 in 2006 and -0.16 in 2016, and for reciprocal social capital values were -0.02 in 2006 and -0.40 in 2016.

Analysis The relationship between rural community size and social capital A sense of social responsibility, range and frequency of interpersonal contacts, participation in community activities, mutual assistance, trust in the local community, and efforts for the good of the community were variables used to quantify both cooperative and reciprocal social capital in the survey. It is possible that the selection of these factors generated a natural bias in favor of small-sized communities with fewer households. The number of households in the 49 communities ranged between 13 and 532 households; the mean was 96.3 and the median 51 households. The 95 percent confidence interval for the mean values ranged from 64.43 to 129.16. Figure 7.1 shows the distribution of social capital in relation to community size for the years 2006 and 2016. The vertical axis indicates cooperative social capital and the horizontal axis reciprocal social capital. The size of the circles represents the number of households in each community. For both periods of observation,

FIGURE 7.1 

Social capital and community size, 2006 and 2016

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FIGURE 7.2 

Trends in the changes of social capital mean values by size of community

relatively small communities with high social capital values are concentrated in the upper-right (quadrant 1) and relatively large communities with low social capital values in the lower-left (quadrant 3).

Trends in changes in social capital Means and differences between means were analyzed to estimate the change in both types of social capital in small and large communities in 2006 and 2016. Cooperative social capital in large communities showed the lowest values in both years (M(2006) = -1.08 < M(2016) = -.96). The slight increase was statistically not significant, likely due to the small number of cases. In all other cases, social capital values declined over the ten-year period. Small communities showed the highest values for cooperative social capital (M(2006) = .43 > M(2016) = .13), followed by mutual social capital (M(2006) = .18 > M(2016) = -.24) and reciprocal social capital in large communities (M(2006) = -.55 > M(2016) = -.82). Figure 7.2 shows trend results for changes in social capital by size of community over the ten-year period.

Effectiveness of policy-based intervention on improving social capital Hazard ratios were calculated to examine how policy-based intervention may have impacted rural cooperation and social capital values over a ten-year period. The “policy effectiveness ratio” assumes a causative relationship of policy tools and social capital trends and is calculated by pairing groups of communities that

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voluntarily decided for or against policy intervention with the changes to social capital (increase/no change or decrease) in a contingency table. Our analysis also accounted for odds ratios.1 This method is commonly used in epidemiology to estimate health risks associated with exposure to infections (Nakamura 2017). In our case, 30 out of 49 communities (the intervention group) had received some kind of governmental support, including direct payments, drainage and irrigation work, and farmland development support. Disaster prevention programs were omitted due to the small number of cases. Of the 18 communities with increased social capital values (either cooperative or reciprocal), only eleven had made use of intervention policies; the remaining 19 communities of the intervention group had decreasing social capital values. Of all communities that received governmental support, 37 percent reported an increase in social capital, and 37 percent of all communities without political support programs also reported an increase of social capital. As the “policy effectiveness ratio” was 1.0 and the odds ratio 0.99, we cannot say whether policy-based intervention resulted in maintaining or improving social capital levels. We controlled for community size by splitting the sample again in communities with fewer or more than 100 households. Contingency tables now revealed significant differences in the effectiveness of policy-based intervention for maintaining and improving social capital. Small communities had a considerably larger policy effectiveness ratio of 1.2 (odds ratio 1.4) than large communities, with a hazard ratio of 0.7 (odds ratio 0.4).We also tested for the effect of particular policies on improving social capital. Only farmland development programs led to a positive outcome (1.06), while direct payment (0.95) and drainage or irrigation work (0.91) did not yield an increase. When controlling for community size, all types of policy intervention showed an increase in social capital among small communities but not for large communities. Most effective were farmland development projects (1.38), followed by drainage and irrigation projects (1.06) and direct payments (1.04). Odds ratios confirmed the order of effectiveness. Among large communities, farmland development projects showed the lowest value (0.27), followed by 0.47 for the remaining policy programs. A logistic regression analysis was conducted to determine the effect of simultaneously implementing multiple projects. Although the odds ratio for farmland development projects was notably large, none of the effects of the three programs was statistically significant, most likely again due to the small sample size. Finally, we performed QCA analysis in order to investigate the structure and relationship of independent variables in cases that showed the positive outcome of improved social capital. The Quine-McClusky algorithm was used as a tabulation method to identify the prime factors that account for increased social capital. Model 1 estimated cooperative social capital in 2016 as a function of community size, direct payments, irrigation and drainage, farmland development, and both of the 2006 social capital values. Model 2 used the same function for analyzing reciprocal social capital in 2016.

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Fourteen cases in six patterns supported the structure of Model 1 (cooperative social capital). Thirteen of these cases belonged to the group of small communities, indicating that small communities have environmental conditions that are more conducive to cultivating cooperative social capital. This observation is consistent with the policy-effectiveness ratio results indicated earlier. Five cases showed an increase in cooperative social capital from very low values (-1.74 to 1.05) after participating in a direct payment program. Of the remaining nine cases that showed an increase in cooperative social capital due to the use of any or a combination of the policy intervention programs, all had already demonstrated comparatively satisfying values of either type of social capital in 2006. In Ōzaki in Miyagi Prefecture, which is one of two cases that received direct payment only, cooperative social capital improved from -0.09 to 0.20. In this community we observed a notably high standard deviation from the mean response rate in terms of community-based activities such as communal fire brigades and crime-prevention patrolling. Pattern 3 consists of two cases from Ōzaki Kagoshima Prefecture, which made use of an irrigation and drainage program only. Cooperative social capital increased from 0.96 to 1.57 overall, and in one district from the same town it improved from -0.40 to 0.02. In another district of Ōzaki the percentage of people who reported close interpersonal connections, high trust among people in the community, successful problem-solving within the community, and participation in sports activities showed a more than twofold standard deviation, and the same effect was observed for the former district in relation to friendships both within the same community and with neighboring communities. Two cases in Saga Prefecture (Miyaki) and Hokkaido (Ōzora) participated in three programs. Cooperative social capital in Miyaki increased from 0.16 to 0.56 and in Ōzora from 1.05 to 1.06.This community also showed a notably high standard deviation (over two times) for participating in community association activities, community revitalization initiatives, and agriculture-related gatherings. In two other districts from Ōzora that received direct payment and farmland development support, cooperative social capital improved from 1.43 to 2.17 in one and from 1.13 to 1.31 in the other district. In the former district, standard deviation for participation in community association activities, community revitalization activities, sportsrelated activities, and agriculture-related activities was extremely high, at over two times. The final pattern consists of a single large community in Kamogawa, Chiba Prefecture, which has 167 households. Here we observed a spike in cooperative social capital from -1.24 to -0.67 through the utilization of reciprocal social capital. Model 2 was confirmed in five cases with three distinctive patterns. Pattern 1 includes two cases in which reciprocal social capital improved as a result of irrigation and drainage programs in small communities. In Ōzaki (Kagoshima Prefecture, with 32 households), reciprocal social capital increased from 1.81 to 1.95 and in Numazu (Shizuoka Prefecture, with 44 households) from -2.00 to -0.83. Pattern 2 features the two small communities of Miyaki (Saga Prefecture, with 82 households) and Nanao (Ishikawa Prefecture, with 39 households), which in 2007 had

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already demonstrated strong reciprocal social capital. Both communities benefited from a combination of direct payment and farmland development programs that yielded an improvement in reciprocal social capital from -1.18 to 0.46 and from -0.80 to -0.09, respectively. In Nanao, the standard deviation for agriculture-related gatherings was larger than two times. The final pattern again includes the large community of Kamogawa in Chiba Prefecture, in which a history of strong reciprocal social capital (0.01) increased to 0.50.

Discussion Downward trends in social capital Our investigation of rural social capital indicated a nationwide trend toward longterm decline. A comparison of the social capital mean values from 2006 and 2016 showed equal or slightly increased levels of cooperative social capital only in large communities. As for the various forms of social capital in 2016, cooperative social capital in small communities performed best, followed by reciprocal social capital in the same community type, cooperative social capital values, and reciprocal social capital values in large communities. One major cause of the downward trend in social capital is thought to be the decline in opportunities for engaging in face-toface interaction with others. However, it is not unlikely that a survey that considers social relations solely within community boundaries may not do complete justice to the complexity of relationships and communication in contemporary society. As early as 1979, Wellman pointed at the loss and dissolution of communities as a consequence of lifestyle changes in which the knowledge of how to resolve “community issues” initiated a shift toward mediated networks and other platforms for people to interact. In 2016, JIID interviewed community leaders in Ōzora discovering that “young people had few opportunities to meet face-to-face, but they communicated using social media,” and that “removal of diseased seedlings in the community was done cooperatively” ( JIID 2018: 35–36). In this community, where multifaceted functional payment programs proved effective in mobilizing participants of training seminars on farming methods or collective trimming of weeds along irrigation waterways, there was a low level of reciprocal social capital values but an extremely high level of cooperative social capital values. In order to predict the effect that current cooperative and reciprocal social capital may have on social capital in the future, we examined correlations between the two types and over the ten-year period. Figure 7.3 shows a moderate effect for all correlations, indicating that past social capital has a negligible impact on future social capital. We assume that the mixed evidence is an indicator of “path dependency” leading toward specific conditions and capacities to deal with a changing environment. Qualitative surveys showed that the rise of new communication media (such as social media) led to changes in the range of social networks and activities.We also observed a great diversity of modes and opportunities for interaction even within the same community. Future quantitative survey design will need to include items that reflect the new types of social interactions.

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FIGURE 7.3 

Correlations between all social capital values in 2006 and 2016

The effectiveness of government policies in improving social capital Putnam argues that social capital is a collective good and asset of a civil society that is rooted in social institutions and community traditions, leading it to become highly durable and resistant to change. Group solidarity and institutions that stabilize membership, foster trust, and sanction betrayal are needed to produce group solidarity and ensure long-term benefits for the community (Ueno 2013).Yet as David Hume argued, human rationality and man’s pursuit of short-term private benefits more often than not interfere with the generation of public goods and common benefits for which collective action is needed. In Japan in the mid-20th century, the advent of mechanization in agriculture weakened the demand for cooperation in farm work. It is for precisely this reason that we argue that governmental policies such as direct payment programs, irrigation and drainage programs, farmland development programs, and disaster-prevention programs provide valuable opportunities to encourage or even force rural communities to cooperate and foster social capital.

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In fact, the decrease in rural social capital over the ten-year period was smaller in communities where farmland development programs had been implemented than in communities without agricultural intervention. A comparison of the two types of communities indicated that decreases in both cooperative and reciprocal social capital were less dramatic in the former group of communities. In fact, there was even a notable increase in cooperative social capital. Investigation of changes in the mean cooperative social capital values indicated that cooperative social capital underwent relatively little change when drainage and irrigation programs and farmland development programs were implemented independently, but the degree of improvement tended to be larger when both programs were implemented simultaneously. Reciprocal social capital tended to improve due to farmland development programs, and the degree of improvement was larger when these programs were implemented simultaneously with drainage and irrigation programs. The policy effectiveness ratio was 1.38 times for social capital improvement as a result of independent farmland development projects in small communities, 1.06 times for irrigation and drainage projects, and 1.04 times for direct payment projects. In large communities, policy intervention turned out to be largely ineffective. Generally, direct payment programs can contribute to the promotion of social capital regardless of community size, but farmland development and irrigation and drainage programs proved more effective, primarily in small communities. Small communities are better at fostering social capital, thanks to inherent conditions that promote the impact of policy-based intervention on rural social capital. In that regard, we might question the efficiency of the wave of mergers at the beginning of the century. Larger units were thought to be economically more efficient, yet the impact on community bonds and power were not equally taken into account. As political and administrative institutions spread over ever-wider areas, they threaten to weaken cooperative and reciprocal relations among neighbors and community members. It goes without saying that interventionist policy programs are not the only factor in promoting social capital. Our model design proved able to explain 61 percent and 38 percent of changes in cooperative and reciprocal social capital, respectively. Other possible factors include changes within the environment or in relations between constituents in organizations, as well as autonomous local efforts. With personal relationships branching out into new network spaces, we also expect new potentials for regional policies to arise.Taking into account new spatial concepts for community life, we assume that all intervention programs can be designed to foster social capital. Hence we are confident in saying that rural Japan is not threatened by laissez-faire peripheralization policies. Quite to the contrary, the appropriation of public policy support provides valuable opportunities for local residents to learn about and promote social capital in their communities. Because this chapter assesses the impact of interventionist policy on social capital at the macro level, we are reluctant to relate our findings to micro-level studies of social capital change that focus on specific cases or agricultural communities.

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This may be an area for future research or model simulation design to capture the dynamics of changing social capital (see Ueno 2018).

Acknowledgments The authors express their appreciation to the MAFF Rural Development Bureau and JIID for providing survey data and survey reports, respectively. The second author was in charge of the survey during his affiliation with the JIID prior to assuming his current position with the MAFF. The content of this chapter reflects the authors’ personal views and should not be considered the official position of the MAFF.

Note 1 Hazard ratio (policy effectiveness ratio) = 

a / (a + b ) c / (c + d )

; Odds ratio = 

a / b a×d = c /d b×c

References Akazawa, Katsuhiro, Kenji Inaba, and Kōhei Seki. 2009. “Shūraku kasseika ni okeru sōsharu kyapitaru no yakuwari ni kansuru kōzō bunseki” [Structural analysis of the role played by social capital in rural community development]. Nōringyō Mondai Kenkyū 174 (45/1), 1–13. Barraket, Jo. 2005. “Enabling structures for coordinated action: Community organizations, social capital, and rural community sustainability.” Ann Dale and Jenny Onyx (eds.), A dynamic balance: Social capital and sustainable community development, 13–30.Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Broadbent, Jeffrey P. 2001. “Social capital and labor politics in Japan: Cooperation or cooptation?” Policy Sciences 33, 307–321. DeFilippis, James. 2001. “The myth of social capital in community development.” Housing Policy Debate 12 (4), 781–806. Fitzsimons, Patrick. 2000.“Neoliberalism and ‘social capital’: Reinventing community.” Paper read at the AREA Conference, New Orleans, on Neoliberalism, Welfare and Education: “The New Zealand experiment.” Critique and critical transformation. www.amat.org. nz/Neoliberalism.pdf (accessed June 6, 2019). Hanibuchi, Tomoya, Katsunori Kondo, Tomoki Nakaya, Kokoro Shirai, Hiroshi Hirai, and Ichirō Kawachi. 2012. “Does walkable mean sociable? Neighborhood determinants of social capital among older adults in Japan.” Health & Place 18, 229–239. Ikeda, Kenichi. 2002. Social capital and social communication in Japan: Political participation and tolerance (= Research Monograph Series, CSD Center for the Study of Democracy). Irvine: University of California. http://repositories.cdlib.org/csd/ (accessed June 6, 2019). JIID ( Japan Institute of Irrigation and Drainage). 2007. Tochi kairyō jigyō ni yoru nōson kyōdōryoku teiryōka shuhō to kentō chōsa gyōmu hōkokusho [Report on the investigative survey of methods of quantifying rural cooperation through land improvement programs]. Tokyo: JIID. ———. 2018. Kokudo kyōjinka no torikumi to nōson kyōdōryoku (kenkyū hōkoku shiryō) [National resilience initiatives and rural cooperation (research report materials)]. Tokyo: JIID.

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Kanomata, Nobuo, Keiji Hasegawa, and Tashiro Miyano. 2001. Shitsuteki hikaku bunseki [Qualitative comparative analysis]. Tokyo: Minerva Shobō. Kelly, William W. 2006. “Rice revolutions and farm families in Tōhoku: Why is farming culturally central and economically marginal?” Christopher S. Thompson and John W. Traphagan (eds.), Wearing cultural styles in Japan: Concepts of tradition and modernity in practice, 47–71. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. MAFF (Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries) Rural Development Bureau. 2007. Nōson no sōsharu kyapitaru—yutaka-na ningen kankei no iji, saisei ni mukete [Rural community social capital: Toward maintaining and reviving abundant human relations]. Tokyo: MAFF. Manzenreiter, Wolfram. 2018. “Rural happiness in Japan: Contrasting urban and rural wellbeing in Kumamoto.” Ralph Lützeler (ed.), Rural areas between decline and resurgence: Lessons from Japan and Austria, 43–64.Vienna: Department of East Asian Studies. Montgomery, John D. 2001. “Social capital as a policy resource.” Policy Sciences 33 (3–4), 227–243. Nakamura, Kōichi. 2017. Kiso kara manabu tanoshii ekigaku [Enjoying epidemiology from the basics]. Tokyo: Igaku Shoin. Nishide, Yuko, and Naoto Yamauchi. 2005. “Social capital and civic activities in Japan.” The Non-Profit Review 5 (1), 13–28. Ōsuga, Toshiki. 2017. “Tochi kairyō jigyō no jisshi o tsūjita nōson kyōdōryoku no kasseika ni kansuru chōsa bunseki” [Survey analysis on the revitalization of rural cooperation through the implementation of land improvement projects]. JIID Priority Study Report 38, 1–10. Putnam, Robert. 1995. “Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital.” Journal of Democracy 6 (1), 65–78. ———. 2000. Bowling alone:The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, Robert, Roberto Leonardi, and Raffaella Nanetti. 1994. Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Quality of Life Policy Bureau, Cabinet Office. 2002. Heisei 14-nendo sōsharu kyapitaru: yutakana ningen kankei to shimin katsudō no kōjunkan o motomete [Social capital 2002: In pursuit of the virtuous cycle of abundant human relationships and civic activities]. Tokyo: Naikaku-fu Kokumin Seikatsu-kyoku. www.npo-homepage.go.jp/toukei/2009izenchousa/2009izen-sonota/2002social-capital (accessed January 8, 2019). Rihoux, Benoît, and Charles C. Ragin. 2009. Configurational comparative methods: Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and related techniques. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Ryu, Hyokyung, Jae Seung Lee, and Sae Young Lee. 2018. “Participatory neighborhood revitalization effects on social capital: Evidence from community building projects in Seoul.” Journal of Urban Planning and Development 144 (1), art. 04017025. Sampson, Kaylene, Colin Goorich, and Ruth McManus. 2011. “Rural families, industry change and social capital: Some considerations for policy.” Social Policy Journal of New Zealand 37, 97–110. Savioli, Marco, and Roberto Patuelli. 2016. “Social capital, institutions and policymaking” (= Economics Discussion Papers; No. 2016–26). Kiel: Kiel Institute for the World Economy. www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2016-26 (accessed July 25, 2019). Tanaka, Kunihiko, Isao Ishida, and Shinya Ueno. 2009. “Nōson kyōdōryoku kōjō ni yoru nōson shinkō” [Rural community promotion through improved rural cooperation]. Nōgyō Nōson Kōgakkaishi 77 (6), 473–476.

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8 SUSTAINING HEALTHCARE IN JAPAN’S REGIONS The introduction of telehealth networks Susanne Brucksch

Introduction It is well known that Japan is facing rapid population aging and shrinking. In 2016, one-quarter of Japanese people were aged 65 and over, a proportion that is expected to grow further to as much as one-third of the population by 2025 (CaO 2017).While life expectancy is the highest worldwide (83.9 years in 2015), fertility remains below replacement level (1.5 children per woman in 2015) (see OECD 2017, 2018).What is more, this gap may not close, even if Japan succeeds in attracting a higher number of skilled workers from foreign countries, as the government still caps the number of foreign workers allowed to migrate to Japan, despite a few recent changes. Overall healthcare costs have soared from ¥3.6 trillion in 2000 to ¥10.4 trillion in 2016. According to recent calculations, expenditures are expected to reach ¥21.0 trillion in 2025 (MHLW 2015: 12, 38). Consequently, healthcare expenditures have become a decisive factor in providing adequate healthcare in terms of personnel, services, and infrastructure, particularly in Japan’s shrinking regions. Manfred Kühn (2015) identifies such developments as processes of peripheralization. Kühn (2015: 370–373) subsumes under peripheralization processes such as economic effects, out-migration and demographic shrinkage, structural marginality, and an increase in inequalities between regions, as well as “exclusion from networks and resources of power.” Specifically, the author employs geographical criteria such as space, distance, center-region, and (population) density to study the connection of peripheralization with its consequences such as economic polarization, political marginalization, and social inequality. Finally, he suggests a matrix between two ideal types of centralization on the one hand and peripheralization on the other to categorize the various economic, social, and political ramifications. Although his matrix juxtaposes criteria such as innovation/lack of innovation (economic dimension), wealth/poverty (social dimension), and power/powerlessness (political

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dimension), Kühn (2015: 374) states that these categories “must not necessarily be understood as binary dichotomies.” We can observe processes of peripheralization at work in Japan’s regions, such as aging, population shrinkage, declining economic activity and labor shortages in geographically remote places. These tendencies are most evident in isolated, rural, or mountainous regions such as the prefectures of Akita (northern Honshu), Shimane (western Honshu), and Kōchi (Shikoku) (SME Agency 2014: 96, 104). They result in declining tax revenues and growing healthcare spending, affecting the maintenance of adequate healthcare provision in terms of accessibility to medical institutions and healthcare services, a higher travel burden, distribution of healthcare staff, medical specialists, and medical technology, securing an independent life and autonomy. According to Kühn, we can interpret these as an expression of the growing urban-rural divide, marginalization, and social inequality. Therefore, some prefectures and local communities have begun to introduce telehealth systems in the context of the establishment of “Regional Integrated Care Systems” (Chiiki hōkatsu kea shisutemu). The basic idea of regionalized healthcare is to balance “equity” (welfare and accessibility) with “efficiency” (control of healthcare spending), particularly to control expenditure on care for elderly people while securing their dignity and independent living (Dahl 2018: 48–49; Park 2010a: 32, 2010b: 3). More specifically, telehealth technologies based on information and communication technologies (ICT) are expected to bridge social and spatial distances in order to sustain adequate healthcare in regions confronting peripheralization. Kühn (2015: 370) briefly mentions that “technological innovations such as information and communication technologies” are able to compensate for disadvantages of peripheralization. He states, “agglomeration effects lost importance, while spatial proximity and networks gained more interest” in service-based societies. Therefore, the analysis of telehealth networks adds one more layer to the ongoing discussion on regions “becoming peripheries” and their implications for local healthcare. Park (2010a: 33) points to a lacuna of empirical research regarding medical geographies, healthcare, and telehealth in Japan. Most of the publications refer to qualitative case studies (e.g., Aoki et al. 2001; JTTA 2013; Matsumoto and Honda 2013; Park 2010b; Taher et al. 2017; Yamakata et al. 2011), while some provide quantitative data on specific effects of telemedicine, in particular, regarding the aspects of cost efficiency and geographic distribution of medical specialists and equipment (e.g., Hasegawa and Murase 2007; Matsumoto et al. 2015; Park 2010a; Yuda 2016). Only a few studies address the aspect of patients’ privacy and data control when discussing telehealth systems (see, for example, Morris et al. (2018) on privacy preferences in Electronic Health Record (EHR) systems). Also understudied is the field of telehealth from the perspective of nursing and care sciences (Kamei 2013: 154, 156), which refer far more to patients’ autonomy, rights, dignity, and quality of life (QoL). Telehealth networks have different socio-spatial implications from conventional regional healthcare concerning the aspects of structural marginality, inequalities, autonomy, and access to resources and power. Hence, this chapter is guided by the

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question: What benefits and challenges can be observed regarding telehealth networks in Japan’s regions from the perspective of peripheralization? More precisely, the chapter focuses on purposes and expectations, stakeholders, requirements, and implications arising from employing telematics technologies in regional healthcare. In other words, I do not question the process of peripheralization in Japan’s regions as such but elaborate on a specific type of measure taken to alleviate the consequences for regional healthcare. Findings from an interview study on two telehealth networks are presented: Fukui Medical Net and the ism-Link network of Iida City and the neighboring Shimoina District in Nagano Prefecture (Brucksch and Schultz 2018). Fukui Prefecture and Iida City were selected as case studies, as both are located in shrinking regions affected by particularly rapid aging, population decline, and shortages of financial and human resources in healthcare. I conducted semi-standardized interviews that nevertheless followed an exploratory approach with representatives of these telehealth networks and on-site visits in both locations between April and July 2017.1 These two case studies offer a valuable opportunity to study the introduction of telehealth networks in the wider context of demographic change and peripheralization in Japan’s regions. By moving beyond the technical characteristics, it is possible to address the embeddedness of telehealth networks in their specific social, financial, and regulatory environments and to reflect on the practicality of such solutions. First, however, I shed some light on relevant aspects of telematics technologies in healthcare and their implications for socio-spatial configuration from the perspective of peripheralization in Japan and how telehealth networks are discussed in the relevant research literature. As a theoretical approach, I will add the concept of socio-spatial and digital proximity in healthcare, referring to Nelly Oudshoorn’s (2011) exhaustive research on telecare. This concept is convincing because it complements Kühn’s (2015: 370) center-periphery matrix to identify socio-spatial configurations of ICT-based healthcare programs. Overall, the findings of the two case studies suggest that the telehealth infrastructure is a necessary precondition, not only to promote but also to initiate collaboration between various healthcare institutions in order to realize a regional healthcare system.

Telehealth and healthcare in Japan Telehealth implies the transmission of data, optical, and audio information over a distance (Kamei 2013: 155). The term telemedicine is still far more common but refers mainly to sharing data among medical institutions (see JTTA 2013: 3–4). Hence, the term telehealth appears most appropriate to refer to ICT-based networks employed to interlink various institutions and services in healthcare, because it covers the meaning of medical, long-term, and homecare services. Carretero (2015: 12) writes that telemedicine and telehealth alike encompass the delivery of healthcare services, where distance is a critical factor, by all healthcare professionals using information and communication technologies

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for the exchange of valid information [. . .], all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities. A relevant criterion is geographical distance in relation to the goal of securing healthcare for individuals in their communities by employing an ICT infrastructure. This is the key aspect where regions confronting peripheralization (socioeconomic marginalization) overlap with the issue of provision of and accessibility to healthcare services (social inequality).

Geographies of healthcare In Japan, local communities play a pivotal role in organizing regional healthcare. At present, municipalities fulfill functions such as investing in healthcare infrastructure (e.g., providing an adequate number of hospitals), organizing institutional care as well as home- and community-based care services, managing finances under the strict control of the Ministry for Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), monitoring the number and activities of for-profit and non-profit healthcare providers, and certifying eligibility for long-term care insurance (LTCI) (Campbell 2014: 58–63; Campbell et al. 2014: 16–17, 24). At present, the MHLW, several prefectures, and local communities favor ICT solutions to promote regional healthcare. More precisely, telehealth technologies are expected to: interlink healthcare institutions in remote locations; generate synergies between different healthcare institutions; improve medical practice, decisionmaking, and continuous medical training, especially in isolated areas; support health maintenance, accessibility to medical institutions, and homecare nearer to patients’ places of residence (Aoki et al. 2001: 1217; Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 701; Park 2010a: 33, 2010b: 1–2, 9–10; Taher et al. 2017: 1–2;Yamakata et al. 2011: 1). However, Oudshoorn (2011: 21) also warns that the emphasis on home telecare could imply a “shift to community-based care and the redistribution of care from the state and formal caregivers to informal caregivers such as voluntary organizations and the family, due to welfare state reforms.” Telemedicine started to be introduced in Japan from the mid-1990s, connecting urban and rural hospitals (Matsumoto et al. 2015: 2; Park 2010b: 2). After the substantial expansion of fiber optics and broadband networks throughout Japan since 1997 and legal amendments regarding telemedicine made by the MHLW, telehealth projects increased considerably. Most telemedicine projects related to teleradiology, telepathology, and home telecare because of the shortage of medical specialists in these fields (Aoki et al. 2001: 1217; Park 2010a: 34). Although telehealth projects were also prevalent in major metropolitan areas such as Tokyo and Osaka, a 2007 study (Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 697) observed an accumulation in northern and southern prefectures of Japan, such as Hokkaido,Yamagata, Toyama, Gifu, Shimane, Kagawa, Kōchi, and Nagasaki. The authors concluded that most of the medical institutions providing patient data were not located predominantly in metropolitan regions but in the same areas as the institutions receiving the medical records (see also Matsumoto and Honda 2013: 10–17; Park 2010a: 37–40). On the other

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hand, the diffusion of ICTs for healthcare seemed to be not as widespread in total numbers. According to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT 2015), only a small number of clinics and hospitals were equipped with ICT networks, and most of these used rather simple applications at that time. What is more, as a survey of the MHLW (2016) has shown, only 14.2 percent of healthcare providers in mountainous districts had introduced ICT network systems by 2015. Yamakata et al. (2011: 2), who describe the Kagawa network as one of the few successful ones in Japan at that time, support this finding. Interestingly, Park (2010b: 8–10) identifies—by comparison with more centralized telemedicine networks in South Korea—a decentralized structure of telehealth networks in Japan, with a concentration on medical institutions such as general or university hospitals in the prefectural capitals providing specialized telehealth services. The author demonstrates in his study on Kagawa Prefecture that telemedicine networks in Japan operate within the geographical boundaries of healthcare regions (he calls them “diagnostic areas”), predominantly structured according to prefectural boundaries (Park 2010a: 38, 2010b: 3, 8–10). He considers a regionalized structure of healthcare as the “best method for optimal spatial organization” for “rural and isolated communities that suffered from geographical and economic problems” (Park 2010a: 32, 2010b: 2). Conversely, his study suggests that the interregional linkage between Kagawa and institutions in other healthcare regions, such as the University of Tokyo, Hokkaido University, or even other medical institutions in the Shikoku area, did not proceed beyond the experimental stage due to incompatibility of telehealth technologies and lack of profitability for the parties involved.

Financial resources Healthcare expenditures are covered by citizens’ health insurance, other health insurances, municipalities, and prefectures, with a larger share from tax revenues and cross-subsidization (Campbell et al. 2014: 22–23; Yuda 2016: 263). Residents not covered by an employment-based health insurance (for example, retired residents, along with the self-employed, irregularly employed, and non-employed) usually join a resident-based insurance of their communities (residence-based insurance) (Campbell et al. 2014: 17). Long-term care premiums are borne by tax revenues from municipalities (12.5%), prefectures (12.5%), and the national level (25.0%). Yuda (2016: 262–263) demonstrates in his research on cost efficiencies in health insurance that, despite two major policy reforms regarding the healthcare system for elderly people in 2008 and cross-subsidization from prefectural and national levels, more than 50 percent of municipality-based insurers experienced a budget deficit. This, however, resulted from a high proportion of elderly people and lowincome groups accumulating within local communities as their main insurer and healthcare provider, particularly in regions confronting peripheralization. Less surprisingly, most publications mention cost efficiency as one major goal behind telehealth networks, beside linking healthcare institutions in remote

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locations (Aoki et al. 2001: 1217; Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 701; Park 2010b: 1–2; Taher et al. 2017: 1–2; Yamakata et al. 2011: 1). For instance, Matsumoto and Honda (2013: 1017) report on a telehealth network in Nagasaki Prefecture, where the average time of hospitalization has been gradually reduced due to better exchange of patient records and improved treatment. Moreover, facilitating ICTs in healthcare provides an alternative way of giving psychological support in severe situations, which contributes to the “physical independence of homebound individuals” and reduces the necessity for hospitalization (Kamei 2013: 155, 159; Taher et al. 2017: 9). However, other studies draw attention to the expenditures necessary to establish, maintain, operate, and renew the infrastructure on which telehealth networks are founded (Park 2010b: 2, 11). Hasegawa and Murase (2007: 698, 700) show in their survey that more than 80 percent of their respondents mentioned the continuous administrative and financial support from local government, the MHLW, and ICT companies as a crucial factor for the long-term survival of telemedicine projects. The reason is low or non-existent reimbursement by national health insurance for the establishment of telehealth networks, as only healthcare services can be reimbursed (Kamei 2013: 155; Matsumoto et al. 2015: 7).This is why Oudshoorn (2011: 17, 20, 124, 127) criticizes the one-sided interpretation of technological innovations as problem-solvers making healthcare more efficient or affordable. Instead, she puts forward findings from the field of the history of technology that indicate new appliances might even “increase rather than decrease healthcare spending,” as they are likely to raise the volume of diagnosis and treatment.

Human resources Although the argument of cost efficiency is most prominent, the more forceful driver seems to be the tremendous shortage of medical specialists in the regions, particularly in pathology and radiology, fields referred to by 50 percent of all projects in 2007. Other healthcare specialties severely affected by labor shortages in the regions, even resulting in hospital closures in some extreme cases, are emergency room availability, obstetrics and pediatrics, nursing staff, and homecare for elderly people (Campbell 2014: 58–63; Campbell et al. 2014: 16–17, 24; Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 696–697; Park 2010a: 35, 43; Taher et al. 2017: 2). Matsumoto et al. (2015: 4–6) underline this finding with their study on the distribution of radiologists and teleradiology. On the one hand, their study illustrates that the number of hospitals utilizing teleradiology grew by 69.6 percent and the total number of radiologists increased by 21.7 percent between 2006 and 2012. However, the authors show that the center-periphery divide in physician distribution has widened, because the rapid increase of radiologists resulted in a further concentration in urban regions, whereas the geographic distribution of computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emissions tomography (PET) has become more equal (Matsumoto et al. 2015: 7–9).

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Stakeholders in telehealth Basically, the participants in telehealth networks can be divided into two groups: data-providing and data-receiving healthcare institutions. Recently, however, services have been widened to other healthcare organizations such as pharmacies, public health nurses and nutritionists, and even to patients feeding in their vital data themselves in eHealth programs (Yamakata et al. 2011: 3–4). At the beginning, however, there might be some hesitation on the part of local healthcare providers to introduce new ICT solutions. For instance, only 6.3 percent of care providers planned to employ new kinds of ICT in the future, according to the previously mentioned survey by the MLIT (2015). However, 77.4 percent had no plans to do so, as they did not see sufficient benefits outweighing conventional programs for health maintenance, such as physical activities (MLIT 2015). Conversely,Taher et al. (2017: 9) examined an eHealth project running since 1994 in Nishiaizu, Fukushima Prefecture, for citizens aged 65 and over. Surprisingly, the program was particularly successful in remote medical advice, psychological support, and health maintenance but showed almost no effect in curing diseases.The authors explained this outcome by the increased number of public health nurses employed by the municipality, who are providing remote consultation via ICTs. Usually, a telehealth network is managed by a committee consisting of representatives from the prefectural government, a medical association, and a company for data control, while a telecommunications company operates the ICT infrastructure. Some authors similarly reported that support from local and central government together with the ICT companies was essential to initiate and sustain a telehealth project beyond the experimental phase (Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 698, 700; Park 2010a: 35). The data are stored in a regional data center and prior patient permission is required to access patient data (Park 2010b: 3, 8; Yamakata et al. 2011: 4). Park (2010b: 2) also underlines the regionalized limitation of telehealth networks in Japan as a circumstance contributing to an “optimal geographic area for control.” However, when it comes to healthcare, considering data security is not enough to ensure user acceptance. According to Oudshoorn (2011: 18, 23, 30), these ICTbased networks construct novel places of healthcare and “introduce very explicit and forceful scripts for collaboration and interdependencies.”This results in “highly pre-structured, protocol-driven work,” as the infrastructure functions “only when all the actors and technical devices perform the actions delegated to them.” In other words, as in a face-to-face consultation, facilitating ICTs in healthcare requires the establishment of a social relationship between caregiver and care recipient that is founded on trust and respect. Accordingly, Kamei (2013: 156) emphasizes “consent, privacy, and confidentiality” as essential principles of nursing to be implemented in telehealth and home telecare as well, as they facilitate the handling of highly sensitive data relating to a vulnerable group of people. Therefore, Morris et al. (2018: 74–75) similarly call for a robust EHR authorization system to increase consideration for the patient’s wishes, protect privacy, improve data control through a precise data security control approach, and raise the confidence of patients and

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their families in eHealth programs. However, telehealth also provides an alternative means for psychological support in severe situations, which might contribute to QoL and “physical independence of homebound individuals” and reduces the necessity for hospitalization, as demonstrated in the study on Nishiaizu ( JTTA 2013: 35–37; Kamei 2013: 155, 159; Taher et al. 2017: 9). Finally, several authors raise the point that healthcare practices are strongly associated with personal interaction between medical specialist and patient. Despite the spread of ICTs in regional healthcare, there remains the expectation that at least the initial contact should be based on a face-to-face interaction to avoid incorrect diagnosis (Park 2010a: 33, 2010b: 2). In Japan, Article 20 of the Medical Practitioners’ Act regulates this matter, but the article was allegedly relaxed by the MHLW in 1997, 2003, and 2011 (Hasegawa and Murase 2007: 695; Kamei 2013: 155; Medical Practitioners’ Act [1948] 2007). The absence of physical contact is a major challenge, as healthcare professionals increasingly depend on “images and graphs that have to speak for the patient” as well as on the practice of active listening to patients’ explanations to avoid misunderstandings that can easily occur during remote communication. More precisely, “sources of information such as color and texture of skin, odor, and body language” are no longer available (Kamei 2013: 155–156; Oudshoorn 2011: 25, 126, 136). Kamei (2013: 156) draws attention to the aspect that telehealth may put patients in the position of having to measure vital data and to master measuring devices such as “blood pressure, body temperature, and arterial oxygen saturation, by themselves and send these data to telenurses via the Internet.” In other words, telehealth might somehow reshuffle responsibilities and agency “among doctors, nurses, patients, and technical devices” and transfer control and knowledge from medical practitioners to the nurses, caregivers, or even the patients themselves ( JTTA 2013: 19; Kamei 2013: 156; Oudshoorn 2011: 19).

Defining social, spatial, and digital proximity To summarize, local communities have to shoulder the main share of sustaining the infrastructure, personnel requirements, and accessibility to regional healthcare institutions. However, when it comes to healthcare and telehealth, the aspect of proximity appears to be the key feature to be sustained against the processes of peripheralization increasing the socio-spatial divide, as outlined by Kühn (2015). More specifically, Oudshoorn (2011: 130–131) suggests distinguishing between physical, narrative, moral, and digital proximity to study the meaning of bridging geographical and social distances with telehealth technologies. Accordingly, some kind of (a) physical proximity is involved, as the practitioners and healthcare staff need “to come to know the patient.” Moreover, the healthcare professions need to create (b) a “narrative proximity” relating to the medical history of the patient and/ or care recipient in order to generate precise diagnoses and provide adequate treatment and healthcare. What is more, “psychosocial support” and a trust relationship are crucial during various states of illnesses and diseases that underline the necessity of some kind of (c) moral proximity shared between patients and healthcare

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professionals. Hence, Oudshoorn (2011: 25, 126–127) adds a further layer with the category of (d) digital proximity, which she understands as “proximity mediated by information and communication technologies,” linking various locations of healthcare but also challenging the three other layers of socio-spatial proximity between patients and practitioners. To analyze the two cases of telehealth networks, I will refer to the concept of socio-spatial digital proximity to address the embeddedness of telehealth technology in their specific material, social, financial, and regulatory environments (e.g., infrastructure, stakeholders, costs, data control) in the context of peripheralization.

The ism-Link network of Iida City Located in the southern part of Nagano Prefecture within the Japanese Alps, this region can be characterized as one with sharp contrasts between the urban center of Iida City and the rural and mountainous areas of the surrounding district. This urban-rural divide implies different levels of access to healthcare services for the residents. Iida City and the neighboring Shimoina District have 103,023 and 61,233 inhabitants, respectively (see also JGDC 2017).2 In 2014, there were about 31,300 inhabitants in Iida City aged 65 and over, and 6,101 people registered for longterm care. There were 21 facilities catering to aged people, with 586 professional staff employed there. Even though no precise data were available regarding future demand, the municipal government drew attention to the shortage of healthcare professionals, growing expenditures, and planned increases in caregiving staff. At present, 32 percent of the population in Iida City is aged 65 or over, but the numbers of medical specialists, nursing staff, and care providers seem to be insufficient, as they do not match the need for medical treatment and elderly care (Iida Municipal Government 2015: 1–2, 11, 33, 43–44). Moreover, there was only a limited number of hospitals, nursing homes, and care organizations, mainly located in the city center (Interview, July 24, 2017). The representative of the municipal government explained that this was the main reason why they were searching for ways to support their local community and to sustain the local healthcare systems. Against this backdrop, Iida City had been asked by the MHLW to implement a “Regional Integrated Care System” and to introduce a telehealth system, later named ism-Link, and the basic technology was purchased from NEC in 2009 (Interview, July 24, 2017). Ism-link is considered as one instrument to strengthen collaboration between health institutions and homecare services by implementing a joint operating body in Iida City and the Shimoina District to improve regional healthcare (Interview, July 24, 2017). The ism-Link network is a system used to share patient records among registered medical institutions, rehabilitation centers, nursing homes, day-care centers, homecare organizations, and family practitioners. For instance, health records stored within ism-Link contain patients’ health history, blood test results, treatment records, medical images scans, and measures provided by nurses and care workers. Patient records can be accessed by registered institutions with ordinary computers,

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laptops, or tablets through a secure password-protected pathway (Interview, July 24, 2017; CaO 2016: 6–7; see also Figure 8.1). Permission to access patients’ data is regulated by national laws and guidelines on data security and occupational status in each healthcare institution as well as prior permission given by each patient to the respective organizations (Interview, July 24, 2017; see also MHLW 2017). According to the interviewees, almost all patients agreed to participate in the ICTbased telehealth system, although they have no direct access to the information stored within the system (Interview, July 24, 2017). Moreover, 16 hospitals were listed as data providing institutions ( jōhō kaiji byōin) to other registered organizations, while 54 healthcare institutions were granted restricted access for browsing and reading health records (etsuran iryō kikan) (IMH 2014). While 11,823 patients and 85 healthcare facilities were participating in the ism-Link network in 2016, the numbers of participants had grown further by the time of the interview to 16,512 residents and 179 facilities out of about 250 healthcare institutions in the region, and further increases can be expected. Most recently, a pharmacist association and a dentist association had also joined the local telehealth network (Interview, July 24, 2017; CaO 2016: 6–7). As the MHLW strives to enable communities to implement regional integrated healthcare systems, the interviewees explained that this was one major reason why Iida City had received financial and administrative support from the central government and why it started to collaborate with neighboring communities (Interview, July 24, 2017). Moreover, the municipal government of Iida City and administrative bodies of the Shimoina District decided to finance the operation and maintenance of the ism-Link network fully through tax revenues; registered health institutions and caregiving organizations were only required to pay internet charges to their local internet provider (Interview, July 24, 2017; CaO 2016: 6). In contrast to Fukui Medical Net (see next section), no further costs resulting from reinvestment, operation, or maintenance of the telehealth network seem to have been considered yet. According to the interviewee, linking medical and long-term care institutions aims at broadening homecare up to the end of life while reducing time spent in hospitals, which have too often functioned as a “safety net” for elderly people. Accordingly, ism-Link is supposed to make the exchange of health records more efficient and faster by saving time in medical consultation and prescription of treatment between medical practitioners and healthcare staff. Consequently, it is claimed that the network helps to reduce healthcare spending per patient for medical scans, drug dispensing, and hospitalization. Moreover, ism-Link obviously limits the burden for patients of having to travel to healthcare institutions, particularly in cases of sudden illness or frailty (Interview, July 24, 2017). This connection implies the bridging of geographical distances between specialized hospitals located in the center in Iida City and the provision of professional care on the ground in more remote places. Nevertheless, some healthcare professionals reportedly expressed hesitation about using ism-Link, while family physicians generally felt at ease with the system. One of the interviewees offered the explanation that older generations often

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FIGURE 8.1  Basic

scheme of the ism-Link network of Iida City and the Shimoina District

Source: Based on information received during the interview ( July 24, 2017); IMH 2011.

stick to the conventional means of communication that they are most used to, such as telephone, facsimile, or e-mail. However, medical scans are too large to be sent by e-mail; sending them by post would take a whole day, or patients would need to deliver them by hand, resulting in an additional travel burden for them. What is more, the telehealth network reportedly prevents unnecessary hospital stays by allowing instant communication from the patient’s home between healthcare staff and medical specialists. This has broadened possibilities for domestic aftercare (Interview, July 24, 2017). The latter point underlines the necessity of organizing adequate training and ease of operation in order to raise user acceptance. However, the ICT company at times lacked the workers to meet the increasing demand for regular training from local healthcare staff (Interview, July 24, 2017).

Fukui Medical Net Fukui Prefecture is located at the Sea of Japan with a coastline and mountainous areas, close to the Japanese Alps but not far from the major industrial centers of Osaka and Nagoya. Nevertheless, it can be characterized as a region confronting

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FIGURE 8.2 Demographic

forecast for Fukui Prefecture (changes between 2015 and

2030) Source: Based on data received during the interview (April 27, 2017).

peripheralization. Population decline is most evident in the remote region of Okuetsu, while the level of aging appears to be similar in the various parts of Fukui Prefecture (see Figure 8.2). The higher speed of demographic shrinkage in the Okuetsu region can be explained as the outcome of higher out-migration and death rates. Furthermore, two representatives of the prefectural government drew attention to a demographic development heading currently to a peak in the elderly population and, consequently, to a peak of later-stage elderly people aged 75 and over (about 23% of all inhabitants) in Fukui Prefecture in the next 20 years (Interview, April 27, 2017b; Fukui Prefectural Government 2018a: 8). This is relevant because it indicates the peak of aged people who will be certified for long-term care in Fukui Prefecture predicted for the year 2040 (about 10% of all inhabitants and 23% of all people aged 65 years and over). The reason is that residents aged 75 and over are most prone to deteriorating physical conditions and therefore will require a large amount of healthcare spending in the years to come. Moreover, the prefectural government intended to counteract any increase in nursing homes or long-term care facilities to contain costs with its approach of “no new facilities” (shinki zero). In contrast, programs to promote integrated care and homecare have been expanded, e.g., by employing telehealth (Interview, April 27, 2017b; Fukui Prefectural Government 2018a: 22, 41–42). Fukui Medical Net was introduced in 2014, first at Red Cross hospitals because of their large size and high numbers of patients (Interviews, April 27, 2017a; April 27, 2017b). The reason that the medical association together with the prefectural government initiated the

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network was to distinguish clearly between—but also interlink—acute treatment at hospitals on the one hand and aftercare and long-term care at home provided by care organizations on the other. More precisely, the initiators intended to make the various healthcare institutions within Fukui Prefecture cooperate with each other by implementing a telehealth network. The process of introducing the telehealth network is ongoing and gradual. In many institutions joining, paperwork still prevails and medical records were seldom shared; collaboration via ICTs was frequently limited to e-mail communication (Interview, April 27, 2017a). In other words, this implies a reason for regional integration not mentioned in the research literature discussed earlier. Fukui Medical Net aims at sharing a patient’s records such as medical scans, audio files, and comments and at improving collaboration between healthcare institutions. A major goal is to reduce institutionalized healthcare by shortening hospitalization and increasing homecare. Additionally, the network is intended to enable mixed teams with expertise in acute medical treatment and long-term care to organize a smooth transition for the patient from hospital to aftercare at home by employing ICTs (Interview, April 27, 2017b; see Figure 8.3).This is a further aspect that is not very obvious in the previously mentioned research literature. Previously, each hospital or healthcare institution managed its patients’ records mainly independently (Interview, April 27, 2017b). Consequently, medical practitioners, nursing staff, and care organizations did not have a full overview of the patients’ health histories; diagnosis, treatment, and care plans might have taken longer or been less adequate. At present, about 280 non-governmental offices, 80 mobile nursing stations, 280 care-manager stations, 270 insurance pharmacies, and 560 medical institutions are registered to interlink with each other via Fukui Medical Net. Among them, 19 hospitals functioned as institutions providing health information to registered organizations in 2017, while other receiving healthcare institutions were granted restricted access for browsing and reading such health records.3 Recently, day-care centers and nursing homes have also been encouraged to register with the telehealth system (Interviews, April 27, 2017a; April 27, 2017b; see FIJKS n.d.a, n.d.b, n.d.c). Initially, Fukui Prefecture provided a fund from tax revenues to establish a telehealth network, which was mainly used for the ICT infrastructure and to purchase terminals for the participating health institutions (Interview, April 27, 2017b; see also Fukui Prefectural Government 2018b: 18).4 Although the running costs of Fukui Medical Net were paid from the membership fees of participating health institutions, amounting from ¥3,000 to ¥4,000 per month, it was intended to reduce the fees as much as possible in the near future (Interview, April 27, 2017a). In contrast, any expenditure related to the patient’s treatment has been reimbursed under the national health insurance. Similar to other telehealth networks, the representative stressed the need to invest in new hardware every five to seven years, but adequate funding had not yet been found (Interview, April 27, 2017a). The representatives emphasized that Fukui Medical Net uses one of the safest data centers in Japan. The disclosure of patients’ data exchanged via Fukui Medical

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FIGURE 8.3 

Basic scheme of Fukui Medical Net

Source: Based on information received during the interview (April 27, 2017).

Net is regulated by national laws, prior registration, multiple password-protected pathways, and occupational status in each participating healthcare institution, as well as prior permission given by patients to every single organization or care team (Interview, April 27, 2017a). As with ism-Link in Iida City and Shimoina District, hardly any concerns were reported from patients/care recipients and their families, even though they have no access themselves. Only two patients out of several hundred thousand people apparently did not allow their health records to be exchanged via the telehealth system (Interview, April 27, 2017a). This implies a high level of confidence among patients and network representatives regarding data security in relation to Fukui Medical Net. Furthermore, the interviewees explained that Fukui Medical Net was designed to be easy to use and manage, to require low running costs, to be compatible with different software and devices, as well as to display different types of files on one screen. Fujitsu made the successful bid in 2012, being able to deliver the necessary hardware and software (Interview, April 27, 2017a). Nevertheless, the steering committee of Fukui Medical Net received some complaints from participating healthcare organizations. Some healthcare staff expressed discontent because of the increased administrative workload involved in exchanging health information via the telehealth system, preferring conventional ways such as paper, facsimile, and telephone (Interview, April 27, 2017a). In contrast, one of the interviewees expressed the opinion that they could achieve an efficient level of system literacy if they

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used the telehealth system on a more regular basis (Interview, April 27, 2017a). In other words, there are obviously concerns to address before the expected scope of user acceptance and benefit is achieved in terms of time efficiency and human and financial resources.

Conclusions: telehealth networks and socio-spatial proximity Overall, the findings of the two case studies suggest that the telehealth infrastructure is a necessary precondition not only to promote but also to initiate collaboration between various healthcare institutions in order to realize a regional healthcare system. In contrast to Park’s conclusion (2010a, 2010b), this implies not only that the geographic boundaries of different healthcare regions in Japan constitute the scope of telehealth networks but that the ICT infrastructure actually provides the foundation to establish more comprehensive areas of healthcare. On the other hand, whereas telehealth technology helps to overcome organizational boundaries between different local healthcare institutions, the decentralized approach of telehealth networks causes new fragmentation between different healthcare regions as the infrastructure is often not compatible and intraregional linkages do not yet cover their costs. As in other telehealth projects, we clearly observe in both cases expectations of improving cost-effectiveness and generating synergies of financial and human resources, because the numbers of healthcare staff will not suffice over the years to come. This is essentially an attempt to secure equity in healthcare in regions confronting socioeconomic decline and disconnection. In this sense, telehealth networks could reduce socio-spatial inequalities by increasing digital proximity in terms of healthcare advice, medical consultation between healthcare staff, or psychological support for patients in poor health, an aspect not yet sufficiently discussed in the research literature. Thus, the preservation or re-improvement of healthcare services in rural areas by establishing telehealth networks helps to secure a certain level in the quality of life of their population and might even slow down the process toward further social and economic peripheralization. Moreover, the decentralized structure of telehealth networks in Japan counteracts an increase in dependence on medical institutions and government health authorities located in the metropolitan centers. Furthermore, the spread of homecare is frequently framed as an increase in patient autonomy, a reduced travel burden, and better maintenance of independent living. This argument, however, appears rather ambiguous, because the homecare approach seems to be widely driven by efforts to reduce expenditures for hospitalization and institutional healthcare. In addition, we also find financial pressures resulting from maintaining and renewing the necessary infrastructure, a feature not sufficiently resolved at local, prefectural, and national levels. Neither telehealth network has faced much concern regarding privacy and data control, as the level of data security seems high and a patient’s permission is required for every single care

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team or healthcare institution gaining access. The slight hesitation expressed by healthcare staff refers mainly to system literacy and technology that is still unfamiliar, which implies a further need for training.

Acknowledgments The data stem from a research project on “Ageing in Japan: Domestic Healthcare Technologies. A Qualitative Interview Study on Care Robots, Monitoring Sensor Systems, and ICT-based Telehealth Systems.” This project was financially supported by the Leiden Asia Centre under their research scheme “Aging Japan: Leading the way into the future” and conducted at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) under the research scheme of “The Future of Local Communities in Japan.” I am grateful for the assistance and useful critiques given at various stages of the project and for the illustrations by Dr. Franziska Schultz, Ms. Miki Akaike, and Ms. Anne-Sophie König.

Notes 1 Interviews were conducted with representatives of Fukui Medical Association, of Fujitsu (Healthcare Systems) and of Fukui Prefecture (April 27, 2017a), with representatives of the Healthcare and Welfare Unit of Fukui Prefecture (April 27, 2017b) and with representatives from Iida City ( July 24, 2017). 2 Consistent data on the Shimoina District with its 14 municipalities and respective administrative bodies were not available.Thus, the chapter focuses on population census data and healthcare information provided by Iida City. 3 The precise number of health institutions with reading permission was not given on the homepage of Fukui Medical Net. 4 Official numbers on how much financial support each received from the central government were not available from Fukui Medical Net and Iida City’s ism-Link network. However, the MHLW has subsidized the introduction of ICT-based telehealth systems throughout Japan, for example, via the “Regional Medicine Revitalization Fund” (Chiiki iryō zaisei kikin) or the “General Securement of Domestic Medical and Long-Term Care Fund” (Zaitaku iryō kaigo sōgō kakuho kikin) (MHLW 2012: 12; MHLW and Fujitsu Corporation 2017: 38–44). These financial resources came from tax revenues and were distributed to prefectural governments, which redistributed them among local communities after receiving applications.

References Aoki, Noriaki, Sachiko Ohta, Hayato Takayama, Yoshimi Furuya, Shigeaki Mukobara, Kim Dunn, William J. Schull, Kathy A. Johnson, James P. Turley, Jack W. Smith, J. Robert Beck, and Tsuguya Fukui. 2001. “Needs assessment for telemedicine in Japan: Evaluation for three different types of telemedicine projects in urban, offshore and rural areas.” MedInfo 84, 1217. Brucksch, Susanne, and Franziska Schultz. 2018. Ageing in Japan: Domestic healthcare technologies. A qualitative interview study on care robots, monitoring sensor systems, and ICT-based telehealth systems. Report, May 2018. Tokyo: German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ). http://leidenasiacentre.nl/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Final_Report-30.08.2018.pdf (accessed March 7, 2019).

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Campbell, John C. 2014. “Japan’s long-term care insurance program as a model for middleincome nations.” Naoki Ikegami (ed.), Universal health coverage for inclusive and sustainable development: Lessons from Japan, 57–67. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. Campbell, John C., Naoki Ikegami, and Yusuke Tsugawa. 2014. “The political-historical context of Japanese healthcare.” Naoki Ikegami (ed.), Universal health coverage for inclusive and sustainable development: Lessons from Japan, 15–26. Washington, DC: World Bank Group. CaO (Cabinet Office). 2016. “Heisei 28-nendo seido, chihō gyōzai wākingu gurūpu: shisatsu hōkokusho” [2016 Working group on systems and local financial affairs: Report of observations]. http://www5.cao.go.jp/keizai-shimon/kaigi/special/reform/wg3/280726/ pdf/shiryou6.pdf (accessed May 22, 2018). ———. 2017. “Heisei 29-nenban kōrei shakai hakusho: dai-isshō kōreika no jōkyō” [White Paper on the aging society 2017, ch. 1: The aging situation]. http://www8.cao.go.jp/ kourei/whitepaper/w-2017/html/zenbun/s1_1_1.html (accessed May 21, 2018). Carretero, Stephanie. 2015. Technology-enabled services for older people living at home independently: Lessons for public long-term care authorities in the EU member states (= JRC Science and Policy Reports). Seville: European Commission, Joint Research Centre. Dahl, Nils. 2018. “Social inclusion of senior citizens in Japan: An investigation into the ‘community-based integrated care system’.” Contemporary Japan 30 (1), 43–59. FIJKS (Fukui Iryō Jōhō Kanren Shisutemu Un’ei Kyōgikai). n.d. a. “Iryō kikan-muke” [For health institutions]. www.fukui.med.or.jp/fukuimedical-net/iryou/index.html# participation (accessed May 22, 2018). ———. n.d. b. “Soshiki” [Organization]. www.fukui.med.or.jp/fukuimedical-net/about/ index.html (accessed May 22, 2018). ———. n.d. c. “Kenmin-muke” [For citizens of the prefecture]. www.fukui.med.or.jp/ fukuimedical-net/kenmin/index.html (accessed May 22, 2018). Fukui Prefectural Government (Fukui-ken Kengyōsei). 2018a. “Fukui-ken rōjin fukushi keikaku. Fukui-ken kaigo hoken jigyō shien keikaku” [Fukui Prefecture’s welfare plan for the elderly: The care insurance services support plan in Fukui Prefecture]. www.pref. fukui.lg.jp/doc/kourei/dai7ki-kaigokeikaku_d/fil/dai7ki-kaigokeikaku.pdf (accessed May 21, 2018). ———. 2018b. “Heisei 30-nendo tōsho yosan” [Initial budget for fiscal year 2018]. www. pref.fukui.jp/doc/zaisei/fukuikenyosan/tousyo30_d/fil/002.pdf (accessed May 22, 2018). Hasegawa, Takashi, and Sumio Murase. 2007. “Distribution of telemedicine in Japan.” Te­lemedicine and e-Health 13 (6), 695–702. Iida Municipal Government (Iida Shisei). 2015. “Kōreisha fukushi keikaku, kaigo hoken jigyō shien keikaku” [Welfare plan for the elderly, the care insurance services support plan]. www.city.iida.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/21610.pdf (accessed May 21, 2018). IMH (Iida Municipal Hospital). 2011. “Iida Shimoina: shinryō jōhō renkei shisutemu (ismLink)” [The cooperative medical examination and information system (ism-Link)]. www.imh.jp/wp-content/uploads/e35c9555eaf16b1709ff8967c9211a87.pdf (accessed May 22, 2018). ———. 2014. “Iida Shimoina: shinryō jōhō renkei shisutemu (ism-Link) no go-annai” [Explanation of the cooperative medical examination and information system (ismLink)]. www.imh.jp/040-d/local/p8380/ (accessed May 22, 2018). JGDC ( Japan Geographic Data Center). 2017. “Heisei 24-nen 4-gatsu chōsa. Shichōsonbetsu jinkō, setai-sū” [Survey on population and number of households separated according to communities. April 2017]. www.kokudo.or.jp/service/data/map/nagano.pdf (accessed May 21, 2018).

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JTTA ( Japan Telemedicine and Telecare Association). 2013. “Telemedicine in Japan: October 2013.” http://jtta.umin.jp/pdf/telemedicine/telemedicine_in_japan_20131015-2_ en.pdf (accessed January 7, 2019). Kamei, Tomoko. 2013. “Information and communication technology for home care in the future.” Japan Journal of Nursing Science 10, 154–161. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Matsumoto, Masatoshi, Soichi Koike, Saori Kashima, and Kazuo Awai. 2015. “Geographic distribution of radiologists and utilization of teleradiology in Japan: A longitudinal analysis based on national census data.” PLoS One 10 (9), 1–14. Matsumoto, Takehiro, and Masayuki Honda. 2013. “The evaluation of the need to share medical data on the community medical ICT network service in Nagasaki, Japan.” MEDINFO 192, 10–17. Medical Practitioners’ Act (Ishi-hō). [1948] 2007. www.japaneselawtranslation.go.jp/law/ detail/?id=2074&vm=04&re=02 (accessed January 7, 2019). MHLW (Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare). 2012. “Heisei 24-nendo Kōsei Rōdō-shō kagaku tokubetsu kenkyū jigyō: zaitaku iryō kaigo renkei o susumeru tame no jōhō kyōyū to ICT katsuyō” [Special research project by the MHLW in 2012: Information sharing and ICT use to push forward care cooperation]. www.mhlw.go.jp/file/06Seisakujouhou-12400000-Hokenkyoku/0000119320.pdf (accessed May 21, 2018). ———. 2015. “Kōteki kaigo hoken seido no genjō to kongo no yakuwari” [Present situation and future role of the public care insurance system]. www.mhlw.go.jp/file/06Seisakujouhou-12300000-Roukenkyoku/201602kaigohokenntoha_2.pdf (accessed February 1, 2018). ———. 2016. “Chūsankan chiiki-tō ni okeru sābisu teikyō no arikata ni kansuru chōsa kenkyū jigyō (kekka gaiyō)” [Survey on forms of health care services in hilly and mountainous districts (overview)]. www.mhlw.go.jp/file/05-Shingikai-12601000-Seisakutoukatsukan-Sanjikanshitsu_Shakaihoshoutantou/0000125043.pdf (accessed December 11, 2017). ———. 2017. “Iryō jōhō shisutemu no anzen kanri ni kansuru gaidorain (Heisei 29-nen 5-gatsu)” [Guidelines for the safety management of the medical information system (May 2017)]. www.mhlw.go.jp/stf/shingi2/0000166275.html (accessed May 21, 2018). MHLW and Fujitsu Corporation. 2017. “Chiiki ni okeru iryō, kaigo renkei kyōka ni kansuru chōsa kenkyū (chiiki hōkatsu kea shisutemu kōchiku ni kansuru ICT katsuyō no arikata)” [Surveys and research on increasing regional cooperation regarding medical treatment and care cooperation (how ICT use should be in regard to the structure of the community-based integrated care system)]. www.mhlw.go.jp/file/06-Seisakujouhou12400000-Hokenkyoku/0000161932.pdf (accessed May 21, 2018). MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism). 2015. White paper on land, infrastructure, transport and tourism in Japan. Tokyo: MLIT. www.mlit.go.jp/ common/001113556.pdf (accessed August 3, 2018). Morris, Kensuke, Goshiro Yamamoto, Shusuke Hiragi, Shosuke Ohtera, Michi Sakai, Osamu Sugiyama, Kazuya Okamoto, Masayuki Nambu, and Tomohiro Kuroda. 2018. “Designing an authorization system on patient privacy preferences in Japan.” Studies in Health Technology and Informatics 247, 71–75. OECD. 2017. “Health at a glance 2017. OECD indicators: How does Japan compare?” www.oecd.org/japan/Health-at-a-Glance-2017-Key-Findings-JAPAN-in-English.pdf (accessed January 7, 2019). ———. 2018. “OECD data: Japan.” https://data.oecd.org/japan.htm (accessed January 30, 2018).

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Oudshoorn, Nelly. 2011. Telecare technologies and the transformation of healthcare. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Park, Soo-Kyung. 2010a. “Geographical characteristics of telemedicine in Korea and Japan.” Geographical Review of Japan Series B 83 (1), 32–46. ———. 2010b. “The centralization and decentralization of telemedicine networks in Korea and Japan: Case studies of Choongbook and Kagawa.” Netcom: ICT Ubiquity and Public Policy 24 (1–2), 79–108. SME Agency (National Association of Trade Promotion for Small and Medium Enterprises). 2014. “2014 white paper on small and medium enterprises in Japan: Fight song for micro businesses.” www.chusho.meti.go.jp/pamflet/hakusyo/H26/download/2014hakusho_ eng.pdf (accessed August 3, 2018). Taher, Sheikh Abu, Kamal Uddin, and Masatsugu Tsuji. 2017. “Relationships among ICT, aging, and health expenditures in Japan: An economic evaluation.” Paper presented at the 14th International Telecommunications Society (ITS) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference: “Mapping ICT into Transformation for the Next Information Society,” Kyoto, Japan, June 24–27, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10419/168543 (accessed March 7, 2019). Yamakata, Daisuke, Hiroki Nogawa, and Masashi Ueda. 2011.“A successful model of regional healthcare information exchange in Japan: Case study in Kagawa Prefecture.” Paper presented at the 8th International Telecommunications Society (ITS) Asia-Pacific Regional Conference: “Convergence in the Digital Age,” Taiwan, June 26–28, 2011. http://hdl. handle.net/10419/52314 (accessed March 7, 2019). Yuda, Michio. 2016. “Structural and regional characteristics and cost efficiencies in the local public health insurance system: Empirical evidence from the Japanese national health insurance system.” Journal of Economics and Public Finance 2 (February), 262–279.

9 REGIONAL REVITALIZATION AS A CONTESTED ARENA Promoting wine tourism in Yamanashi Hanno Jentzsch

Introduction In 2017, three cities in the Kōfu Basin in central Yamanashi Prefecture made headlines with their aspirations to become Japan’s “center for wine-based tourism” (Japan Times 2017). Promotional efforts of the “Kyōtō Region Wine Resort,” a project launched by the prefectural government in 2015, resulted in high media attention. The project covers the cities of Kōshū, Fuefuki, and Yamanashi (the socalled “Kyōtō region”) and aims to promote the tourism industry in the region by tapping into its long tradition of wine and grape production. As such, it reflects the current Japanese government’s approach to “regional revitalization” (chihō sōsei), which emphasizes the commodification of local resources in general and the link between agricultural as well as artisanal local products and tourism in particular. At a closer look, however, the “Kyōtō Region Wine Resort” provides a keyhole for analyzing the issues that underlie—and arguably obstruct—the local enactment of this approach. These include contestation between old and new forms of tourism in the area, between established and emerging local actors, and not least between top-down, publicly sponsored projects like the “Kyōtō Region Wine Resort” and pre-existing local initiatives. Moreover, the wine industry itself rests upon an increasingly unstable agricultural fundament. This chapter analyzes these issues based on qualitative field research in Kōshū City and other parts of the Kōfu Basin (participatory observation, interviews, and document collection between March and June 2013; regular visits between January 2017 and May 2018). First, however, the following section establishes the historical and institutional context of current “regional revitalization” initiatives in Japan.

Japan’s peripheries between decline and revitalization Since the mid-2000s, the “peripheralization” of Japan’s rural and semi-urban regions has become a much-debated issue both publicly and scholarly. The term is

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used here in reference to Kühn (2015), who highlights the processual, relational, and multi-dimensional character of (economic, social, and political) socio-spatial inequalities. A number of indicators—e.g., unemployment rates, per capita GDP, or demographic aging—suggest a widening socioeconomic gap between “regional” Japan (Kelly 1990) and the metropolitan centers along the Pacific Coast (Chiavacci and Hommerich 2016; Song 2015).1 Throughout the postwar era, various forms of public redistribution, including agricultural support, fiscal transfers, or public investments, had concealed the lack of economic dynamics in large parts of regional Japan—albeit without preventing constant out-migration and demographic aging (Kelly 1990; Matanle and Rausch 2011). Since the 1990s, a number of shifts in the wider political economy have increasingly exposed the structural weakness of the rural and semi-urban peripheries. The burst of the economic bubble decreased the leeway for fiscal largesse, and the 1994 electoral reform reduced the incentives for politicians to cater to rural areas with targeted redistributive programs, which had long been a successful strategy due to the over-representation of rural votes and the specifics of the postwar electoral system. The Koizumi administration (2001– 2006) reorganized central-local fiscal relations, which eventually forced many highly indebted towns and villages off the metropolitan centers to merge with (or be absorbed by) other municipalities. Arguably, this pushed formerly independent towns and villages to the peripheries of larger, more heterogeneous municipalities (Rausch 2006) and amplified pre-existing socioeconomic disparities between metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas (Song 2015). These developments have also profoundly affected the governments’ approach to “regional revitalization.” In contrast to massive redistribution programs that were employed to boost the depopulating regions up until the 1990s, the post-Koizumi era is marked by an emphasis on local initiative, self-responsibility, and (individual) entrepreneurship as a motor to invigorate peripheral local economies.2 While the government has not given up on public spending to spur regional growth, the distribution of this spending has become more conditional. The second Abe administration (since 2012) increased pressure on prefectures and municipalities to develop revitalization plans, which has created new inter-local competition—not only for demographic and economic growth but also for access to government subsidies (Kanai and Yamashita 2015). The role of the tourism industry exemplifies this shift well. Tourism has already served as a political instrument for revitalizing depopulating regions in the postwar period. The “resort boom” of the late 1980s was a particularly excessive expression of the postwar approach to regional development (Cooper and Funck 2015). Against the background of less generous central-local redistribution in the 2000s, local initiatives to reinvent the touristic value of local agricultural or artisanal products and rural spaces gained significance (Cooper and Funck 2015; Tabayashi 2010). Closely related, state policies increasingly promoted cross-sectoral entrepreneurship between agriculture and the processing, marketing, and tourism industries over the 2000s (Kumakura and Yoneya 2015). This went hand in hand with the gradual dismantling of the postwar agricultural support and protection

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regime, including the deregulation of corporate access to the once strictly noncorporate agricultural sector (Tashiro 2014). The second Abe administration continues to emphasize agri-business, cross-sectoral entrepreneurship (the so called “6th industry”), and tourism to “revitalize” the regions. For both, the government has compiled deregulation reforms and support programs to achieve ambitious target rates (see, e.g., CDTV (2016); Japan Cabinet Office (2014)). Prefectural and local governments throughout Japan are thus inclined to come up with plans to promote local tourist sites.

Contested negotiation in the “global countryside” Beyond domestic shifts, the increasing pressure for the commodification of local resources in regional Japan also represents a phenomenon that affects rural peripheries globally. Woods (2007) has conceptualized the “global countryside” as a (hypothetical) space in which various processes of economic, cultural, and political globalization can be observed—often including the valorization of local resources for touristic purposes. Arguably, localities are not without agency in these overarching processes. Rather, they can be analytically captured as arenas in which various actors engage in the contested “negotiation, manipulation, and hybridization” of the countryside (Woods 2007: 486). In other words, while local politics might not be in the position to steer global dynamics, they do play a vital role in translating these dynamics into concrete and specific local manifestations. This chapter pulls down this approach from the broad subject of globalization to the current attempts to promote wine tourism as a means for “rural revitalization” in the Kōfu Basin in Japan. The prefectural “Kyōtō Region Wine Resort” project serves as the keyhole through which the attempts to establish the region as a wine tourism site can be perceived as a contested process. On the one hand, this contestation reflects the general dynamics in the formation of Wood’s “global countryside”—the clash of globalized trends of tourism and equally globalized notions of wine production and consumption with pre-existing local patterns of agricultural production, processing, and marketing. On the other hand, however, contestation extends beyond the global-local cleavage. The promotion of wine tourism in the Kōfu Basin is crucially shaped through competing interests among various local actors, their embedding into the complex patchwork of preexisting local (often sub-municipal) social and organizational patterns that govern grape and wine production and marketing, and the limited abilities of extra-local (in this case prefectural) policymakers to account for these specific constellations. All of this has the potential to complicate the promotion of wine tourism, which is a concept that embodies different meanings and opportunities for the private and public stakeholders involved.3 More generally, the case shows that the concept of the “global countryside” requires careful attention to the various social and political boundaries that constitute and cut across areas that might appear as “one” countryside from a global perspective and the local and national dynamics that have been affecting the trajectories of these sites.

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Introducing the Kyo ¯ to ¯ Region Wine Resort The Kōfu Basin in Yamanashi Prefecture is a densely populated, socioeconomically heterogeneous, but agriculturally active area, less than two hours by train from Tokyo. The basin has come to be labelled as the “birthplace of wine-making in Japan.” The first Japanese winery was founded in 1877 in Katsunuma Town, which became a part of the newly amalgamated Kōshū City in 2005. At a closer look, the wine industry is particularly prominent in the three cities of Kōshū, Fuefuki, and Yamanashi, which make up a sub-prefectural division called the Kyōtō region. Today, there are around 80 wineries in the Kōfu Basin, of which the Kyōtō region alone hosts around 60 (KRWR 2016). Mostly based on the success of wines made from the indigenous Kōshū grape, the basin has also been at the forefront of a recent (albeit moderate in terms of overall market share) boom of wines “made in Japan.” Various government initiatives have been promoting domestic sales and the export of Kōshū wine since the late 2000s.This boom went hand in hand with an increasing orientation toward global standards of wine-making and consumption. In 2013, the International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) recognized Yamanashi as a wine-producing region—the first and so far the only in Japan (Wang 2017). In broader socioeconomic terms, with a per capita GDP of 91 percent of the national average,Yamanashi is among the structurally weaker prefectures of Japan, as flagged out in most recent prefectural statistics (YPSO 2016b, 2017). Demographically, it has been shrinking already since the year 2000 and currently has the highest share of abandoned houses in Japan (YPPD 2017). Beyond such statistical indicators, the peripheralization of the Kōfu Basin can be seen and felt when walking through the area: A patchwork pattern of residential, agricultural, and commercial land use, increasingly disrupted by overgrown or badly kept fields, run-down public facilities, and empty shops are typical for this region. Recently, tourism has been (re)discovered as a potential avenue for the “revitalization” of the prefecture, which has seen an increasing number of visitors over the past years. However, the majority of these visitors is absorbed by the Fuji area in the southern part of Yamanashi. The gains from the expected (international) tourism boom around the 2020 Tokyo Olympics are likely to bypass the Kōfu Basin (KRWR 2016). Against this background, the prefectural government launched the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort in 2015 to promote the touristic appeal of the local winemaking tradition. The project involves a number of actors, including winery and tourist associations, the agricultural cooperative organization, and not least the local administrations of the three cities of Kōshū,Yamanashi, and Fuefuki. According to an official from the industrial promotion department in Kōshū City, the cities and the prefecture each supply half of the project’s small budget (around ¥6 million/ year). The project has set the ambitious aim to raise the number of tourists in the region from 5.62 million in 2014 to 5.88 million in 2019 and to increase the total consumption through tourism by 15 percent in the same period.To reach this goal, the project compiles a broad array of policy measures and proposals, including e.g., (touristic) infrastructural improvements, PR initiatives, encouraging wineries to

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create a “self-checklist” to improve their “hospitality,” or measures to secure the supply with Kōshū grapes for wine production (KRWR 2016). In practice, however, the actual core of the project is to sponsor an annual organized wine-tasting tour.The two-day trip takes customers to various wine-makers in the Kyōtō region but also includes a stay in the hot spring resort Isawa, which is a part of Fuefuki City since a merger in 2004. This event alone takes up more than half of the project’s budget. Without this public sponsoring, the trip would cost about twice as much. Apart from PR activities and the annually organized wine tour, none of the many measures listed in the project presentation were actually assigned a budget—in fact, the project only lists already existing policies and funding schemes or proposes necessary improvements without formulating new policies (interview, Kōshū City industrial promotion department, May 2018).

Stakeholder divisions The focus on the organized wine tour is among the main reasons why the representatives of wineries in Kōshū City, the responsible officials on the municipal level, as well as the organizers of other local initiatives to promote wine tourism in Yamanashi all view the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort with skepticism or even open contempt. Their criticism reflects the diverging interests of the various actors involved, different conceptions of the “right” way to promote wine tourism, and a lack of understanding of the local socioeconomic realities on behalf of the decision-makers on the prefectural level. For the public and private stakeholders at the municipal level, the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort is a top-down project, which neither reflects their interests nor their opinions. In the words of one wine-maker from Kōshū City, the “voice of the prefectural government is the strongest” in the Wine Resort project, while smaller wineries and municipal officials are underrepresented. According to a Kōshū City official, the prefecture is mostly interested in raising the overall number of tourists coming to Yamanashi, which is also reflected in the decision to include the prefectural hotel and transportation associations in the project committee. Open discussion in this committee has been sparse. Eventually, the organized wine tour at the heart of the Wine Resort project reproduces postwar approaches to tourism in the region, rather than developing a new form of local wine tourism, thus sidelining or even undermining existing local initiatives for the latter.

Wine Tourism Yamanashi The link between agriculture, tourism, and wine is not new in the Kōfu Basin.The area has long been a popular destination for organized tours to visit “grape inns” to pick and eat fresh grapes, often combined with tastings of local wines. These wines would be made on site or by surrounding wineries and tend to be of poor quality by Western standards (i.e., made from table grapes and/or imported grapes and bulk juice). Reflecting a national trend, this form of organized group tours has

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been in decline since its peak in the 1980s. Although many grape inns in the basin are abandoned today, package tours are still an important source of income for some wineries and grape farmers (Kingsbury 2012, 2014). Especially in former Katsunuma Town, larger wineries and the city-operated outlet for local wines (called the Budō no Oka—or Grape Hill) continue to cater to group tours. According to local wine-makers interviewed in April 2018, the Budō no Oka, a large complex of various touristic facilities including a hotel, is still a vital marketplace especially for the smaller wineries in Katsunuma. Over the past ten years, however, some local initiatives have been promoting a different style of wine tourism, which reflects the national (and global) shift toward individualized travel and displays explicit idealistic aspirations for grass-roots rural revitalization. Among these, the most successful is Wine Tourism Yamanashi, an event series run by an association of PR agencies and a transportation company. Wine Tourism Yamanashi organizes wine tasting tours in the Kōfu Basin, in which customers can explore local wineries on foot or by using a special bus shuttle service. The event started in 2008 in the former town of Katsunuma. In the following years, it expanded to the other municipalities in the basin, including the prefectural capital Kōfu City. The annual main event in autumn covers two days—one day for the region surrounding Kōshū City, the following day for the region around Kōfu City. The project is the first successful attempt to frame the Kōfu Basin as a whole as a distinct wine tourism site. Before the first event in 2008, one of the initiators had already produced maps and brochures featuring portraits of the wine-makers in the region, thus addressing what he perceived as a lack of awareness for the region’s local wine industry.The development of these materials and the event itself rests upon protracted research and networking in the various localities across the Kōfu Basin, which are far from constituting a unified production site. Reportedly, senior leaders in the long-established Katsunuma Winery Association were particularly reluctant to commit themselves to the ideas of the main initiator, a relatively young PR professional from Kōfu City without direct links to the wine industry or grape farming. Maybe adding to the initial skepticism on behalf of some of the senior wine-makers, the project is framed in abstract and idealistic terms: as a hub for intra-regional communication, with the potential of revitalizing the region not only economically (i.e., via tourism) but also socioculturally (i.e., via creating a local sense of pride and self-respect). These exalted notions aside, however, the annual main event has indeed grown to attract several thousand customers, many of whom have been coming repeatedly. The project has consistently generated profits, although the participating entrepreneurs stress that they are not able to support themselves from Yamanashi Wine Tourism alone. Most strikingly, more than 60 percent of the visitors of the main event stay overnight according to the organizers— while in general, the fact that the large majority of tourists visit Yamanashi for day trips is one of the most pressing issues of the tourism industry.4

Wine Tourism Yamanashi and the Kyo ¯to ¯ Region Wine Resort Arguably, the success of the private initiative was the main inspiration for the prefectural government’s Kyōtō Region Wine Resort. In the eyes of wine-makers and

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officials in Kōshū City, however, the prefecture has absorbed an already flourishing local initiative to present it under its own label. What is more, the core of the prefecture’s project—sponsoring the annual organized wine tour—actually contradicts the more individualized and personalized approach of Wine Tourism Yamanashi. This is despite the fact that the prefectural government has contracted the organizers of Wine Tourism Yamanashi to plan the annual tour. The result, however, fits neither the ideals of these entrepreneurs nor the expectations of other local stakeholders. In the words of one wine-maker from Kōshū City, the prefectural project “promotes an old style of wine tourism,” marked by group tours and all-you-candrink wine tastings with little regard for quality or producers. Eventually, the prefectural project might even jeopardize the success of the more “progressive” Wine Tourism Yamanashi. According to one of its initiators, the number of visitors to the Wine Tourism Yamanashi events has slightly decreased since the prefectural project started in 2015—although a causal relationship is hard to verify. Local officials from the industrial promotion department in Kōshū City were even more outspoken in their criticism toward the prefectural project. In an interview in May 2018, one respondent referred to the publicly sponsored wine tour as a waste of money with no sustainable impact on wine tourism in the region.Yet, the local administration finds itself in the peculiar position of having to contribute to the budget for the Wine Resort and to mediate between the prefecture’s approach and disgruntled local actors. For example, the prefectural government aims to install a framework in which Wine Tourism Yamanashi issues membership cards, which grant members discounts at local wineries, hotels, or stores selling local produce— an idea that met particularly strong resistance among wine-makers. All this adds to the frustration on behalf of the responsible official in Kōshū: “This project only creates pointless work, and I want it to stop.” Importantly, the organizers of Yamanashi Wine Tourism, wine-makers, and local officials in principle welcome prefectural engagement. Respondents would generally agree that the measures proposed in the Wine Resort project are indeed important—including, for example, financial support for smaller wineries, which are often neither able nor willing to invest in a modernization of their facilities to host (foreign) tourists. Against this background, the fact that the annual wine tour absorbs the largest part of the already small budget reinforces the assertion among local stakeholders that the prefectural government is either missing or willfully ignoring the “real” issues.This is also the case for one of the most pressing problems of the local wine industry: the supply of high-quality local grapes.

Wine and grape production divisions The wine industry in the Kōfu Basin rests upon a very unstable agricultural fundament. This is despite the fact that the production of grapes and other fruits has long shaped agriculture in the Kōfu Basin. The production of the Kōshū grape in particular reportedly has a history of 1,300 years. With the exception of some specific areas, wet-paddy rice farming plays virtually no role in the basin.Yet, very much similar to the rest of Japan, the agricultural sector is in decline. Between 2005 and 2015, the number of farms in Yamanashi went down from 24,063 to 17,970,

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with an especially steep decrease among commercial farms. The vast majority of the remaining farmers is 65 years and older, and only few households have successors willing to take over labor-intensive fruit production on tiny plots. As of 2015, 5,781 ha of farmland in Yamanashi Prefecture had fallen idle, which is more than ten percent of the total acreage (YPSO 2016a). The share of abandoned farmland in the Kōfu Basin in particular has also visibly increased. Since I first visited the area in 2010, abandoned plots have appeared even in the most agriculturally active parts of Kōshū City. Farmers frequently complain about this development, which makes the remaining land more vulnerable to pests. These developments threaten the supply of necessary raw materials for the local wine industry. Beyond agricultural decline, however, the supply problems also result from a lasting incongruity between the local wine industry and its tradition as well as the contemporary economic realities of grape production in the Kōfu Basin, which has first and foremost been a site for table grape production. Historically, a crucial aspect of wine production in the Kōfu Basin has been to process damaged or otherwise unmarketable table grapes for farmers’ self-consumption. Older wineries were often founded by the members of agricultural cooperatives. Some of these cooperative enterprises are still in business. This local tradition of alcohol production has little to do with the standards and the practices of the globalized wine culture—yet, it is this culture to which the current attempts of local branding appeal. Only since the early 2000s have Western methods of wine production gained traction in the Kōfu Basin. Still, however, many wineries continue to produce alcohol mainly from inferior or unmarketable table grapes, re-use tanks for sake brewing, or apply otherwise inadequate production methods (Kingsbury 2012, 2014). In general, wine and grape production are not as tightly connected as in production sites in Europe or the US. Especially the larger corporate wineries have been relying mostly on grapes from individual farmers and the agricultural cooperative organization—or even imported raw materials (Kingsbury 2012). This is not least because the Agricultural Land Law (Nōchi-hō) has long prohibited corporations from using farmland. Over the 2000s, a gradual deregulation process has facilitated corporate access to farmland so that most of the large corporate wineries now at least control some farmland themselves. Smaller wineries have often been able to circumvent the land use regulations even before farmland deregulation gained momentum, cultivating grapes on land owned by the (extended) family for generations. Yet, even such smaller producers typically rely on grapes from surrounding farmers, often based on long-standing personal ties. Such stable ties are vital for securing the quality of the grapes (e.g., a high sugar content) but also the supply itself, because the largest wineries buy up a large share of grapes sold via the agricultural cooperative organization. More recently, some wine-makers have engaged in the production of Western varieties of wine grapes, aspiring to produce wine that meets global quality standards.Yet, they only account for a small share of local production.5 Given how much the local wine industry relies on a decreasing number of rapidly aging grape farmers, the complicated relation between wine-making and grape production in the basin poses an existential threat to the local wine industry.

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Moreover, it also has ironic implications for the touristic promotion of the region. Other than in established wine tourism sites around the globe (respondents tend to use Napa Valley in California as a model), “wine tourists” in Yamanashi are invited to enjoy the beauty of an agricultural landscape that for the most part has little to do with actual wine production (Kingsbury 2012). “Just look at all these vineyards around here,” one grape farmer and wine producer stated casually when I visited him on one of his fields, then adding: “My guess is that not even five percent are used for making wine.”

The Ko ¯ shu¯ grape crisis The indigenous Kōshū grape obtains a particularly problematic position in this constellation. As mentioned earlier, both the recent boom of Japanese wine and the promotion of wine tourism in Yamanashi strongly rely on the increasing domestic and international appreciation for Kōshū wine, based in part on more sophisticated (Western) production methods. However, the supply with high-quality Kōshū grapes has long become critical. Kōshū is a “two-way” grape, i.e., it can be used for wine and as a table grape. Yet, depending on the quality of the grapes in question, selling Kōshū for wine-making tends to be less lucrative than selling it on the fresh market. Moreover, other varieties of table grapes secure much higher prices than Kōshū. Thus, many farmers in the basin eventually switched toward these more lucrative table grape varieties. The total production of Kōshū grapes in Yamanashi Prefecture went down from 7,300 tons in 1999 to 2,460 tons in 2008 (Kingsbury 2014: 37–38). Although more recent numbers given by the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort suggest a recovery (3,200 tons for wine production in 2014), the supply base for Kōshū wine remains critical, especially when factoring in the overall decline of the local agricultural sector. Acknowledging this problem, the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort project set the goal to increase the amount of Kōshū grapes for wine production in the whole prefecture to 4,200 tons by 2025 (KRWR 2016).Yet, as mentioned earlier, it does not offer any policy measures apart from listing existing initiatives to attract young farmers and revive unused arable land. According to the local government in Kōshū City, the goal formulated in the Wine Resort project is thus virtually impossible to meet. As the most important production site for Kōshū grapes in the Kōfu Basin, Kōshū City’s own plan to promote the local wine industry set the less ambitious— but arguably more realistic—target to maintain the current production volume, i.e., 1,600 tons. The city offers a small subsidy to incentivize farmers to produce Kōshū grapes for wine production. The other two municipalities in the Kyōtō region do not run similar schemes and in general seem less eager to support Kōshū production.

Local divisions These differences regarding municipal agricultural policies already hint at another obstacle for the promotion of the Kyōtō region as a site for wine tourism. Neither

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the region itself nor the Kōfu Basin as a whole are unified production sites. Various political, administrative, and sociocultural divisions continue to pattern wine and grape production across—and even within—the municipalities in the Kyōtō region.These divisions are reinforced through the corresponding jurisdictions of the local branches of the agricultural cooperative organization JA ( Japan Agriculture), which has a long history of close cooperation with local governments (see, e.g., George Mulgan 2000). While the cooperative in Fuefuki City ( JA Fuefuki) retains its independence until today, the local cooperatives in Kōshū City and Yamanashi City are part of the large, amalgamated JA Fruits Yamanashi. These cooperative districts again contain numerous former cooperative branches, including pre-existing local networks and organizational patterns between farmers and wine-makers. For example, the small Tekisen winery in Yamanashi City was founded through a joint investment by the members of a local cooperative in the early 1960s. Although this local co-op was merged into JA Fruits Yamanashi in the 1990s, the winery has continued to produce wine exclusively from the unused grapes of the farm households that originally invested in the winery (interview with the winery and local grape farmers, May 2013). In general, the boundaries redrawn through the cooperative mergers since the mid-1990s and the wave of municipal mergers in the mid-2000s only provide a thin formal layer over a patchwork of local sets of formal and informal rules, networks, and identities governing grape and wine production.

Lasting divisions within Ko ¯ shu¯ City The example of Katsunuma and Enzan in Kōshū City provides a particularly vivid example for how this patchwork shapes the production and marketing of wine. Although both localities have belonged to the same cooperative since the mid1990s and the same municipality since 2005, they have retained distinct, to some extent rival, wine and grape production regimes. As one concrete example, the Katsunuma Winery Association, the local agricultural cooperative, and the local government created a scheme to fix the annual price for Kōshū grapes in order to stabilize supply and demand. This scheme survived the cooperative and municipal mergers—yet remained restricted to the boundaries of former Katsunuma Town and the respective cooperative district (now a sub-unit of JA Fruits Yamanashi).The association of wine-makers in Enzan does not maintain similar price-stabilizing instruments. In general, wine-makers have far weaker relations with the cooperative organization, which has further eroded in recent years. These differences are in part due to the different size of the respective wine industries. The Enzan Wine Club only has seven members, all of which are relatively small. The Katsunuma Winery Association is larger and more heterogeneous—it has more than 30 members, including both large corporations and small family businesses. Thus, both the need for coordination as well as the resources to create and enforce rules to govern supply and demand have been more pronounced in Katsunuma.6 These different histories and organizational patterns have reinforced distinct local identities within the amalgamated Kōshū City—and thus a lasting social division.

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Beyond general narratives of “us against them,” respondents in Enzan would, for example, hint at a more sophisticated, more personal and thus “modern” style of wine-making and marketing in Enzan—as opposed to the larger wine industry in Katsunuma, which is partly marked by mass production from purchased grapes and juice and remains geared toward catering to group tours. It should be noted, however, that in fact the turn toward Western production methods originated in Katsu­ numa. From the Katsunuma perspective, the former city of Enzan—much larger in terms of population but with fewer and smaller wineries—pursued the merger with Katsunuma in order to gain control over its strong wine industry. Another respondent from Enzan would simply state strong personal dislike for people from Katsunuma in general and the Katsunuma Winery Association in particular.7 These divisions not only hamper joint solutions for the grape supply problem but also cooperation to promote the local wine industry. Already established events remain confined to the respective locality. For example, respondents from both sides of the city stated that the longstanding annual Katsunuma Grape Festival—a large promotional event initiated by the Katsunuma Winery Association—is still reserved for wine-makers from Katsunuma only. Even newly launched wine-related festivals cannot bridge the divide. In 2017, the Enzan Wine Club created a new annual promotional event, the Shionoyama Wine Fest. Featuring live music, DJs, and food trucks, the wine fest embraces the more “progressive” Wine Tourism Yamanashi approach, directed at a younger, urban audience—which is not least reflected in the fact that a member of the Wine Tourism Yamanashi group is also involved in the organization of the Shionoyama Wine Fest. Another member of the organizing team is a “newcomer” from Tokyo who described himself as less receptive to the divisions in Kōshū City. He sought to involve wineries from Katsunuma as well. However, the underlying hostility between the Enzan Wine Club and the Katsunuma Winery Association rendered this idea impossible—despite well-established personal relations between the newcomer and some of the younger wine-makers in Katsunuma. The first two Shionoyama Wine Fest events in 2017 and 2018 thus remained exclusively reserved for wineries from Enzan. According to a younger wine-maker from Katsunuma, even the fact that he and some of his fellow winemakers took part in the fest as musicians or volunteers was frowned upon by some Enzan residents. As a relatively new and private initiative, the Wine Tourism Yamanashi project has come closer than other initiatives to bridging the local divisions in the Kōfu Basin.Yet, even in the context of Wine Tourism Yamanashi, the notion of a unified touristic site remains fragile at best. During the annual events, Enzan and Katsunuma remain more or less separate from each other—not least since they are listed as separate localities with distinct tour maps. During an interview with the three main initiators of Wine Tourism Yamanashi and one local wine-maker (December 2017), all respondents stressed the local divisions in the basin in general and the unique social and institutional constellation in Katsunuma in particular. Thus, the occasion seems to reproduce the social divide rather than reducing it. After the autumn event in 2017, Enzan wine-makers and volunteers gathered for a party.

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“You know, this kind of party would never happen over in Katsunuma,” one of the Enzan wine-makers stated. “They don’t have good relations among each other, such as we do.” Another issue of local contestation is the Budō no Oka, which was founded in 1975 as a joint investment of the Katsunuma Winery Association and the town. Wine-makers in Katsunuma reportedly continue to perceive the facility as their “own.”Yet, since the Budō no Oka continues to be operated by the municipality— and thus also with taxes from Enzan—the facility was (reluctantly) opened for Enzan wine-makers as well. In the long term, the city council, dominated by members from the larger Enzan part, plans to privatize the facility. This step would further undermine its character as an outlet for Katsunuma wine. Thus, especially the older generation of wine-makers in Katsunuma seems to oppose this plan.8

Municipal initiatives and their limitations The prefectural Wine Resort project has not contributed to unifying the Kyōtō region as a touristic site. In fact, the Kyōtō region is not even commonly used as a term to describe place or belonging in the Kōfu Basin—it is merely an administrative term to denounce a prefectural sub-division. Given the significance of other local socio-spatial boundaries, this underlines the artificial character of the Wine Resort project. Its boundaries do not align with pre-existing local initiatives, which have either been located at the level of (former) municipalities or the basin as a whole, as in the case of Yamanashi Wine Tourism. If anything, the experiences with the Wine Resort have solidified the notion among local stakeholders in Kōshū City—including the officials at the industrial promotion department interviewed in May 2018—that meaningful polices to the challenges of promoting wine tourism have to be devised at the municipal level. Under a prefectural framework, the municipalities worked out local plans for the development of the wine industry (2017–2026). Both wine-makers and officials in Kōshū City stated that this plan reflects the local situation and the opinions of local stakeholders more accurately than the Wine Resort project. This is, for example, reflected in the less ambitious goals for the production of Kōshū grapes mentioned earlier. The municipal plan has also embraced the more “progressive” approach of Wine Tourism Yamanashi, which local officials have raised as most promising. Finally, the planning committee also serves as a communication platform for stakeholders from both sides of the intra-city divide. Despite their more positive stance toward the municipal plan, local stakeholders in Kōshū City continue to see a more general problem for the local governance of regional revitalization: the top-down fashion of central-local relations. For local officials and wine-makers alike, the ideal vision for the promotion of wine tourism seems to be creating policies at the municipal level and then applying for the funding accordingly. In reality, however, prefectural and central governments devise frameworks and budgets and then order the municipal level to act accordingly—in the case of the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort even against their

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better judgment—and target a socio-spatial unit that holds little relevance for actual local initiatives.While local actors in Kōshū City feel like they have a better understanding of the situation and the needs of the local wine industry, the dire financial situation at the municipal level forces them to answer to the segmented policy programs made by distant prefectural and central governments in order to receive funding for local initiatives.

Conclusion In conclusion, while local actors and governments on all levels may agree on the “revitalizing” potential of wine tourism, the enactment of this vision is highly contested. Beyond the case itself, it is safe to assume that the production of local specialties, the redefinition of existing local industries as “marketable” local resources, and the making of tourist sites are crucially shaped through conflict between established local actors and emerging entrepreneurs and between private and public initiatives—and challenge established local institutional settings in other parts of Japan as well. In this sense, regional revitalization in Japan has to be discussed beyond purely functional notions of “success” or “failure,” as a matter of (re)negotiating the political economy of “regional Japan.” In the Kōfu Basin, the re-branding of Kōshū wine as a “local” specialty adhering to “global” standards (Kingsbury 2014), as well as the appeals to global agritourism trends support the notion that the processes behind Woods’ (2007) “global countryside” are indeed at work in regional Japan. As not all local stakeholders are willing and/or able to embrace new, “globalized” strategies of wine production and marketing, the promotion of wine tourism in the basin reflects the elements of contestation and increasing (social) polarization associated with the formation of the global countryside in general (Woods 2007: 493–494). Beyond these “glocal” dynamics, however, the case also illustrates the lasting influence of preexisting patterns of local social organization and the continued impact of domestic institutional shifts on the peripheralization of regional Japan and the respective responses. This finding points to the more general issue of how to delineate the arenas that constitute the global countryside. Countrysides contain various, at times conflicting, layers—in this case including the Kōfu Basin as a whole, smaller distinct production regimes on the level of (former) municipalities, or poorly grounded delineations like the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort. Identifying these layers, their social and political boundaries, and how they relate to each other is crucial for understanding the formation of this and any other “global countryside.” Noticeably, in this case it was national political dynamics that rendered this task considerably harder.The decentralization reforms and the ensuing wave of municipal mergers in the mid-2000s have not only accelerated the process of peripheralization in large parts of regional Japan—they have also disrupted the social and political boundaries constituting the Kōfu Basin and those of many other “countrysides” throughout Japan. This disruption and the ensuing reshuffling of local identities, production sites, and the rules and practices governing these sites within

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much broader administrative boundaries have concrete effects on regional revitalization efforts. In the case of the promotion of wine tourism in the Kōfu Basin, the redrawing of administrative boundaries has not reduced existing divisions between municipalities and instead has added another layer of divisions within municipalities, thus obstructing the potential for coherent local approaches to the promotion of wine tourism (for a related argument, see Muroya (2013)).The findings support the assertion that the primary objective driving the decentralization reforms was cutting fiscal expenses (see, e.g., Song 2015;Yamada 2012). Other objectives—such as raising local autonomy vis-a-vis the central state, not least in terms of political participation (Hüstebeck 2014)—have remained underdeveloped. When it comes to the task of “regional revitalization,” the local stakeholders in Kōshū City still perceive the postwar hierarchical order of central-local relations as a political reality—yet with the major differences that central funding is now harder to obtain than before, and the task at hand has become much harder due to lasting socioeconomic decline. The basin—like many other areas in peripheral Japan and in the “rural West” in general—feels the effects of being “written off ” in the national political context (Epp and Whitson 2001).Yet, somewhat counterintuitively, in the case of the Kyōtō Region Wine Resort project, being “written off ” seems to hold back precisely those local stakeholders who are envisioning a more proactive response to global trends in wine-making and tourism and (at least in their view) to peripheralization.

Notes 1 Addressing the at times alarmist discourse on Japan’s urban-rural divide, Lützeler (2017) uses statistical data to argue for a less dichotomous understanding of socio-spatial inequality in Japan. 2 On the changing meaning of “regional revitalization,” see Odagiri (2014: 48–55); on the (political) emphasis on “self-responsibility” in the Koizumi era, see, e.g., Hook and Takeda (2007). 3 Similarly, Cornelissen (2011: 50–51) calls for a more systematic exploration of the “competing sets of interests of various stakeholders” and how these “determine tourism processes in a given locality.” 4 Interview with the main organizers of Wine Tourism Yamanashi, December 2017. 5 Interviews with grape-producing wine-makers in Kōshū City, April 2018.Typically, landowning families would also run a winery that buys its grapes from the family farm (see also Kingsbury (2012)). 6 Interview with a grape farmer and wine-maker in Enzan, April 2018. Despite a gradual decline over the past years, the pricing scheme in Katsunuma still covers 500 tons of Kōshū grapes per year. 7 Interviews and casual conversations at wine-related events in November 2017, April 2018, and May 2018. 8 Interviews with wine-makers in Enzan (April 2017) and a wine-maker and his family in Katsunuma (May 2017).

References CDTV (Council for the Development of a Tourism Vision to Support the Future of Japan). 2016. “New tourism strategy to invigorate the Japanese economy.” www.mlit.go.jp/ common/001172615.pdf (accessed May 15, 2018).

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Chiavacci, David, and Carola Hommerich (eds.). 2016. Social inequality in post-growth Japan: Transformation during economic and demographic stagnation. London: Routledge. Cooper, Malcolm, and Carolin Funck. 2015. Japanese tourism: Spaces, places and structures. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Cornelissen, Scarlett. 2011. “Regulation theory and its evolution and limitation in tourism studies.” Jan Mosedale (ed.), Political economy of tourism: A critical perspective, 39–54. London and New York: Routledge. Epp, Roger, and Dave Whitson. 2001. Writing off the rural West: Globalization, governments and the transformation of rural communities. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press. George Mulgan, Aurelia. 2000. The politics of agriculture in Japan. London and New York: Routledge. Hook, Glenn D., and Hiroko Takeda. 2007.“ ‘Self-responsibility’ and the nature of the postwar Japanese state: Risk through the looking glass.” Journal of Japanese Studies 33 (1), 93–123. Hüstebeck, Momoyo. 2014. Dezentralisierung in Japan: Politische Autonomie und Partizipation auf Gemeindeebene. Wiesbaden: Springer. Japan Cabinet Office. 2014. “Japan revitalization strategy.” www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/ keizaisaisei/pdf/honbunEN.pdf (accessed January 17, 2016). Japan Times. 2017. “Yamanashi aims to become center for wine-based tourism.” June 17. www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2017/06/17/food/yamanashi-aims-become-center-winebased-tourism/ (accessed June 19, 2017). Kanai, Toshiyuki, and Yūsuke Yamashita. 2015. Chihō sōsei no shōtai [The true character of regional creation]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shinsho. Kelly, William. 1990. “Regional Japan: The price of prosperity and the benefits of dependency.” Daedalus 119 (3), 209–227. Kingsbury, Aaron. 2012. “Re-localizing Japanese wine:The grape and wine clusters of Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.” Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Hawaii. ———. 2014. “Constructed heritage and co-produced meaning: The re-branding of wines from the Kōshū grape.” Contemporary Japan 26 (1), 29–48. KRWR (Kyōtō Region Wine Resort Promotion Conference). 2016. “Fuji no kuni Yamanashi: Kyōtō wain rizōto kōsō” [Yamanashi, the home of Fuji: The Kyōtō Region Wine Resort project]. www.pref.yamanashi.jp/kankou-sgn/documents/kyotou_wine_resort_ plan.pdf (accessed May 23, 2018). Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Kumakura, Isao, and TakefumiYoneya (eds.). 2015. Nō no 6-ji sangyō-ka to chiiki shinkō [The 6th industrialization of agriculture and regional revitalization]. Tokyo: Shunpusha Publishing. Lützeler, Ralph. 2017.“The urban-rural divide in Japan: A matter of social inequality?” David Chiavacci and Carola Hommerich (eds.), Social inequality in post-growth Japan: Transformation during economic and demographic stagnation, 187–199. London: Routledge. Matanle, Peter, and Anthony Rausch. 2011. Japan’s shrinking regions in the 21st century: Contemporary responses to depopulation and socioeconomic decline. Amherst, NY: Cambria Press. Muroya, Arihiro. 2013. “6-ji sangyō-ka no genjō to kadai” [Present situation and challenges of the “6th-industrialization”]. Nōrin Kin’yū 66 (5), 2–21. Odagiri, Tokumi. 2014. Nōsanson wa shōmetsu shinai [The mountain village does not disappear]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho. Rausch, Anthony. 2006. “The Heisei Dai Gappei: A case study for understanding the municipal mergers of the Heisei era.” Japan Forum 18 (1), 133–156. Song, Jiyeoun. 2015. “Japan’s regional inequality in hard times.” Pacific Focus 30 (1), 126–149. Tabayashi, Akira. 2010. “Regional development owing to the commodification of rural spaces in Japan.” Geographical Review of Japan 82 (2), 103–125.

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Tashiro,Yōichi. 2014. Sengo rejīmu kara no dakkyaku nōsei [The departure of agricultural policies from the postwar regime]. Tokyo: Tsukuba Shobō. Wang, Chuanfei. 2017. “Joining the global wine world: Japan’s winemaking industry.” Andreas Niehaus and Tine Walravens (eds.), Feeding Japan:The cultural and political issues of dependency and risk, 225–250. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507. Yamada, Kyōhei. 2012. “Municipal mergers in Japan: How did the fiscal incentives by the central government affect municipalities’ decisions?” (= American Political Science Annual Meeting Working Paper). http://ssrn.com/abstract=2107502 (accessed April 28, 2015). YPPD (Yamanashi Prefecture Planning Department). 2017. “Heisei 25-nen jūtaku tochi tōkei chōsa kekka” [Results of the 2013 Housing and Land Statistical Survey]. www.pref. yamanashi.jp/toukei_2/HP/DATA/25jutaku.pdf (accessed September 21, 2018). YPSO (Yamanashi Prefecture Statistical Office). 2016a. “2015-nen nōringyō sensasu kekka—Yamanashi-ken no gaiyō” [Results of the 2015 Agriculture and Forestry Census—Yamanashi Prefecture outline]. www.pref.yamanashi.jp/toukei_2/HP/ DATA/2015nourin_1.pdf (accessed May 17, 2018). ———. 2016b. “Heisei 27-nendo Yamanashi-ken no GDP ni tsuite” [The 2015 GDP of Yamanashi Prefecture]. www.pref.yamanashi.jp/toukei_2/HP/DATA/27syotokunen_ youyaku.pdf (accessed May 17, 2018). ———. 2017.“Heisei 28-nendo Yamanashi-ken jōjū jinkō chōsa kekka hōkokusho” [Results of the 2016 Yamanashi Prefecture permanent resident survey]. www.pref.yamanashi.jp/ toukei_2/HP/DATA/28jyoujyuu.pdf (accessed May 17, 2018).

PART III

New residents in the countryside

10 HAS THE ISLAND LURE REACHED JAPAN? Remote islands between tourism boom, new residents, and fatal depopulation Carolin Funck

Introduction When I first arrived in the city of Matsuyama on Shikoku Island in Japan more than 30 years ago, I was very excited to finally live close to the sea.The fact that this sea—the Seto Inland Sea—is home to several hundred inhabited islands added to my expectations. I was born and raised in the south of Germany, several hundred kilometers from any sea. The mass-migration of Germans every summer to the Mediterranean, the North Sea, or the Baltic Sea is a well-known tourism phenomenon. In May, as soon as it became warm and sunny, I expressed my wish to my new local friends to visit one of the small islands dotting the sea close to Matsuyama— only to be told: “Why do you want to go there? Nani mo nai—there is nothing there!” A very good example of the cultural construction of peripheralization, this comment neatly summarized the general perception of the countryside and islands in particular in 1980s Japan. Most of Japan’s islands—excluding the four main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku and the island of Okinawa—are situated in a peripheral position. They face severe problems of depopulation and aging. These are the results as well as the reasons for an ongoing process of decline. An eroding economic base is further hampered by a lack of innovation due to the outflow of younger generations. Social inequality arises from the high percentage of older residents, limited education chances, and higher transportation costs in remote locations. Political power was lost when many islands merged with neighboring cities during the municipal merger wave of the 2000s. This left them exposed to a process that can be labelled as peripheralization (Kühn 2015). Conditions of periphery defined as geographical remoteness are mainly static (Kühn 2015: 369), although in the case of islands the distance from the periphery to the centers can and has been greatly changed by the construction of bridges and

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the addition or removal of connections by boat and plane. Conditions of peripheralization as defined by Kühn (2015: 275), however, may change. Kühn lists decline of employment or low-qualified work in the economic dimension, out-migration and poverty in the social dimension, and dependency and exclusion from networks in the political dimension as processes of peripheralization that lead to polarization between the center(s) and peripheries while also mentioning a fourth, communicative dimension. He emphasizes the necessity to research the options available to areas and actors affected by peripheralization and mentions the possibility of “recentralization,” thereby subscribing to the dualism of center and periphery, albeit with a multidimensional concept. Looking at the conditions on Japanese islands, we can therefore ask if there are any signs of reversal in the four dimensions of peripheralization and, equally important, if the process itself is dissolving due to the dualism of the center and the periphery evaporating. A revived interest in rural things and places in Japan has been postulated since the 1980s (Funck and Cooper 2013: 90). This has led to a process of re-evaluation of rural heritage. Furusato (old hometown) and the nostalgic images the term invokes became a catchphrase to attract tourists to rural areas and small towns (Moon 2002; Robertson 1995). “Green tourism” (gurīn tsūrizumu) and “ecotourism” (ekotsūrizumu) were turned into government policies to promote local products, agricultural experiences, and the concept of traditional management of natural resources in rural areas (Funck and Cooper 2013). This cultural reinterpretation has increased interest in rural areas, but it has not turned the tide of rural depopulation. As Lützeler (2018: 70) points out, depopulating areas defined by high population losses, aging rates, and financial dependence cover almost 60 percent of Japan’s territory. The number of people moving from urban areas to those classified as depopulated makes up a tiny percentage of overall population movements and absolute numbers have been decreasing constantly (SCSG 2018: 4). Unlike other countries, so far no better-performing “winners” could be identified among those regions. Island populations, particularly those defined as remote, show especially high rates of aging. In recent years, however, some municipalities and islands garnered attention because they attract not only tourists but also new residents. This new trend has been dubbed “revival of the countryside” (den’en kaiki), and since 2014 it has informed government policies. For example, survey results show an increase in the percentage of urban residents willing to live in the countryside, rising from 19.8 percent in 2005 to 31.6 percent in 2014. The percentage is even higher among the younger generation (Kojima 2018: 14–15). Based on the Population Censuses of 2000, 2010, and 2015, the number of districts designated as depopulated that received more new residents from urban areas compared to the previous census period increased from 108 districts between 2000 and 2010 to 397 between 2010 and 2015. This included many islands (SCSG 2018: 78–79). While some authors clearly state that—though it is a visible trend—the “revival of the countryside” is not influencing population distribution on the macro-level

Has the island lure reached Japan?  179

(Kojima 2018: 16), others see it as the beginning of a process of counterurbanization only inhibited by conservative rural society structures (Isoda 2018: 40). Research so far shows only the first signs of a trend that is itself highly diverse, taking on different forms in each locality and based on multiple motives and ways of mobility (Nakajō 2018: 28). This chapter aims to identify the factors directing this new wave of relocation current to certain localities, in this case focusing on Japan’s islands.These factors can be found in the economic, social, political, and cultural or communicative dimensions corresponding to the four dimensions of peripheralization stated by Kühn (2015). Examples might include “new” forms of tourism like art tourism, new community models, active promotion policies by municipalities, a change in the conception of rural life, and new media allowing residents of remote islands to connect and sell products and services around Japan. Municipal merger or non-merger may also play an important role. I will especially focus on tourism as a factor influencing migration for two reasons: It offers visitors a chance to casually encounter the countryside, but it can also support or replace declining traditional rural industries and offer work for new residents (Kanetaka and Funck 2011; Nakajō 2018; Shibata 2012). Factors difficult to evaluate are social networking sites (SNS) and new media, which have given tourists and residents a new form of branding power. They blur the boundary between tourists and destinations, as the former promote the latter through the information they disseminate (Yamamura 2013: 10). With a diversity of actors sending information and the possibility to create both positive and negative effects, this power has a very heterogeneous character that will influence the images of peripheral areas in multiple ways. From the vast array of countryside in Japan, I will concentrate on islands for several reasons. First, remote islands are among the areas worst affected by depopulation, often leaving them no choice but to actively engage in attracting new residents (Isoda 2018: 41). Second, being clearly delineated and remote, they are easily classified as periphery. Third, islands—though less so in Japan than in other developed nations—are a powerful magnet for tourists, making them an ideal field to compare the connection between tourism and migration to the countryside. Several case studies have pointed out this connection (Kanetaka and Funck 2011; Nakajō 2018; Shibata 2012), but none has compared several islands to extract the factors that make islands attractive for tourists and new residents alike. I will analyze how islands try to ride the new vogue of den’en kaiki while at the same time create distinct images and policies to become “the” chosen island by tourists and possible migrants. This process can also be interpreted as revising peripheralization through reinterpretation and communicative strategies that promote a positive image of periphery. I chose a mixed-method approach to identify factors of change and evaluate the quality of these new trends. The first part, conducted on the national scale in 2017, consists of an online survey on attitudes toward islands. It is based on 1,500 respondents with a balanced distribution of gender, age, and regions. The second

180  Carolin Funck

part is more qualitative, based on observation, interviews, and questionnaires with migrants and actors in tourism industries on several islands.

Far from paradise: remote islands in Japan Islands form an important and highly iconic part of the world tourism system.They are valued for characteristic ecosystems and rich nature, traditional ways of life, and a variety of languages and cultures (Rifai 2017: 1). Islanders, on the other hand, can earn additional income from tourism to support their earnings from agriculture, fishery, and other traditional industries (Graci and Dodd 2010: 33). As visitors have to invest extra money and time to reach the islands, their geographical position is somewhat disadvantaged (Modica and Uysal 2016: 3), while at the same time being set apart also adds to their attractiveness.Tourism development not only contributes to an island’s economy; it can also become a reason to preserve valuable ecosystems or cultures (Rifai 2017: 1). On the other hand, tourism development often destroys the very resources it relies on as it transforms distinct local cultures into international resort brands. Due to their remote location, islands are also convenient places for prisons, hospitals for contagious diseases, dumping of hazardous waste, or polluting industries, all of which leave dark heritage and create negative imagery. In Japan, for example, islands in the Seto Inland Sea have been subjected to illegal industrial waste deposits and strongly polluting copper industries (Funck 2006). In general, tourism on Japanese coasts and islands has not developed to the same degree as in the Mediterranean or other southern seas (Funck and Cooper 2013: 83). Japanese research on islands from a geographical perspective reflects this situation, as it focuses on agriculture, settlements, population, fisheries, and economic activities in general. Tourism only ranks 8th among subjects of scientific articles published between 1907 and 2012. Geographically, Okinawa and the islands south of Kyushu are featured most frequently (Miyauchi 2014: 83). Examples of islands luring tourists mainly from the 1960s to 1980s have been reported in research, but they too are restricted to the southern islands. Kanda (2012) describes how Yoron Island, then the southernmost island of Japan, became popular in the 1960s with an image of coral reefs, blue sea, freedom, and love. It attracted many young visitors whose habits often disturbed the local population. After years of falling into neglect, a movie called Megane (Glasses) created a new image of the island in 2007. The main activity featured in the movie was called tasogare, which essentially meant hanging around doing nothing—an activity that proved to be attractive for young urban women. For Zamami Island in Okinawa Prefecture, Miyauchi (2017) follows the development as a diving spot from the 1980s, when the island attracted tourists as well as new residents who operated marine leisure shops and worked as diving instructors. Naitō (2004), with his research on Tanegashima, also reports how marine leisure activities act as a motive to move to remote islands. As can be seen from these examples, the island lure in Japan has been restricted to the southern islands, and even there target groups and motives are constantly shifting.

Has the island lure reached Japan?  181

To support life and residents on remote islands, the Remote Island Promotion Law (Ritō shinkō-hō) was introduced in 1953 after intensive lobbying by several prefectures. It includes policies to promote migration to islands and covers a wide area of themes like access, industries, welfare, culture, education, tourism, environment protection, renewable energies, and protection against natural catastrophes. A variety of reasons lie behind this continuous effort to keep the remote islands populated, among them strategic reasons, use of maritime resources, protection of traditional cultures and natural environments, provision of food, and opportunities to encounter nature for urban residents (RSTB 2018: 1). Islands can further receive benefits from other programs like the Community Building Support Staff Program (Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai puroguramu). This program offers up to threeyear contracts for people who move to another municipality to help with regional revitalization. After the contract period ends, participants can choose to either move away or stay and support themselves financially (for more details see Chapter 13 in this volume). If we look at the general situation of islands in Japan, the country has 416 inhabited islands excluding the four main islands of Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Shikoku, and the island of Okinawa. Together they include a population of 380,000, or 0.3 percent of Japan’s overall population in 2015. Their land surface area covers 1.41 percent of all Japan. 255 islands fall under the Remote Island Promotion Law as of April 2018; 49 more are targeted by special laws for Okinawa, Ogasawara, and Amami Islands (KKKS 2018). Whereas the population of Japan as a whole has grown about 40 percent between 1955 and 2010, remote islands during the same period lost over 60 percent. Between 2007 and 2017, the population on islands under the Remote Island Promotion Law decreased by 17.4 percent, compared to 0.5 percent in Japan as a whole and 14.5 percent in areas designated as depopulated (kaso chiiki) (RSTB 2018: 27). The percentage of the population in the age group 65+ stands at 39 percent, compared to 26.9 percent nationwide (2015; RSTB 2018: 15). As we can see, for example, in Hiroshima Prefecture, islands with smaller populations are aging faster. If we look at population numbers and aging rates on islands in this prefecture in 2010, the correlation coefficient is –0.64. Some caution is advised when interpreting population data. Many interviewees on the islands stated that former inhabitants keep their registration record in a village where they still own a house even if they have moved away, while new residents hesitate to make the final step of changing their registration. The Population Census conducted every five years gives a more accurate picture. It counts people who actually live in a specified location during the period of the census and requires respondents to state their place of residence five years before. However, in recent years invalid responses for this question have increased, creating the risk that movements of people are not accurately recorded (SCSG 2018: 4). The population data cited earlier, however, show that after 65 years in operation the Remote Island Promotion Law and other programs have had at most limited effects. Will the current “revival of the countryside” finally turn the tide?

182  Carolin Funck

“Do you want to live on an island?” What people in Japan think about islands To assess the images and opinions people have about islands in Japan, I requested INTAGE Research to conduct an online survey with 1,500 respondents during February 24–27, 2017.This company had a capacity of more than 2,365,000 monitors that were willing to answer surveys in January 2017. The sample represents the Japanese population as counted in the 2015 Population Census regarding gender (two groups), age (five groups) and size of municipality (three groups). Questions were asked in Japanese and grouped in three blocks—leisure and travel behavior, islands, and personal characteristics of the respondents. In this section, I will introduce results concerning islands respondents visited and knew about in Japan, images respondents have of islands, and their opinions about moving to an island. In Japan, 60 percent of respondents visited at least one island for purposes other than work, and 11.9 percent visited more than four. As for islands abroad, visitation rates are much lower. Two thirds never travelled to an island outside Japan and only 4.1 percent have been to more than four foreign islands. If we assume that at least some people travel to islands for work, we may conclude that approximately two thirds have a first-hand experience of Japanese islands (see Figure 10.1). Visits to islands within Japan and abroad both increase with rising levels of education, income, and size of municipality. The trend that inhabitants of larger cities travel more than those from small towns parallels travel behavior in general and is not restricted to islands (Nihon Kankō Kyōkai 2015); for the other two indicators, there are no comparable data available. In the next step, survey participants were asked which islands they had visited in Japan, which they had not visited yet but would like to visit, and which islands they had simply heard the name of (see Table 10.1). For this purpose, we created a list of 31 islands from a list of Japanese islands by size. We added some smaller islands like Miyajima for their characteristics as tourism destinations or to achieve a better regional balance. Among these 31 islands, eleven can be classified as southern

70.0 In Japan

Abroad

52.5 35.0 17.5 0.0

1

2

FIGURE 10.1  Number

work Source: Author’s own survey.

3

4

>

None

of islands visited in Japan or abroad for purposes other than

Has the island lure reached Japan?  183 TABLE 10.1 Which of these islands have you visited, which do you want to visit, which have

you heard the name of? (percent of respondents) Have visited

%

Have not visited but want to

%

Have heard the name of

%

Miyajima (Hiroshima) Awajishima (Hyōgo) Shōdoshima (Kagawa) Sadoshima (Niigata) Ishigakijima (Okinawa) Ōshima (Tokyo) Miyakojima (Okinawa) Iriomotejima (Okinawa) Yakushima (Kagoshima) Ikijima (Nagasaki)

37.4

Yakushima (Kagoshima) Ishigakijima (Okinawa) Miyakojima (Okinawa) Amamiōshima (Kagoshima) Iriomotejima (Okinawa) Tanegashima (Kagoshima) Sadoshima (Niigata) Hachijōjima (Tokyo) Yorontō (Kagoshima) Shōdoshima (Kagawa)

48.7

Chijijima (Tokyo) Hachijōjima (Tokyo) Tanegashima (Kagoshima) Ōshima (Tokyo) Tsushima (Nagasaki) Sadoshima (Niigata) Amamiōshima (Kagoshima) Ikijima (Nagasaki) Yorontō (Kagoshima) Iriomotejima (Okinawa)

60.3

32.7 17.8 13.7 11.4 9.6 7.5 6.0 5.5 5.2

46.5 44.3 43.1 38.5 38.4 29.6 28.3 28.1 26.0

57.6 53.3 52.1 50.2 48.1 46.8 46.3 46.3 44.9

Source: Author’s own survey.

islands because they are located in the southernmost prefectures of Kagoshima and Okinawa or belong to the southern island groups of Izu and Ogasawara (both part of Tokyo Prefecture). There was also an option to add three more islands to the list. The most visited islands are Miyajima and Awajishima.The World Cultural Heritage site of Miyajima near Hiroshima City is an established part of the tourism circuit and a convenient 15-minute ferry ride from mainland Honshu. Awajishima, a large island adjacent to the Kansai Metropolitan Region, is linked by a bridge to Honshu and Shikoku. Among the most visited islands, the top three are located in the Seto Inland Sea region and sit close to large urban areas, Shinkansen lines, and highways. Five are southern islands. In the category of islands that people would like to visit, the number of southern islands increases to eight, showing the strong lure of the south. Only the large islands of Sadoshima and Shōdoshima can compete as attractions. The list of well-known islands mirrors population distribution, because three of the top four are part of Tokyo Prefecture.The third in the list,Tanegashima, is of national importance as Japan’s major rocket base. The gap between islands people actually visit and those they long to visit proves that in Japan, too,“southernness” is an important feature of island attraction whereas accessibility is a necessary condition for visiting them.

184  Carolin Funck

To inquire about the image of islands, respondents were given a list of 21 items. The degree of agreement for each item was evaluated on a five-point Likert scale. As shown in Figure 10.2, the top five items respondents agreed to are “sea,” “rich nature,” “relaxing,” “resort,” and “original culture.” From just these five items, we can derive a rather complex image of islands including nature, culture, and leisure as well as leisure facilities like resorts. It should be added that the Japanese adaption of the term resort (rizōto) usually refers to man-made facilities rather than to tourist destinations as such (Funck 1999). On the other hand, negative images received the lowest scores, starting from “boring” at the bottom to “poor,” “lonely,” “nostalgic,” and “closed society,” with “nostalgic” (natsukashii) as the only positive exception. Most respondents thus have a generally positive but complex image of islands, but few have thought or researched about moving to an island (see Figure 10.3).

Boring Poor Lonely Nostalgic Closed society Original culture Resort Relaxing Rich nature Sea 1.0

FIGURE 10.2 

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

What is your image of islands?

Note: Average scores; 1 = Agree very much, 5 = Don’t agree at all. Source: Author’s own survey.

100.0 Total

University degree

Men in their 50s

80.0 60.0 40.0 20.0 0.0

Have thought about living on an island

FIGURE 10.3 

Have researched about moving to an island

Have a plan to move Never though about Live on an island right now to an island living on an island

Have you ever thought about moving to an island? (percent of respondents)

Source: Author’s own survey.

Has the island lure reached Japan?  185

The percentage is higher among holders of university degrees and men in their 50s, but even in these groups less than three percent have made concrete plans. An analysis of people moving to designated depopulated areas (kasochi) based on the Population Census of Japan similarly shows that men move to peripheral areas at a higher rate than women, but they do so more often in their 20s or 30s (SCSG 2018). From the results of the survey, we can see a clear positive image of islands, including not only natural but also cultural and touristic features. While other rural areas are often valued and branded for their nostalgic memories of a Japan long since gone (Lützeler 2018: 16), few respondents associate islands with nostalgia. Discussions about migration to islands therefore might not fit into the general discourse on reevaluation of the countryside. Since most of the popular islands are located in the south, the associations of “southern-ness” is the main attraction when people dream of visiting islands even when, in practice, they opt for easily accessible destinations.

How islands attract new residents In this section, I will introduce several islands that have more or less successfully attracted migrants from other areas in Japan.The accounts on Yakushima, Naoshima, and Ōsakikamijima are based on long-term research projects conducted by my students and me; other islands have been visited on a less regular basis.

Ecotourism as a new business for in-migrants in Yakushima Yakushima Island, located two hours by high-speed boat from Kagoshima City in the south of Kyushu, is famous for its lush vegetation and centuries-old cedar trees. After the forest industry was abandoned in the 1980s for environmental reasons, the island gradually attracted mountaineers and nature lovers.Visitor numbers increased after the high-speed boat link was established and part of the island was registered as World Natural Heritage in 1993. Tourism developed mainly around two areas within the National Park that were equipped with easy hiking trails in the 1970s and along the long and strenuous trail to jōmonsugi, the oldest cedar tree so far discovered on the island. With some government support, ecotourism developed as an innovative tourism activity after world heritage registration, with a variety of activities such as guided hiking tours, kayaking, or diving offered (d’Hauteserre and Funck 2016). Ecotour guides and accommodation facilities constitute the main part of the tourism industry, supplemented by restaurants, car rentals, rental shops for mountaineering and other gear and lunch-box shops. According to the 2014 Economic Census of Japan, “accommodation and restaurants” is the biggest sector among the 24 industries classified as “medium groups” in the census. They account for 25.6 percent of all establishments and 18.9 percent of all employees in Yakushima. In accommodation alone, 742 employees work in 149 facilities; of these, 113 are individual owners of their facility. Unfortunately, “guide” is not an

186  Carolin Funck 500,000

22,500

18,000

13,500 250,000 9,000 125,000

4,500 Visitors

0

Visitors

Population

375,000

1970

73

76

79

82

85

88

91

94

97

2000

Population 03

06

09

12

15

0

Year

FIGURE 10.4 

Population and visitor numbers in Yakushima

Source: Figure is based on Yakushima-chō (1970–2015).

independent industry category; therefore, the number of guides cannot be identified from this census. A comparison of population and visitor numbers in Figure 10.4 shows three distinct phases. Until 1993, population decreased after the dismantling of the forest industry while tourist numbers rose slowly. In the second phase up to 2004, population and visitor numbers showed a strong positive correlation as population stabilized and even increased in some years.Visitor numbers continued to rise until 2007. Since then (the third phase), visitor numbers are declining again, and since 2009 the population is slowly starting to follow this trend. The ratio of elderly inhabitants 65 years of age and older lies at 31 percent, higher than the national average but lower than that of remote islands in general. From these figures, it can be concluded that the growth of tourism as a new economic sector replacing forestry has had positive effects on the population structure of Yakushima. This effect has not been evenly distributed between the island’s villages that are aligned like pearls on a string along the coastline. Population continues to decline in villages in the northern part, where fewer tourists visit and increases in the southern and eastern part, most prominently around the airport (see YWHCC 2016). Access and tourist influx clearly influence this distribution, while, according to our interviews with new residents, the possibility to buy or rent land and climatic conditions also play a role. Some of the new residents are retirees or keep their work in other regions. For those who want to earn their living in Yakushima, guiding is the activity of choice. The first two guide groups were established in 1989 and 1993 by in-migrants with some experience and education in outdoor sports or ecology. At one point,

Has the island lure reached Japan?  187

Yakushima Town Office stated that about 200 guides were active on the island, most of them in-migrants. However, this number includes part-time guides who only work during the main season (Kanetaka and Funck 2011: 71). Several reasons can be given for the concentration of new residents in the guide sector. First, the local guides who were active before world heritage registration had extensive knowledge of Yakushima’s mountains but lacked ecological education and outdoor leisure experience, leaving a niche for specialized guides. Second, unlike accommodation or restaurants, guiding requires no initial investment or land ownership and few constant running costs. Third, while many of the guides also cooperate with travel agencies, they acquire most of their customers through the internet and the social media, technologies that local inhabitants were less familiar with. Fourth, the off-season gives guides an opportunity to travel outside the island—or to increase their income in other seasonal jobs like citrus fruit picking or construction work. Fifth, unlike tour guides for international tourists, a job that until 2018 required a national license, ecotour guides need no license or qualification in Japan (Shibasaki 2015: 69). This latter fact has led to problems concerning tour quality and safety in Yakushima. Several attempts have been made to create a guide qualification for Yakushima that balances interests of local guides, newcomer guides, tourists, and nature management, until a compromise was finally reached in 2015 (d’Hauteserre and Funck 2016: 235). New residents, especially those who retire early and bring their retirement funds to the island, also venture into the accommodation or restaurant sector (Kanetaka and Funck 2011: 77). Most newcomers move to Yakushima because its natural features attract them and thus make them dream of a house surrounded by nature. Even though empty houses and lots abound within Yakushima’s settlements like in most other rural areas in Japan, they prefer to build outside existing villages, where land is more easily available. If we compare the villages with growing population mentioned earlier with the location of accommodation facilities in each village as analyzed by Kanetaka and Funck (2011: 77), the same villages share population growth, and a large percentage of facilities are built outside the existing settlements. While most new residents arrive from the metropolitan areas of Kantō and Kansai, in recent years some international residents have also found their way to the island and started to offer tours for international tourists. World Natural Heritage as a strong pull factor and brand image combined with the availability of various economic activities and chances to set up one’s own business in the tourism industries have attracted new residents to Yakushima. It has been pointed out that although (or because) a variety of organizations are involved in the management of the World Natural Heritage and National Park, the island lacks an effective and stringent management system. This, on the other hand, has offered opportunities for new residents to set up new businesses or build tourism facilities around the island without too many restrictions. An analysis of the ecotour industry on Yakushima (Shibasaki 2015) confirmed that most of the revenue stays on the island and therefore contributes to the local economy, even though profits

188  Carolin Funck

tend to concentrate within the guide business. It remains to be seen how the more recent decline in tourist numbers will affect further in-migration and whether it will be possible to distribute new residents and profits from tourism industries more equally around the island.

Art tourism and in-migration The Seto Inland Sea is home to many islands each with a distinct profile. Naoshima Island is part of Kagawa Prefecture on Shikoku Island, but it is also a short 20-minute ferry ride from Okayama Prefecture. Mitsubishi Mining Refinery has operated a plant in the northern part of the island since 1917, providing Naoshima with a strong economic base unlike most other islands. Although the factory had to reduce its workforce from the 1990s due to a slump in the copper market, it has since diversified and still provides substantial economic multiplier effects. At the same time, another company started activities in the southern part of Naoshima. Benesse Holdings, then named Fukutake Shōten, bought a large parcel of land in 1987, and from there they developed the Benesse Naoshima Art Site. This later became the core of the Setouchi International Art Festival or Setouchi Triennale. Stable tax revenues from these companies enabled the municipality to provide its residents with public buildings designed by famous architects and public transport. Naoshima is also the only island in Kagawa Prefecture that could avoid a municipal merger during the administrative amalgamation process in the early 2000s (Shibata 2012: 24). A look at population and visitor numbers (see Figure 10.5) reveals a constant though slowing downswing in population numbers combined with an increase in tourist numbers proceeding in leaps. A steep increase occurred after the Chichu Art Museum opened in 2004, and travel agencies discovered Naoshima as an art destination. The three peaks in recent years correspond to the Setouchi Triennale. 5000

800,000

600,000

3000 400,000 2000 200,000

1000 Population 0

1995

1997

1999

2001

2003

2005

2007

2009

2011

Year

FIGURE 10.5 

Population and visitor numbers in Naoshima

Source: Figure is based on Naoshima-chō (2018).

Visitors 2013

2015

0

Visitors

Population

4000

Has the island lure reached Japan?  189

While the population is declining, there are some signs of reversal. An influx of new residents has diminished the migration component of population decline (Shibata 2012: 31). Since 2000, the population has increased in some districts, and between 2015 and 2016 there was even a small general growth (Naoshima-chō 2018).A good sign for the future is the age structure of in-migrants. Between 2005 and 2010, 36.3 percent of in-migrants were between 20 and 24 and 46.4 percent between 25 and 34 years of age (Shibata 2012: 32). Looking at age structure changes in the long run (Naoshima-chō 2018), it is difficult to establish a clear pattern. Between 2012 (before the first Setouchi Triennale) and 2018, the number of young men between 20 and 34 clearly increased but the number of women did not. The age bracket between 65 and 74 also grew, probably due to retirement migration. According to the Economic Census, the number of establishments in the accommodation and restaurant sector increased from 18 in 2001 to 59 in 2014, while employment grew from 125 to 376 persons. This accounts for 24.8 percent of all establishments and 16.0 percent of employees. Like in Yakushima, the lower percentage of employees points to the fact that most tourist-oriented establishments are very small. While changes in population seem to be shifting, one influence of tourism development on Naoshima is obvious: residential land prices in 2018 rose to an unusually high level for such a location ( Japan Times 2018: 7). Difficulties in finding a place to live on the island have also been pointed out by Benesse employees in interviews and in a manga book about the joy and hardships of a young woman coming to Naoshima from Tokyo to work in a café (Matsuzaki 2017). After about 30 years of development centered on modern art and architecture, Naoshima has become a brand name for art tourism in Japan. In the process, two distinct though partly overlapping tourism spaces have been created. The area owned and controlled by Benesse Holdings offers museums built by famous modern architects featuring well-known artists.Tourists can choose among several luxurious hotels where staff will pick them up at the harbor and whisk them away to a well-managed enclave surrounded by nature. These facilities make up the biggest part of the increase in employment in the accommodation sector between 1999 and 2009 (Shibata 2012: 43). Shibata (2012: 49) points out that, while organizations under the umbrella of Benesse Holdings employed about 300 people in 2012, two thirds of these were part-time staff. Outside of this space, Benesse Holdings created some small art projects scattered throughout the existing villages. These have led to a more disorderly tourist area where small shops, restaurants, and simple accommodation facilities are scattered within and around the villages.The many young tourists who flock to Naoshima can enjoy them for far less money.This space constantly changes under the influence of multiple small actors, many of them new residents. In a survey conducted in 2012, we focused on the latter tourist area (Funck and Chang 2018). Among 40 respondents, 70 percent were female. Their age structure was quite diverse with 37.5 percent in their 60s, 28 percent in their 40/50s, and 23 percent in their 20/30s. Similarly, the time they lived on Naoshima was also diverse. 52.5 percent have lived there since before 1980 and mainly originate from

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Naoshima, while 17.5 percent were newcomers who arrived after 2010. 52.5 percent of all respondents started a business after the opening of the Chichu Art Museum in 2004, which was a turning point in tourism development on Naoshima Island. Up to that year, local residents accounted for two thirds of the newly opened facilities; after that, people from outside Naoshima took the initiative in establishing new tourism enterprises. In contrast to Yakushima, new residents in Naoshima use old houses to live in or set up businesses, especially in the central historic village of Honmura where the smaller art projects are located. Due to the dual structure of the tourism space described earlier, Naoshima offers a wider range of work and commitment for new residents than Yakushima. Volunteer activities at the art festival (Funck and Chang 2018) or seasonal jobs at Benesse’s facilities allow a short stay to check out the island. Working in some of the many small shops and cafés (Matsuzaki 2017) or on a limited contract for Benesse could be the next step before someone decides to relocate to Naoshima and maybe open his or her own business. The possibility to reach a larger city in about one hour further lowers the threshold to move to an island. On the other hand, the structure of the Setouchi Triennale, where large numbers of tourists visit every three years and are welcomed and looked after by volunteers (Funck and Chang 2018), poses problems for new residents who want to settle permanently. The highly fluctuating visitor numbers peaking every three years make it difficult to run a permanent tourism business with full-time staff, thus reducing possibilities for residents to find a stable job. In addition, volunteers take over many tasks that could offer employment.

New residents on other islands The Setouchi Triennale started from Naoshima, but since 2013 the art festival has expanded to other islands in the prefectures of Kagawa and Okayama. Among the islands, Ogijima in Takamatsu City is one of the smallest with a population of 172 in 2017.Walk around the maze of narrow lanes in Ogijima’s only village on the hill and you will encounter a number of empty and deteriorating houses. En route to the art projects scattered around the village, small signs warn tourists not to enter some of the lanes. Amazingly, since the start of the Setouchi Triennale in 2013 this island has seen an increase in residents sufficient to reopen the elementary school in 2014 and the kindergarten in 2016. As part of Takamatsu City, it is connected by frequent ferry services and home delivery services cost the same as within the city. Since many in-migrants rely on the delivery of goods for their daily life or to sell products, this is a very attractive feature. Ogijima combines remoteness with convenience. The islands of Ōsakikamijima and Ōsakishimojima, as can be implied from their name, lie close to each other but have moved along different trajectories. Ōsakikamijima, with a population of 7,817 in 2017, is the bigger of the two and home to several shipyards and other industries. Three villages on the island merged into Ōsakikamijima Town in 2003. They were the first villages to merge

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in Hiroshima Prefecture and, unlike other islands that had to merge with cities on the mainland, Ōsakikamijima has since been able to create independent policies. The island has no bridge connection but several ferry lines. According to the Population Census, it stands out among depopulated areas because it succeeded in attracting new residents in their 20s. It is also one of only 20 depopulated districts nationwide having received more in-migrants in 2010 compared to 2000 and in 2015 compared to 2010—most other districts show increases only in one of the two periods (SCSG 2018: 80, 83). Furthermore, Ōsakikamijima is one of the few islands not actively engaged in the development of tourism. Instead, education has become the island’s main development tool. Two high schools, one of them specialized in marine technology, offer a high level of education for a remote island. From 2019, an international junior and senior high school with dormitories will provide education up to the international baccalaureate for both Japanese and international students. On top of this emphasis on education, the town actively welcomes new residents through an advisor system and a trial house where interested visitors can stay up to three months for ¥31,000 per month (OYCK 2018). As a result, the island has seen more people moving in than out in 2015 and 2017 (Hiroshima Prefecture 2018). In contrast, the town of Yutaka on Ōsakishimojima merged with Kure City in 2005. It is connected by a series of bridges and infrequent bus services to the city. In 2017, the population stood at 1,863.Within the town, the historic townscape of the port and trade district Mitarai was designated as an Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings ( Jūyō dentōteki kenzōbutsu-gun hozon chiku) in 1994. Nevertheless, because of the long distance to major conurbations like Hiroshima or Kure City, tourists are few, and shops, restaurants, and accommodation facilities are even fewer. Houses stand close within this district, leaving little space for newcomers. One resident from Kure City started to open a Japanese-style café on weekends. After some years, he moved to the island and has since created a small company that runs a guesthouse and a restaurant in renovated historic buildings. Through his introduction, a Japanese-English couple moved in under the Community Building Support Staff Program. Throughout its history as a port town, Mitarai was a bustling destination. Nevertheless, since most residents in the district are 65 or older, things change very slowly and newcomers have faced several problems when trying to implement new ideas. These start from finding a place to live and continue to conflicts surrounding the economic use of the historic townscape, which is seen by some residents as a common resource not to be used for private profit. In May 2018, Mitarai was designated as a Japanese Heritage Site. Finally, this might raise the town’s name value and attract more residents.

Conclusions From the previous brief descriptions, we can summarize some factors that influence possibilities for attracting and keeping new residents on Japan’s smaller islands. These will be analyzed using the four dimensions cited by Kühn (2015) to assess

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if there are tendencies to either revise peripheralization or dissolve the centerperiphery dualism. First, for tourists as well as new residents, access for people and information is a necessary condition for visiting an island and defines its peripheral location. While bridge connections seem convenient, sometimes a trip by car takes longer than using a direct ferry link. Frequent ferry or speedboat connections at a reasonable price have always been an important factor, but nowadays home delivery, internet services, and mobile phone reception quality are also decisive elements when making the decision to relocate to an island. In the political dimension, the administration structure is the most important factor. Islands that consist of one municipality and have kept their independence during the merger wave of the 2000s have more opportunities to create a brand name and offer services to newcomers. These can include trial tours, housing support, help for looking for jobs, childcare, or advisor systems. Often municipalities work in cooperation with non-profit organizations to provide these services or run akiya (empty house) databases and renovation projects. In the economic dimension, tourism offers important employment opportunities for new residents. A large variety of enterprises provides different types of jobs. While some businesses require investment in land and facilities, everybody can set up a guide business. The guide sector in Japan has recently been deregulated, and a booming inbound market promises expansion for years to come. On the other hand, jobs in tourism are irregular, seasonal, badly paid, and vulnerable to sudden changes in demand—e.g., after natural disasters. Nevertheless, migration has a reciprocal connection with tourism. New residents start tourism businesses that attract more tourists; more tourists mean that more people might become interested in starting a business or working in the tourism sector in a destination. The social dimension consists of social infrastructure as well as human factors. Convenient infrastructure includes elements like education, services, or medical institutions.These are easier to find on larger islands with more than 5,000 inhabitants like Ōsakikamijima and Yakushima or islands with a solid economic base and reliable tax income like Naoshima. The human network should not be overlooked as a factor. Many migrants leaving the cities long for better and deeper human connections. A positive attitude of local communities toward newcomers and networks among new residents help them adjust to new surroundings. The former has often been pointed out as a critical element in attracting new residents. Finally, the communicative dimension includes the process of creating and communicating a brand or image. To attract residents in the first place, to have a name value or brand image is extremely important. As the survey showed, very few islands in Japan are well known and the majority of the well-known islands are located in the “south.” World Heritage, Japanese Heritage, or famous art tourism sites provide opportunities to visit as a tourist or volunteer and gain a first impression of an island. Rather than developing complex brands, one strong image factor can become the successful symbol of an island. Islands that have been successful in attracting new residents combine several of these dimensions and either create a positive image of their remoteness or offer a reasonable mix of convenience and peripheral elements.

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Once new residents arrive, they in turn contribute to changes in the four dimensions of peripheralization on the islands in several ways. As with ecotourism in Yakushima, they can develop innovative types of services or facilities that cater to urban or international tourists. This might help rejuvenate an existing tourism sector or create new demand. For while they often have to engage in several jobs to make a living and try to get actively involved in the local community, they also play a role in the revival of agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, or local traditions. Any increase in population, even a small one, supports local infrastructure like schools, shops, or transport. Finally, they bring a network of contacts from outside the island, sometimes even international, which they can use to spread information and publicity about their new home. On the other hand, a number of problems can be seen. These correlate to problems in other rural areas and are not necessarily peculiar to islands, but they can be reinforced by restricted space and small community size. Depending on the availability of land, new residents tend to cluster in certain areas and create networks mainly among themselves.They arrive with different degrees of commitment. Moving one’s resident registration to a new location can be seen as a more permanent involvement and is therefore a precondition for benefiting from the Community Building Support Staff Program. Islands and rural areas in general lose population because of a lack of opportunities to work. Therefore, new residents too have difficulties in finding sufficient work to support themselves. As is customary in rural areas, new residents often have to combine several economic activities to make a living. New residents in rural areas and on islands receive a lot of media attention in Japan. However, as the newest report on the “revival of the countryside” emphasizes, the absolute number of people moving to depopulated areas is declining. Within that decline, more districts (among them many islands) have been able to attract new residents (SCSG 2018). From the cases we visited, a process of diversification can be identified where some islands with strong brand image, tourism development, independent administrative structure, or certain conditions of convenience emerge as “winners” among Japan’s many depopulating municipalities (see Lützeler 2018: 17).They have been able to modify some of the dimensions of peripheralization and thus rise above the competition. Migration has become visible, but it has not turned the tide nationwide. Considering the overall decline in the population of Japan, it probably will not do so in the future either. New residents on islands are individuals who have their own agenda, looking for their personal vision of periphery that cannot easily be turned into a master plan for island revitalization. For some localities, however, their activities and visions can change the discourse on peripheralization.

References d’Hauteserre, Anne-Marie, and Carolin Funck. 2016. “Innovation in island ecotourism in different contexts: Yakushima ( Japan) and Tahiti and its islands.” Island Studies Journal 11 (1), 227–244. Funck, Carolin. 1999. “When the bubble burst: Planning and reality in Japan’s resort industry.” Current Issues in Tourism 2 (4), 333–353.

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———. 2006. “Von der Mülldeponie zum Tourismusparadies? Strukturveränderungen in der Seto-Inlandsee-Region.” Klaus Vollmer (ed.), Ökologie und Umweltpolitik in Japan und Ostasien:Transnationale Perspektiven, 123–144. Munich: Iudicium. Funck, Carolin, and Nan Chang. 2018. “Island in transition:Tourists, volunteers and migrants attracted by an art-based revitalization project in the Seto Inland Sea.” Dieter K. Müller and Marek Więckowski (eds.), Tourism in transitions, 81–96. Cham: Springer International Publishing. Funck, Carolin, and Malcolm Cooper. 2013. Japanese tourism: Spaces, places and structures. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books. Graci, Sonya, and Rachel Dodd. 2010. Sustainable tourism in island destinations. Oxon and New York: Earthscan. Hiroshima Prefecture. 2018. “Jinkō idō tōkei chōsa” [Statistics survey on population migration]. www.pref.hiroshima.lg.jp/site/toukei/jinkouidoutyosa.html#h28 (accessed September 24, 2018). Isoda, Yuzuru. 2018. “Den’en kaiki wa han-toshika no sakigake ka” [Is the revival of the countryside the predecessor of counter-urbanization?]. Chiri 63 (6), 35–41. Japan Times. 2018. “Tourism and rising land prices.” September 23. Kanda, Koji. 2012. “Changing images of the Yoron Island and the local responses in the context of tourism.” Wakayama University Tourism Studies 6, 21–31. Kanetaka, Fumika, and Carolin Funck. 2011. “The development of the tourism industry in Yakushima and its spatial characteristics.” Studies in Environmental Science (Bulletin of the Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Sciences, Hiroshima University, II) 6, 65–82. KKKS (Kokudo Kōtsūshō Kokudo Seisakukyoku Ritō Shinkōka). 2018. “Nihon no tōshō no kōsei” [The structure of Japanese islands]. www.mlit.go.jp/common/001243507.pdf (accessed September 24, 2018). Kojima,Yasuo. 2018. “Den’en kaiki to ika ni mukiau ka” [How to address the revival of the countryside]. Chiri 63 (6), 14–19. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Lützeler, Ralph. 2018. “Living conditions in Japanese rural areas: Stuck in a downward spiral?” Ralph Lützeler (ed.), Rural areas between decline and resurgence: Lessons from Japan and Austria (= Beiträge zur Japanologie; 46), 15–26.Vienna: Institut für Ostasienwissenschaften der Universität Wien. Matsuzaki, Shiori. 2017. Naoshima kominkan shea kurashi [Life in a shared old house in Naoshima]. Tokyo: Kadokawa. Miyauchi, Hisamitsu. 2014. “A list of island studies within Japan’s geographical research.” International Review of Ryukyuan and Okinawan Studies 3, 79–105. Miyauchi, Hisamitsu, and Dai Miyazaki. 2017. “Changes in management style of marine leisure shop in Zamami Island, Okinawa Prefecture.” Okinawa Journal of Geographical Studies 17, 11–24. Modica, Patrizia, and Muzaffer Uysal (eds.). 2016. Sustainable island tourism. Wallingford: CABI. Moon, Okpyo. 2002. “The countryside reinvented for urban tourists: Rural transformation in the Japanese Muraokoshi movement.” Joy Hendry and Massimo Raveri (eds.), Japan at Play, 228–244. London: Routledge. Naitō,Takayoshi. 2004. “The migration of surfer in Tanegashima.” Kagoshima University Occasional Papers 56, 49–52. Nakajō, Akihito. 2018. “Nōsanson no kōrei shakaika to den’en kaiki no kanōsei” [The development of aging societies in mountain and rural villages and the possibilities for revival of the countryside]. Chiri 63 (6), 27–34.

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Naoshima-chō. 2018. “Naoshima tōkei jōhō” [Naoshima statistics information]. www.town. naoshima.lg.jp/government/gaiyo/statistics.html#cmsDF8C9 (accessed September 24, 2018). Nihon Kankō Kyōkai. 2015. Kankō no jittai to shikō [Situation and tendency of tourism]. Tokyo: Nihon Kankō Kyōkai. OYCK (Ōsakikamijima-chō Yakuba Chiiki Keieika Chiiki Shinkō-kakari). 2018. “Ōsakikamijima-chō ijū teijū pōtarusaito” [Web portal for permanent residency of inmigrants in Ōsakikamijima Town]. http://iju-teiju.town.osakikamijima.hiroshima.jp/ (accessed September 24, 2018). Rifai, Taleb. 2017. “Tourism: Committed to preserving life below water.” UN Chronicle 54 (1–2), 1. Robertson, Jennifer. 1995. “Hegemonic nostalgia, tourism and nation-making in Japan.” Senri Ethnological Studies 38, 89–103. RSTB (Ritō Shinkō Taisaku Bunkakai). 2018. “Heisei 29-nendo ni ritō no shinkō ni kanshite kōjita seisaku” [Policies for the development of peripheral islands in F.Y. 2017]. www.mlit.go.jp/common/001249592.pdf (accessed September 10, 2018). SCSG (Sōmushō Chiikiryoku Sōzō Gurūpu Kaso Taisakushitsu). 2018. “ ‘Den’en kaiki’ ni kansuru chōsa kenkyū hōkokusho” [Report on the investigation about rural revitalization]. www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000538258.pdf (accessed November 1, 2018). Shibasaki, Shigemitsu. 2015. “Economic analysis of the ecotourism industries in Yakushima Island.” Bulletin of the National Museum of Japanese History 183, 49–73. Shibata, Hirotoshi. 2012. “Dōseitetsu, āto, sanpai shori no machi Naoshima no genzai” [The present situation of Naoshima, a town of copper industry, art, and industrial waste processing]. Senshū Daigaku Shakai Kagaku Kenkyūsho Geppō 587–588, 23–54. Yakushima-chō. 1970–2015. Yakushima tōkei [Yakushima statistics].Yakushima:Yakushima-chō. Yamamura, Takayoshi. 2013. “Kontentsu tsūrizumu no kanōsei to kadai” [Problems and possibilities of contents tourism]. Todōfuken Tenbō 654, 7–12. YWHCC (Yakushima World Heritage Conservation Center). 2016. “Heisei 28-nendo daiikkai Yakushima sangakubu riyō no arikata kentōkai (H28.12.25): kaigi shiryō” [First study group on the way of using the mountainous parts of Yakushima Island in F.Y. 2016 (2016.12.25): Conference material]. www.env.go.jp/park/yakushima/ywhcc/wh/ arikata1.htm (accessed November 1, 2018).

11 FLUIDITY IN RURAL JAPAN How lifestyle migration and social movements contribute to the preservation of traditional ways of life on Iwaishima Shunsuke Takeda

Introduction In recent years, Japan’s government, rural municipalities, and village residents have been paying increasing attention to the importance of domestic migration for the preservation of rural communities. Japanese research differentiates between several kinds of urban-rural migration paths, including “U-turn” (return migration to the hometown) and “I-turn” (migration to rural areas other than the hometown or region of the migrant or his/her parents). “U-turn” migrants are common in rural communities, but in recent years, there have been increasing expectations that “I-turn” migration will lead to the revitalization of rural villages (Akitsu 2009; Yoshino 2009). Odagiri (2014) investigated the participation of in-migrants in communal activities and their roles in the village. Matsumiya (2017) also discussed the social integration of migrants in the rural community and how the administration can act as a bridge between migrants and the original residents. However, these studies largely ignore lifestyle issues. Nagatomo (2015) argued that the appeal of rural living has been renewed by economic globalization and structural changes in the labor market that caused the diversification and fluidization of models for middle class life. This shift was exacerbated by the Great East Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant accident on March 11, 2011. These incidents paralyzed life in Tokyo for several days, and people frightened by the threat of radiation exposure began to question their lifestyle and consider the possibility of moving to a rural community. In general, lifestyle migration is not motivated by economic, occupational, or political concerns but by the pursuit of a better quality of life (Benson and O’Reilly 2009; Nagatomo 2013, 2015). Studies on border-crossing lifestyle migration have been conducted in the fields of anthropology, sociology, and geography (Katō 2009; Mizukami 2007; Nagatomo 2013, 2015; Ono 2007; Sato 2001), but Nagatomo’s

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paper on the cultural practices of traditional performing arts by lifestyle migrants in Ama­chō, Shimane Prefecture is almost the only example of research into domestic lifestyle migration (Nagatomo 2016). These studies analyzed the reasons for and the process of migration, patterns of movement, and migrants’ lifestyles in both their places of origin and destination, pointing out that common motivating factors for relocation include the residential environment, climate, pace of life, education, and other lifestyle-related elements. For “I-turn” migrants, making a living by farming or fishing, cooperating with other residents in the community, and enjoying a natural environment make rural living more attractive than living in an urban area. For migrants, such preferences have a larger significance than economic motivations (Nagatomo 2013: 18–22, 2015: 8–9). Migration as a means for pursuing an idyllic lifestyle in rural areas, fueled by environmentalism as well as nostalgia for the rural landscape (Williams and Hall 2000: 10), has occurred in many developed countries. In some cases, lifestyle migration in Japan is linked to the environmental movement, as cited by Williams and Hall (2000), but studies on “I-turn” migration, which are included in the category of lifestyle migration in Japan, have not investigated these linkages. In contrast, this study discusses the relationship between urban-rural lifestyle migration and social movements in contemporary Japan. In particular, this chapter explores the background and activities of migrants who chose to live on a remote island in Yamaguchi Prefecture and investigates why they decided to migrate, how they have been able to make a living there, and what kind of lifestyle they wish to build in a rural community. Typically, research on lifestyle migration has analyzed the migration process and settlement process separately, and most studies do not examine how they relate to each other (Nagatomo 2013: 24). In order to look more deeply, this chapter analyzes (1) the way each of the migrants moved to a rural village, (2) how the migrants make a living in their destination, (3) how they sought to become recognized as members of the community, and (4) how they have continued to utilize the human relationships and social networks they cultivated before migration. Through analyzing these four perspectives, this chapter suggests that it is necessary for lifestyle migrants not only to enmesh themselves in the social relations of rural communities but also to maintain and utilize the individualized and fluid networks which they cultivated outside the village before migration. It is suggested that liquid modernity, characterized by the demise of traditional social structures (Bauman 2000), does not necessarily challenge the rural community and its lifestyle. Rather, it is entirely possible that liquid modernity will preserve the lifestyle of traditional villages. Researching lifestyle migration presents another challenge. Most studies have assumed that migrants belong to the middle class—for example, retirement-aged migrants with sufficient assets, young people enjoying a working holiday in foreign countries, or students studying abroad—who are relatively wealthy and not motivated to migrate for economic reasons. However, in contemporary Japan it is not

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always the middle class that migrates to villages in search of an ideal lifestyle. Recent trends show that non-regular workers suffering from low wages and long working hours in the city are considering migrating to rural areas. Consequently, this chapter explores lifestyle migration by both the middle class and the non-middle class. The traditional village lifestyle discussed in this chapter may be understood irrespective of globalized, individualized, and liquid modernity. Since the mid-1990s, structural change in Japanese society has resulted in rising flexibility and fluidity in young people’s lives. As a result of globalization, conventional groupings such as companies, labor unions, and local communities have been diminished, and many young individuals are not included among these groups. Under such circumstances, some choose a lifestyle of migration. Furthermore, social movements by conventional groupings have weakened, in contrast to the spread of social movements based on non-organizational and personal networks. As will be described later, migrants’ lifestyles in traditional communities can be preserved by connecting with their individual and fluid membership in social movements. In this sense, the countryside, which seems to have remained traditional, actually shares features of a “global countryside,” according to Woods (2007). Woods argues that hybridity is a main characteristic of a global countryside, where local and extra-local forces fuse to new entities (Woods 2007: 495). In this sense, this chapter argues that global ideas about alternative lifestyles ultimately change local communities. Examining the hybrid foundation of a protest movement on a Japanese island, it tackles the question of how external networks and capital affect the way of life in rural villages.

Case study area and research method This chapter addresses the cases of migrants in their 30s to 50s who moved to Iwaishima, a remote island located in the southeastern part of Yamaguchi Prefecture, west of the Murotsu Peninsula, which protrudes into the Seto Inland Sea. The island is part of Kaminoseki Town, which developed primarily in the fishery and shipping industries. After the Second World War, however, the latter declined due to changing modes of land transportation, and the town gradually became peripheralized (see Kühn 2015). Because the town’s territory includes only small plains that are unsuitable for constructing a large factory, agriculture and fishing have remained the primary industries in Kaminoseki. During the period of high economic growth in the 1960s, many young people left the town after graduating from junior high school, and depopulation and aging advanced in subsequent years. In 1955, the population of Kaminoseki exceeded 12,000 but by 1975 had fallen to less than 7,500. In 2018, the population had further shrunk to 2,800, and people aged 65 or over constituted 56.5 percent of the population. Iwaishima saw a similar population decline: the population was 5,000 in 1955, but by 1975 only 1,500 people remained. In 2018, the population was about 360 people, with 75 percent of residents aged 65 or over.

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To understand the current situation in Kaminoseki and Iwaishima, it is important to consider the pending construction of nuclear power plants by the Chugoku Electric Power Cooperative. Since 1982, a series of mayors, ruling party members, and leaders of the Kaminoseki Chamber of Commerce have all agreed to the construction, expecting to benefit from the economic impact of construction, government subsidies, and contributions from the electric power cooperative. However, some residents oppose the construction due to the risk of nuclear accidents, the generation of radioactive materials, and adverse effects on agriculture and fishing. According to data from the mayoral elections, one-third of the inhabitants oppose the construction of the nuclear power plants. Opposition is particularly strong among residents of Iwaishima, which is located 3.5 kilometers away from the planned construction site in Tanoura District. Residents who opposed the construction formed a group called Kaminoseki Genpatsu ni Hantai-suru Tōmin no Kai (The Association of Islanders Who Oppose the Kaminoseki Nuclear Power Plants, or “Tōmin no Kai” for short) and have maintained a strong anti-construction movement for 37 years. Among the islanders, 90 percent oppose the nuclear power plants.The portion of sea between Iwaishima and Tanoura contains one of the richest fishing grounds in the Seto Inland Sea, which is likely to be destroyed when the warm wastewater discharged from the plants causes the water temperature to rise. Since the 1990s, those who opposed construction have enacted various plans to make a living without the nuclear power plants. For example, women who belong to the fishers’ cooperative association started to process and sell fish products like octopus, seaweed, and red snapper, which in Japan is regarded as a premium fish, directly to urban consumers. The farmers began producing pesticide-free loquat fruit and tea made from loquat leaves. These products are sold to consumers in urban areas who are concerned about environmental issues and health (Yamato 2013: 34). Residents believe that the construction of the nuclear power plants must be stopped not only for themselves but for the consumers of their products as well. Since 2009, when the electric power company began the landfill of the planned site of the power plants, protest activities organized by residents have also become popular among many anti-nuclear activists off the island. In an attempt to resist the project, residents posted their boats at the site by dropping anchor. Many antinuclear activists off the island disseminated information about the residents’ resistance through blogs, YouTube, and Twitter. In addition, two documentary films covered the opposition movement and the lifestyle of residents, and activists raised funds for residents at the screening. Some activists stayed in contact with each other on social networking services (SNS) and coordinated with residents, participating in the resistance at the planned site for two years. After the Great East Japan Earthquake and subsequent Fukushima nuclear accident, the Yamaguchi prefectural governor requested the Chugoku Electric Power Cooperative to stop construction of the landfill, which remains suspended to this day.

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After the accident, many newspapers and TV programs reported that Iwaishima residents had opposed the construction of nuclear power plants for 30 years. As a result, the residents’ movement and activities became widely known to individuals interested in Japan’s environmental issues. In particular, they were interested in the residents’ ideal of being “the island without nuclear power plants” and their plans to revitalize the island’s fishing and agriculture industries based on their traditional lifestyle. As a result, migrants sympathetic to the residents’ lifestyle have increased since 2011: about 30 out of the 370 residents can be considered lifestyle migrants. I interviewed 22 residents and ten lifestyle migrants about the anti-nuclear movement, community activities such as traditional festivals, and the social integration of lifestyle migrants. In 2012 and 2016, I participated in preparations for and the execution of the Kanmai festival. Kanmai is a traditional communal festival that is held once every four years and regarded as the most important communal event for Iwaishima residents. Through Kanmai, people reaffirm their identity as members of their village. It is telling that the ten percent of residents who favor the construction of the nuclear power plants did not participate in the festival. In addition, I interviewed Arai, the president of the neighborhood association ( jichikai); Harada, the president of Tōmin no Kai; Kurimoto, the vice president; and Takahara, the owner of a private lodge who acts as an intermediary between islanders and activists off the island. All three serve as mediators between residents and migrants and play an important role in helping migrants adapt to the community. Between 2016 and 2018, I also interviewed ten migrants about when and why they moved to Iwaishima, how they obtained housing, how they make a living, the extent to which they participate in community activities, and the difficulties they encountered in adapting to the village lifestyle.

Motives and processes leading to migration As mentioned earlier, lifestyle migration to Iwaishima is closely linked to the residents’ anti-nuclear movement and their ideal of creating an island that does not rely on nuclear power plants. When residents were blocking the reclamation of the planned construction site on the sea, young activists from other locations started using kayaks to engage in acts that interfered with the reclamation as well. Because they used YouTube and Twitter to document the opposition movements’ activities, young activists from all over the country learned about the situation in Iwaishima, and some joined the opposition movement (Yamaaki 2012). Thanks to the residents, the activists were able to rent homes and live on the island. Until the 2000s, the anti-nuclear entities with which the residents collaborated were political in nature, such as the Socialist Party and the Communist Party, labor unions, and anti-nuclear-power groups organized primarily by homemakers. The young activists, however, did not belong to any organizations, so, for the first time, the residents’ interactions with activists occurred outside the umbrella of organized campaigns. Moreover, until then residents had rarely encountered young people who did not have roots on the island. As a result of this new collaboration, residents

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now look favorably not only on the activists themselves but also on other young visitors who oppose nuclear power plants. These experiences formed the basis for the residents’ acceptance of the increasing number of lifestyle migrants. However, the residents seem to accept only those migrants who oppose the construction of nuclear power plants. According to Kurimoto, “To be clear, we can’t accept anyone who is not interested in nuclear power plants or who promotes them. To those who don’t care about this problem, we say clearly that we do not care about them.” The residents also believe that the recent increase in migrants is due to the migrants’ critical opinions about nuclear power plants and sympathy with the residents’ activities. Arai says, I think that the reason why people migrate here is that they have sympathies with our opposition movement. They are probably coming here after watching such films as Houri no shima by Hanabusa-san and Mitsubachi no haoto to chikyū no kaiten by Kamanaka-san. Most of them agree with our opposition movement.

Migration triggered by participation in the opposition movement In the following, I will discuss how and why immigrants decided to migrate. Among the migrants, Eguchi (20s), Fujita (30s) and his wife (30s) with their two children, and Handa (40s) and his wife (40s) with their two children were all motivated to move to the island by their participation in the anti-power-plant movement. They did not have any blood or regional ties with the village prior to migrating. Eguchi entered university in Tokyo in 2009 but dropped out after half a year. He was interested in various social issues he investigated and read about on the internet. He learned about the island at a social movement event in Tokyo opposing the construction of nuclear power plants. Before this, he had never participated in a social movement, but he asked a lecturer at the event to take him to Iwaishima. For two years, Eguchi participated in preventing landfills from being built. At first he lived in a tent, but after the residents came to trust him, they offered him meals and lodging. His other expenses were covered by donations to the Iwaishima protest campaign from around the country. When the construction project was canceled due to the Great East Japan Earthquake, Eguchi decided to migrate to Iwaishima based on the residents’ recommendations. He asked his girlfriend (now his wife) and his parents, who lived in Tokyo, to join him. Currently, he lives in Iwaishima with his wife and child. Fujita was a musician and played reggae music at clubs in Tokyo and Nagoya where social movement events often took place. He became familiar with the ecology activists he met there and took part in some social movement activities. He has been involved in the movement against nuclear power plants in Kaminoseki since 2008 and has visited the island many times to become acquainted with Takahara. During the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological

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Diversity, held in Nagoya in 2010, Fujita walked from Iwaishima to Nagoya and, with other activists, conducted a campaign against the construction of nuclear power plants in Kaminoseki. In February 2011, he and his wife participated in a protest in Iwaishima for three weeks. During that time, he became familiar with the central members of the opposition movement, including Arai, Harada, and Kurimoto. After the earthquake, he worked in various trades: as a carpenter, as a plumber, and as a farmer in a village in Yamaguchi Prefecture. At one point he opened a donut stall at a village festival, and the customers greatly enjoyed his donuts. At his friends’ recommendation, Fujita and his wife decided to run a local donut shop, but he soon became extremely busy with work and could not afford to fall ill. He was also dissatisfied at being unable to spend enough time with his wife and children, and when he and his wife began to discuss quitting their jobs and relocating, Takahara proposed that they move to Iwaishima. Handa was a musician who worked throughout western Japan. When his travels brought him to a bar in the city of Hiroshima, activists from the anti-nuclear movement told him about Iwaishima. He was shocked to see YouTube videos of the violence used by the government and electric power cooperative against residents during the landfill protests. Along with other activists, he went on to obstruct construction of the landfill. After work was suspended, he resumed his work in music. He married his girlfriend, who had worked alongside him to prevent the landfill, and together they opened a café that sold agricultural and marine products from Iwaishima. In 2012, they decided to become more actively involved in the opposition movement in Iwaishima and moved to the island with their children. The Kumazawas, a married couple, moved to Iwaishima in 2010. Their story is similar to that of the Handas. As Mr. Kumazawa performed at music clubs throughout Japan, the couple met many environmental activists and learned about the island’s anti-nuclear movement. Before they moved to the island, they became friends with the Fujita family through their musical activities.They were also experienced and knowledgeable about farming and dietary requirements and made connections with numerous vegans and environmental activists. There were three types of representative anti-nuclear movements in Japan after the Second World War: residents’ movements at the site of the nuclear power plants, left-wing union movements, and co-op movements by homemakers concerned about children’s health (Machimura and Satō 2016). None of the people listed earlier are in any way associated with these types of organized movements, as they are not members of local communities or organizations like companies or coops. These migrants moved from place to place while pursuing activities in music and social activism. They learned about the situation in Iwaishima in urban cafés, bars, and music clubs where like-minded people gave speeches about nuclear and environmental issues. In addition, activists’ live YouTube broadcasts also had a big impact on this group of migrants and created opportunities to gather and engage in networking on the island. They are committed not to organizational movements but to those that are place-based. The careers of these migrants bring to mind McDonald’s (2002) concept of “experiential movements.” He insisted that social movements in contemporary

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society where individualization and fluidization have progressed are based not on collective identities or organizations but on the sharing of experiences through communication in a limited space—such as physical communication that takes on a rhythm through music—and communication in limited spaces where people gather to watch movies and plays. The activists who participated in preventing the landfills met in places like cafés or nightclubs and shared music activities, antinuclear events, and YouTube videos.Through such experiences, they made contacts on Iwaishima and joined in the anti-nuclear movement. As McDonald discussed, their activities were based on their shared experiences; therefore, this is a typical example of a movement in an individualistic and fluid contemporary society.

Migration to a rural lifestyle While some migrants moved to Iwaishima because of their direct involvement in the power plant opposition movement, another type of migrant came in search of rural life in a nature-rich environment. The main trigger for this type of migration was the Great East Japan Earthquake and the nuclear accident that followed. In February 2012, Mr. and Mrs. Matsumoto, both in their 50s, migrated with their daughters from Sendai City in Miyagi Prefecture, which was heavily impacted by the earthquake. Both had been born there, and they have no relatives in Iwaishima. After graduating from university, Mr. Matsumoto worked as an engineer for a major company but suffered from overwork and poor personal relationships. He became depressed and wanted to retire early. The Matsumotos were not directly affected by the earthquake but found themselves uneasy about urban life and wanted to move to a rural area rich in nature. Around that time, Mrs. Matsumoto watched a news program about Iwaishima and sympathized with the residents’ lifestyle. As her husband already wanted to quit his job, they decided to move. The Nakais, both in their 50s, migrated in 2012 with their three children. They previously operated a coffee shop in Sapporo, Hokkaido, but felt uneasy about the earthquake and the nuclear accident. As they began to consider migrating to the countryside, they became aware of the island through news reports and documentary films. After meeting and consulting with Arai, they decided to move. Lifestyle migrants often belong to the economically privileged middle class, but of the Iwaishima migrants only the latter two families can be considered middle class. Unlike the previously mentioned migrants, those mentioned next have blood ties to the island. Ono (30s) was born in nearby Hiroshima, a city with a population of over one million. His mother was born in Iwaishima, and she often took him to the island during summer vacation. After Ono experienced the earthquake and nuclear accident, he decided he could no longer live in Tokyo. His mother had returned to the island, where she ran a cafeteria, and Ono had known Iwaishima well since he was a boy. He eventually migrated to the island in 2011. Kuno migrated from Hokkaido to Iwaishima because his father was born in and later returned to Iwaishima. Kuno, who was employed at an airport in Hokkaido, worked long hours and had difficulties with workplace relationships. His father, who ran a farm in Iwaishima, advised him to move. Suzuki’s

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mother was also born in Iwaishima and often visited her hometown during summer vacation. Over the years he gained a variety of professional experience as a carpenter, construction laborer, and photographer for wedding halls and hotels. These migrants considered leaving a busy and expensive lifestyle in an urban area in search of a more leisurely life and an environment surrounded by nature. Since the economic globalization of the late 1990s, employment in Japan has been fluid. The number of permanent full-time employees in Japanese companies has decreased, while the number of young people engaged in low-paid, non-regular employment has grown.Young workers have gradually become less loyal to or less aware of being part of their companies and are now less hesitant to quit their jobs. The diversification of individual life choices has led some people to choose migration to rural areas. This was the case for Mr. Fujita, Mr. Handa, Ono, Kuno, and Suzuki, who used to work in non-regular jobs in an urban setting but then decided to migrate to the island. For these migrants, urban life is meaningless. According to Ono, Even if you find a job and work hard in an urban area, paying your mortgage or rent takes almost all of your pay. Even though you have neither money nor time to play, there are only temptations around you. This kind of life is so boring. Some migrants believe that the economic divide between classes will further widen and the urban poor will become even poorer. In addition, low wages, long working hours, and the feeling of being underappreciated are factors that make working in an urban area undesirable for many migrants. Kuno says, “I worked at the airport as an inspector of luggage. I often took claims from customers. They never appreciated me. There would be no effect if I quit the company, so it was a meaningless job.” They feel that through life in the countryside, rather than in urban centers, they can discover their value and purpose in life. Ono says, I am like a president here. I can work when I want to. In addition, if I have completed the work properly, the residents appreciate it. If my work is not good, it will be criticized directly by those around me. This kind of a life is worthwhile. That’s why rural life is attractive to me. In addition, Kuno insists, Even when I help someone just a little bit, he or she is very grateful to me. I can make myself believe that I am very much needed by residents around me. I prefer to be important in a small community, rather than being a cog in a large organization.

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Migrants’ livelihood and lifestyle How do the migrants make a living, and how do they participate in village activities and spend their leisure time? The migrants’ jobs can be divided into the following four main types: (1) primary industries such as agriculture and fisheries, (2) construction and manufacturing professions such as carpentry and plastering, (3) works related to the island’s infrastructure, and (4) service industries on and off the island. With regard to (1), when migrants start farming and fishing in earnest, they need mentors who can teach them. The core members of the movement against nuclear power plants often act as such mentors for migrants. Three-quarters of the population are elderly and many are soon to retire. They are supportive of the migrants, who they believe can help take care of them. The migrants are the primary source of labor and also participate in the opposition movement. Immediately after Eguchi moved, farmer women hired him to teach him how to make tea from loquat leaves, Iwaishima’s specialty. A female fisher also instructed him on how to collect and process hijiki seaweed, and he gained experience by working for her part time. Now he and his family are processing and selling loquat tea and hijiki independently and earning enough money to live. Fishers taught many migrants how to collect and process hijiki, enabling them to start working on Iwaishima. Mr. Handa, Mr. Kumazawa, Ono, and Kuno followed a similar path. In addition, Eguchi, Ono, and Mr. Kumazawa also collect, process, and sell other types of seaweed, such as wakame and tengusa. Some migrants gained experience in (2), carpentry and plastering, prior to migrating, including Mr. Fujita, Ono, and Suzuki. Kurimoto taught carpentry skills to other migrants, such as Eguchi, who had no previous experience. Now Eguchi earns income by sharing Kurimoto’s work. According to Kurimoto, “Even if he can’t build a whole house, he can often get some work, such as remodeling or repair.” Other carpentry work, such as dismantling vacant houses, is also available. Type (3) refers to the transportation industry, port cargo handling work, water supply management, and waste disposal work. Migrants can earn steady cash income in these jobs. For example, Mr. Handa worked as a garbage collector and earned ¥30,000 a month. Ono works as a water supply manager. Ms. Nakai is in charge of selling ship tickets at the port, and Mr. Matsumoto and Mr. Nakai work as porters. Most of the migrants in jobs (1) are younger than age 40, but those in (3) are over 50 because residents believe it is difficult for migrants in their 50s and older to start a career in farming, fishing, and carpentry. There are various kinds of jobs in (4), service industries.The most successful case is the management of coffee shops by Mrs. and Mr. Nakai. Based on their previous experience running coffee shops in Hokkaido, they brought coffee roasters when they migrated and earn income through mail order sales of coffee beans. In 2015 they opened a coffee shop and now earn a steady flow of cash income from residents, tourists, and visiting activists. Ms. Matsumoto bakes bread and sells it to the elderly. In addition, she became qualified as a care worker for the elderly.

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Some migrants earn their income off the island. Since Mr. Fujita already had experience in managing a donut shop, he opened a stall to sell donuts at events taking place in Yamaguchi or Hiroshima Prefecture. Suzuki earns ¥500,000 to ¥600,000 by working as a photographer several times a year off the island. In the future, he also hopes to sell premium fish such as red snapper directly to luxury hotels and restaurants without passing through wholesale channels. Migrants earn cash by combining a number of these tasks, but their income is by no means substantial. Even if both husband and wife earn, it is common that the household income is less than ¥1,000,000 (or $10,000) a year as a whole on Iwaishima. The median household annual income in Japan is ¥4,000,000. Migrants to Iwaishima are able to survive simply because their daily living costs are extremely low. As for housing, the rent is either nonexistent or, at most, ¥5,000 ($50) per month.This is because Arai, the president of the neighborhood association, together with Mr. Harada and Kurimoto, who are the core members of Tōmin no Kai, mediated between migrants and the owners of vacant houses to negotiate a low rent. Inexpensive rent is one of the most important factors enabling migrants to live on Iwaishima. As further assistance, core members of the opposition movement and migrants who arrived earlier often give new migrants vegetables and seafood they have harvested at their own home, particularly immediately after the migrants’ arrival. Mr. Fujita says, “We get a lot of vegetables and other food from the residents—for example, fish, daikon (radish), and hijiki. Thanks to them, we can save a lot in terms of the cost of living.” There is a reciprocal and non-monetary economy based on close and strong relationships among the residents, who exchange crops, fish, and seaweed on a daily basis. Migrants can live cheaply if they take part in this relationship. If the residents find the migrants helpful, they will be given food like seafood and vegetables. It is wonderful to get food without having to buy it just by kindly helping the elderly. If you help an elderly resident—for example, by replacing a light bulb—he or she will give you food to say thank you.This is the economy and the way of communication in rural areas says Takahara. In this way, the migrants can create a life in which housing and food expenses are minimal, keeping the cost of living very low. As Suzuki says, “On this island, if we earn a minimum of ¥50,000 a month, we can live well, including mobile phone charges, electric bills, water bills, and gas costs. We don’t have high food expenses.” However, the residents emphasize that it is necessary for the migrants to involve themselves in the village’s traditional lifestyle in order to create such effective bonds with the residents. Takahara says, The most difficult thing for a migrant are the close relationships on the island. There is no privacy. For example, everyone knows when someone is

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late to get up in the morning and warns him. Those who find it bothersome cannot live here. According to Kurimoto, On remote islands like here, everyone lives in close relationship to others, like in a family. The idea of “mind your own business” isn’t accepted here. The migrants need to accept that there is no privacy. Otherwise they will find it hard to live here. So far, about 30 migrants have left the island because they could not grow accustomed to this dynamic and found it difficult to form effective bonds with the residents. It is also important for the migrants to participate in communal activities and demonstrate that they are trying to contribute to the village. Communal activities include firefighting training, beach cleaning, road maintenance, participating in the movement opposing nuclear power plants, and the traditional Kanmai festival, which symbolizes the residents’ unity. In addition, the migrants need to work hard as part of the labor force. “The migrants must participate in events that all residents cooperate in,” says Harada. In order for the migrants to remain in the village, residents must view them as being useful, like the Nakai family, who opened a coffee shop. According to Kurimoto, “Their shop contributes to our island as an important industry. Thanks to them, not only residents but also tourists can spend a relaxing time at the shop. And also they are steady and reliable.” But if new migrants have no means of making a living, Kurimoto says, “We have to take care of them. They will be our burden.” Migrants who learn the techniques of agriculture, fishing, carpentry, etc. are thus able to help local residents while also earning a living. According to one migrant, While communicating with the residents, they try to teach young people like me various jobs and show how I can make my own mark on this island. They encourage me by saying, “Let’s do this work in the field” or “Let’s work in the sea” and tell me how to pick hijiki or how to make tea from loquat leaves. For example, residents taught Eguchi, who lacked skills and training, the techniques of carpentry and hijiki picking. This enabled him to contribute to his community and earn a living.

Migrants supported by activist networks outside the island In Iwaishima, migrants who can participate in a reciprocal and non-monetary economy based on close and strong relationships can survive with less cash income.

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However, couples who have children need a higher income for educational expenses. Moreover, a growing availability of work would result in an increase in the number of return and lifestyle migrants. Expecting such a future, migrants and residents are working together to expand their business so that the migrants can continue earning income. In contemporary Japan, it is difficult to earn a living through agriculture and fishing alone. Kurimoto, who returned to the island in the 1990s and has worked in carpentry and fishing, says, “It is tough to make a living as a fisher because the price of the fish goes down and the costs of fuel and so on go up. It’s impossible.” In fact, according to Suzuki, although red snapper is known as an expensive fish in Japan, fishers can sell it for only ¥300 per kilogram through the fishery cooperative in Kaminoseki. The number of fishers is decreasing sharply, because the more they fish, the larger their deficit grows. Suzuki aims to add more value through branding red snapper from Iwaishima and selling it directly by internet mail order. In order to do so, he must be able to secure a fixed amount of the fish regularly, but this is difficult because there are fewer fishers than in the past. Many marine resources such as fish and seaweed abound around the island, but the declining workforce makes it increasingly difficult to harvest the available resources. Through what sales channels, then, are the migrants selling agricultural products and seafood from the island? In this regard, the networks they established through their music and participation in social movements outside Iwaishima are important. After settling in Iwaishima, they still sometimes leave the island to perform music and maintain contact with the musicians and environmental activists they became close to before migrating. For example, Mr. and Mrs. Kumazawa, who collect and process seaweed, developed sales channels off the island. Before they moved to Iwaishima, through their music and environmental activities they made numerous connections with vegetarians, vegans, and established dealers who specialized in selling vegan products. Now, they sell seaweed to these contacts, and word of the high quality of their products has spread. Mr. Handa and his mother also sell agricultural products and seafood through their environmentalist network, and their network off the island is important for finding and selling the island’s products as new resources. For example, Eguchi says, “I was told that honey from loquat flowers is expensive and considered valuable among pastry chefs. The more acquaintances I have, the more information they share. They give me hints about what kind of goods people need.” Thus, the migrants’ networks play an important role in market development and discovering new island resources. Such networks do not have to be large, and a substantial cash income is not necessary for life on Iwaishima. Moreover, since the current labor force cannot supply consistent and large quantities of products to consumers, selling through these small networks is more logical. The guesthouse managed by Takahara, where outsiders interested in Iwaishima can stay at a low cost, plays an important role as a base for creating this type of network. Eguchi, the Fujitas, the Handas, and the Kumazawas all met Takahara and stayed in his guesthouse many times before they settled on Iwaishima. He serves as

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a gatekeeper for migrants who move to the island, providing guidance on how to get involved in the community. Many environmental activists and writers find Takahara’s guesthouse through recommendations by migrants and other activists. When visitors arrive, Takahara, Harada, and Kurimoto explain the island’s anti-nuclear movement and revitalization activities. “My home is where people stay and visit,” says Takahara. They send out information about the island. It’s like the center of a spider web. The network created in this house will automatically spread out and connect outside the island. It consists of very complex networks, and no one can know their full extent. In this way, the information and networks mediated by Iwaishima expand. The activists who gained knowledge from Takahara, Harada, and Kurimoto hold various events and screenings of documentary films at Iwaishima’s cafés, bars, and music clubs, often selling products made by the migrants during these events. Takahara mediates for migrants who want to partner with activists to sell goods off the island, shipping goods on the migrants’ behalf. In addition, he sometimes appears at events to promote the products and explain the opposition movement and migrant activities. Because he earns sufficient income through his guesthouse, he carries out these shipping and mediation services at no charge to the migrants.

Conclusion This chapter has explored many of the experiences of lifestyle migrants, focusing on four aspects of their relationships and the migratory process: why they migrated, how they make a living in traditional villages, how they adapt to the village community, and how they continue participating in their former social network after migration. Most of the migrants discussed in this chapter are not part of the well-off middle class that was the focus of previous studies. Some are non-regular employees and self-employed workers from urban areas who have made do with low salaries and long work hours, and others are activists/musicians who did not belong to any organization or community before migration. All of the migrants discussed here were outliers of typical modern group structures like companies, labor unions, and local village communities. Unlike traditional social movements, where labor unions and full-time homemakers were the main players, there has been an increase in smaller, individualized movements not rooted in collective identity. The migrants introduced in this chapter chose their lifestyles in such individualized and fluid contemporary settings. As these individuals migrate to villages, traditional communities can gain successors and survive. However, this does not mean that contemporary individuals have simply been integrated into traditional communities. On the surface, these migrants may seem to have integrated into the traditional fishing village community: they work in

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farming and fishing, live in a reciprocal and non-monetary economy, and participate in traditional community events. However, what makes this lifestyle possible for them is their personal network, cultivated through participating in anti-nuclear and music activities at cafés, bars, and music clubs. To make a living on Iwaishima, the migrants need both community ties and access to networks created through global social movements. Through the former, they are able to successfully participate in traditional village communities and reciprocal non-monetary economic relationships that keep food and housing expenses low.The latter enables them to earn enough income to meet their modest needs. That is, traditional village communities are compatible with and maintained through individualized and fluid social networks. This chapter has shown that individualization and fluidization in contemporary society do not necessarily result in the destruction of traditional communities but, to the contrary, actually enable their survival and legacy. However, the village itself does not remain unchanged. It became clear that both new and old networks play an important role in the migrants’ livelihoods. When new residents arrive from different parts of the country, they introduce new ideas and networks to the local population. Even though adapting to local traditions is considered important, maintaining connections to former friends outside the village helps the new arrivals secure their livelihood even as they fulfill their desire to live on the island. As a result, old and new residents with a variety of professions, lifestyles, family types, networks, and motivations to live on Iwaishima can work together to stop the construction of nearby nuclear power plants. Situated in the periphery of Yamaguchi Prefecture, the region is a complex area that is simultaneously subject to processes of peripheralization even as a hybrid network of people challenges the construction of power plants designed to meet the high demand for energy in Japanese cities. On the other hand, these people themselves are influenced by global lifestyle trends such as migration out of city centers. Although multinational enterprises and foreign tourists do not influence Iwaishima directly, this study demonstrates that the island is nevertheless subject to many of the changes taking place in what Woods understands as the global countryside.

Acknowledgments The research conducted for this chapter was generously supported by the Toyota Foundation, the Mitsubishi Foundation and Inamori Foundation.

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Katō, Etsuko. 2009. Jibun sagashi no imin-tachi: Kanada, Bankūbā, samayou Nihon no wakamono [Immigrants searching for self: Wandering young Japanese in Vancouver, Canada]. Tokyo: Sairyūsha. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Machimura, Takashi, and Keiichi Satō. 2016. Datsu genpatsu o mezasu shimin katsudō: 3.11 shakai undō no shakaigaku [Citizens taking action for a nuclear-free society: A sociology of social movements after 3.11]. Tokyo: Shin’yōsha. Matsumiya, Ashita. 2017. “I-tān ijūsha, shūraku shien’in ni yoru ‘kyōryoku’-gata shūraku katsudō” [‘Cooperation’-type hamlet activities by I-turn migrants and hamlet supporters]. Nenpō Sonraku Shakai Kenkyū 53, 143–173. McDonald, Kevin. 2002. “From solidarity to fluidarity. Social movements beyond ‘collective identity’: The case of globalization conflicts.” Social Movement Studies 1 (2), 109–128. Mizukami, Tetsuo. 2007. The sojourner community: Japanese migration and residency in Australia. Leiden: Brill. Nagatomo, Jun. 2013. Nihon shakai o “nogareru”: Ōsutoraria e no raibusutairu ijū [Escape from Japanese society: Lifestyle migration to Australia]. Tokyo: Sairyūsha. ———. 2015. Migration as transnational leisure:The Japanese lifestyle migrants in Australia. Leiden and Boston: Brill. ———. 2016. “Cultural practices of traditional performing arts by lifestyle migrants in Amachō, Oki Islands, Japan: Identity politics and cultural practices of I-turn migrants as ‘middlemen’.” Kwansei Gakuin Daigaku Kokusaigaku Kenkyū 5 (1), 5–17. Odagiri, Tokumi. 2014. Nōsanson wa shōmetsu shinai [Farming and mountain villages do not disappear]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Ono, Mayumi. 2007. “Rongu sutei tsūrizumu: dai-ni no jinsei wa kaigai de” [Long-stay tourism: Second life is abroad]. Shinji Yamashita (ed.), Kankō bunkagaku [Tourism cultural studies], 145–150. Tokyo: Shin’yōsha. Sato, Machiko. 2001. Farewell to Nippon: Lifestyle migrants in Australia. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press. Williams, Allan, and Colin Michael Hall. 2000. “Tourism and migration: New relationships between production and consumption.” Tourism Geographies 2 (1), 5–27. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507. Yamaaki, Shin. 2012. Genpatsu o tsukurasenai hitobito: Iwaishima kara mirai e [People who stop the construction of nuclear power plants: View the future from Iwaishima]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yamato, Sadao. 2013. Iwaishima no tatakai: Kaminoseki genpatsu hantai undō-shi [The struggle by the residents in Iwaishima: The history of the opposition movement against the construction of the Kaminoseki power plants]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yoshino, Hideki. 2009. “Shūraku no saisei o meguru ronten to kadai” [Issues and problems concerning the renovation of Japan’s rural hamlets]. Nenpō Sonraku Shakai Kenkyū 45, 11–44.

12 NAI MONO WA NAI— CHALLENGING AND SUBVERTING RURAL PERIPHERALIZATION? Decline and revival in a remote island town Ludgera Lewerich

Introduction In 2014, Prime Minister Abe Shinzō addressed the National Diet joint session on “chihō sōsei,” his cabinet’s new policy promoting regional revitalization, also referred to as “local Abenomics.” In his speech, Abe mentioned the remote island town of Ama in Shimane Prefecture, referencing the town’s tongue-in-cheek slogan “nai mono wa nai”—meaning “nonexistent” but also translatable as “there is nothing we don’t have.” The slogan, Abe explained, is based on the idea that while the island may lack the amenities of bigger cities, it already has everything it needs for moving into the future. The prime minister asserted that small towns throughout Japan should not seek to emulate metropolitan areas but, instead, to adopt Ama’s way of thinking. He continued by praising Ama’s success—aided by young newcomers to the island—in branding local products like sazae karē, a Japanese-style curry with horned turban, a sea snail species. These young people, Abe went on to say, are the key to facing local challenges and solving rural Japan’s problems (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet 2014). The prime minister’s speech seems to assert the empowerment of the regions to decide for themselves. In fact, current academic literature concurs that the effective use of local resources and autonomy in decision-making are crucial for successful revitalization politics (Matanle et al. 2011; Ray 2006; Stimson et al. 2011). However, local Abenomics has hardly been considered a success to date, partly because national funding is still tied to restrictive rules for local governments ( Japan Times 2016, 2018) and partly because the majority of decisions are still made at the national or prefectural level. This is not to say that regions are entirely powerless and have no say in decision-making. Certain challenges to the image of the downtrodden region point to a more complex picture of disparity beyond the center-periphery dichotomy (Lützeler 2016) and to other important factors that

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(rural) regions enjoy, such as better overall well-being and happiness (Manzenreiter 2016). A number of previous studies have investigated local revitalization strategies, including John Knight’s (1994) research on Honga in Wakayama, which showed the importance of local grassroots movements in village revival; Peter Matanle’s (2006) work on cultural and natural resources used for revitalization on Sado Island in Niigata; Cornelia Reiher’s (2014) volume on a ceramics revival in Arita in Kumamoto; Anthony Rausch’s (2009a, 2009b) research on branding; and Susanne Klien’s (2016) fieldwork in Ishinomaki, which discussed the innovative potential of volunteers and in-migrants. My case study is conceptualized to complement and continue previous work on local responses to the challenges of population downturn and economic decline, adding diverse local answers to a national—and, indeed, global—issue. This chapter thus aims to illuminate Ama’s approach for achieving local revitalization, ways the town negotiates local autonomy in the face of continuing dependency on outside funding, and the role of in-migrants in Ama’s ongoing efforts. Urban-rural migration, often discussed as “amenity migration” (Gosnell and Abrams 2009) or “lifestyle migration” (Benson and O’Reilly 2009), has gained increasing attention in other post-industrial societies. In Japan, where rural in-migration is commonly referred to as J-turn or I-turn migration, such population flows are particularly salient in assessing the sustainability of regions hampered by old age and population shrinkage. I begin with a brief summary of peripheralization and de-peripheralization and highlight what is considered essential for successful local revival. After providing an overview of previous and current strategies for rural development in Japan, I then sketch the history of Ama’s efforts to stabilize its population and revitalize its economy. Drawing on fieldwork I conducted in Ama in 2016, I reflect on the role urban-rural in-migrants have played and continue to play, as well as their motivations for moving to the island. In closing, I return to the theory of peripheralization and reflect on the rural revitalization of Ama in terms of autonomy and heteronomy, including a review of possibilities and limits. This chapter is based on document collection, participant observation, informal unrecorded talks, and recorded qualitative as well as expert interviews I carried out in Ama in May 2016.

Peripheralization: explaining processes of shrinkage and decline Japan’s rural regions have largely become economically weak and marginal, suffering from out-migration and subsequent shrinkage. These phenomena are not unique to Japan and have also been observed in Europe and North America (Lang et al. 2015). Building on earlier theories of socio-spatial disparities, the concept of peripheralization aims to explain the phenomena of shrinkage and decline by linking them to the processes through which peripheries are made. Instead of focusing on topology—a periphery’s distance from a designated center—peripheralization points to the multi-dimensional, overlapping processes through which areas become peripheralized in economic, political, social, or communicative terms (Kühn 2015:

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369, 374). Four dimensions—out-migration, disconnection, dependence, and stigmatization—have been identified as means of analyzing peripheralization and its outcomes (for a more detailed explanation see Kühn 2016; Kühn and Weck 2013; Leibert and Golinski 2017). Out-migration constitutes a brain drain of working-age individuals who could pursue innovation and renewal in the affected regions (Kühn and Weck 2013: 31). As Leibert and Golinski (2017: 260) point out, rural areas often lack access to higher education and thus rely on out-migration for “the acquisition of the skills and knowledge necessary to participate in the economic regeneration of rural regions, as institutions of higher education are mostly urban based.” Insufficient reverse migration becomes problematic for these regions (Kühn and Weck 2013: 31). Disconnection refers to an overall degradation of infrastructure and public facilities, cuts in social welfare, neglect of public spaces, and decreasing public transport options. Insufficient innovativeness and opportunity in higher education is especially problematic, as is inadequate access to economic and political processes (Kühn and Weck 2013: 33–34; Leibert and Golinski 2017: 261). Dependence looks at the imbalance of local autonomy and outside heteronomy (Kühn and Weck 2013: 36–37). Because economic and political power is mostly based in state capitals, centers of decisionmaking are largely situated outside of peripheralized regions—both in terms of influence and locality (Kühn and Weck 2012: 8; Leibert and Golinski 2017: 262). This correlates to an increasing reliance on allocated tax grants, subsidies, and structural reform programs due to limited local tax-raising capabilities (Kühn and Weck 2013: 37). Finally, stigmatization points to the fact that “center and periphery are not constituted structurally but emerge discursively” (Lang 2012: 1751). Accordingly, it is important to examine how certain regions are portrayed as peripheralized and what attributes they are assigned in media and political discourse. Regions experiencing population loss and economic decline are often described in highly dramatic, negative terms, which may turn away potential investors, tourists, and return and in-migrants (Kühn 2017: 63).

De-peripheralization and endogenous rural development What can be done to counter these processes of peripheralization? While there are few case studies to date, the literature on de-peripheralization emphasizes a focus on largely endogenous rural development, shifting from intervention strategies designed by central authorities (exogenous development) that often tackle a single (economic, demographic, or political) issue in isolation instead of looking to solutions derived in and through the regions (Ray 2006: 278). Because the causes of peripheralization are inter-connected, they should be addressed holistically. Commonly cited features of successful locally focused, bottom-up endogenous developments include strong local political leadership (Kühn 2016: 34; Stimson et al. 2011: 5) and active citizenship and volunteers (Leibert and Golinski 2017: 277), partnerships between public bodies and private businesses (Ray 2006: 286), the

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introduction of new knowledge and innovation (Kühn and Weck 2013: 42; Stimson et al. 2011: 8), and new infrastructure and networks that reach beyond the region (Kühn 2016: 43). Finally, the focus should be on locally available resources, local decision-making, and local control over the processes of revitalization (Ray 2006: 279;Vanclay 2011: 60, 66). Regions should have the autonomy and decisionmaking power to either utilize available resources or bring in innovation, but they usually lack the financial capabilities to do so. De-peripheralization thus must be supported by state agencies, which should help stimulate local potential by taking action as closely as possible with the concerned areas (Kühn and Weck 2012: 17; Vanclay 2011: 61).

Saving the regions? Exogenous and endogenous approaches of rural revitalization in Japan While recent research considers local autonomy and mostly endogenous development as a promising strategy for successful de-peripheralization, this has not always been the case. In Japan and elsewhere, regional development that focused on large infrastructure projects was once seen as the key to bringing modernization and a better life to the rural hinterland (Matanle et al. 2011: 234–235). As centralization resulted in a massive accumulation of industry and population in the Pacific Belt between Tokyo and northern Kyushu during and following rapid economic growth, it became evident that wealth was not spreading equally to areas outside the rapidly developing core regions (Matanle et al. 2011: 85). Politics at the time thus focused on regional redistribution, with the goal of increased productivity (Chiavacci 2017). In the 1950s, a local distribution tax (chihō kōfuzei) was implemented for this purpose, and local municipalities were encouraged to utilize it for public works spending (Matanle et al. 2011: 86). Other efforts included incentivizing industries to relocate from cities to rural regions. However, companies usually kept their headquarters in Tokyo, establishing specialized factories and facilities in outlying areas (Matanle et al. 2011: 88). As a result, local municipalities became dependent on companies that followed directives from centrally located headquarters.The politics of the time did not effectively address factors that accelerated rural shrinkage, such as insufficient employment and inadequate opportunities in higher education (Feldhoff 2009; Matanle et al. 2011). Starting in the 1970s, tourism and the furusato (one’s hometown) boom gave rise to new ideas about rural development. The emphasis on tourism and location or product branding was a shift away from attempting to industrialize and modernize the regions and toward reimagining them as spaces for urban consumption of nostalgia-infused or idyllic landscapes and products (Moon 2002).Yasui (2000: 114) considers this the era of “the furusato up for consumption.” The aim of the 1987 Resort Law was to “revive peripheral regions while at the same time boosting domestic tourism demand” through public-private partnerships. Decisions about which areas should be developed into resorts, however, were largely made on the

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prefectural level and ultimately decided at the national level, often excluding local authorities from the decision-making process (Funck 1999: 333). In many cases, tourism policies failed to consider and address the underlying issues of depopulation and economic decline (Matanle et al. 2011: 262). Building on the furusato-boom and grassroots furusato-zukuri (hometownmaking) movements, then Prime Minister Takeshita Noboru implemented the 1988/89 “Hometown Revitalization Project” (Furusato sōsei jigyō) to help ailing regions. The motto was “regional planning, self-developed and self-implemented.” Every municipality was given ¥100 million to invest as it wished (Yasui 2000: 95). This led to some eccentric outcomes, including a UFO symposium, a lump of gold intended to attract tourists, and the construction of a sand dune (Cooper and Eades 2012: 397; Toyama 1993: 58–59). The policy has since been interpreted as the gambit of a government that no longer knew how to deal with the issues facing regional Japan (Traphagan and Thompson 2006: 14–15). The examples, while extreme, display what can happen when municipalities are left to their own devices in dealing with shrinkage and decline without sufficient knowledge or leadership to plan and implement sound strategies. Evidently, local autonomy is an important but not decisive element of rural revitalization ( Jacob et al. 2008). Aside from these centrally organized strategies, the village revival (mura okoshi) movement developed at a local grassroots level from the 1970s onwards—according to Knight (1994) in reaction to and opposition of centrally decided development plans. Villages sought to both raise their profile and, Moon (2002) argues, find a new local identity in a rapidly urbanizing and industrializing Japan.These grassroots movements demonstrated that local citizens were able and willing to independently tackle the issues facing their villages and utilize locally available resources. Often, they were supported by local, prefectural, and national governments (Knight 1994; Moon 2002). Branding strategies have continued on a national level through local product branding policies (Rausch 2009a, 2009b), including cultural products both tangible (such as the aforementioned crafts) and intangible (such as local festivals and dances) (Lahournat 2016; Thompson 2014). Currently, national development plans remain active, including “local Abenomics” implemented in 2014 and the 2017 “Act on Special Measures Concerning the Preservation of Inhabited National Remote Border Island Areas and Local Communities in Specified Inhabited National Remote Border Island Areas” (Yūjin kokkyō ritō chiiki no hozen oyobi tokutei yūjin kokkyō ritō chiiki ni kakawaru chiiki shakai ni kansuru tokubetsu sochi-hō) (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet 2016; Sōmushō 2017). A few conclusions can be drawn: National development plans and strategies tended to offer only one approach to revitalization and failed to consider local differences and the underlying causes of out-migration.While tourism and local place branding can be viable strategies, they have to be coordinated with local authorities, they must take into account local resources, and they cannot be implemented everywhere. Local agency is important in planning, but failure can result when all decision-making is left to municipalities that may lack the capacity to do so.

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Several case studies demonstrate that local municipalities have shown a willingness to implement their own strategies or have successfully implemented national plans. I will now turn to my case study to investigate how Ama Town navigates the challenges between local autonomy and heteronomy and dependency on third-party funding.

From an island of exile to an island of hope? Decline and resurgence in Ama Town The Oki Islands, located about 60 kilometers off the northwestern coast of Shima­ne Prefecture in the Sea of Japan, include four inhabited islands: Dōgo—the biggest and most populous—and Dōzen, a set of three smaller islets. Ama Town is located on the center of Nakanoshima, one of these three islands, and it is accessible only by ferry. Boat services connect Ama’s Hishiura port with the mainland typically three times a day. A faster and more expensive jet boat takes about two hours, and ferries take between three and four hours. Ferry services are suspended when the sea is rough, which is often the case in winter. From the mainland harbor towns Shichiruikō in Matsue and Sakaiminato in Tottori Prefecture it takes another 40 to 60 minutes by car or bus to reach the prefectural capital, Matsue, from which JR trains or flights from Izumo Airport allow onward travel. Thus, traveling to Ama from outside the prefecture, especially from metropolitan areas like Kansai or Kantō, takes quite some time. The island town is made up of 14 districts. More than 39 percent of residents are 65 years of age or older and only 16 percent are below age 20. There are no convenience stores or large supermarkets, only small local stores that open late and close early. Ama is hilly, and public transport is inadequate. Only two buses a day connect Hishiura port with Saki, the hamlet farthest south on the island, where I lived during my stay. While Ama has one kindergarten, two elementary schools, a junior high school, and a high school, healthcare services are limited:There are only two general practitioners and dentists on the island and, among other peculiarities, no obstetrician (Ama-chō 2018).

Nearly becoming a “second Yu¯bari:” Population downturn and economic loss in Ama While it has become famous for its revitalization efforts, Ama’s story of economic decline and population shrinkage is a familiar one. After a peak population of 6,900 in the 1950s, the 1960s and 1970s saw a population loss of 40 percent. The current population stands at around 2,350, with the decline having slowed somewhat since the 1990s. Fishery and agriculture, which were once the staple of its economy, now employ only 16 and 15.5 percent, respectively, of the working population (Amachō 2018). Geographically peripheral towns such as Ama have difficulty attracting new businesses as the old industries decline (Elis and Lützeler 2009), furthering the town’s economic disconnection. With the rise of white-collar work elsewhere,

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a lack of higher education opportunities ultimately increased population outflow, and the shortage of attractive employment opportunities have hindered sufficient return migration or new in-migration. As a designated depopulated area (kaso chiiki; Sōmushō 2017), Ama also became part of the generally negative discourse about abandoned peripheral regions. In the early 2000s, the town’s already precarious financial situation worsened due to the dwindling working-age population, leading to lower tax revenues and decreasing national subsidies resulting from the overall population decline (Yamauchi 2007: 25–26). The 2004 Trinity Reforms, aimed at trimming central government expenses on behalf of local budgets, resulted in a budget loss of ¥130 million. While the reforms expanded local authorities’ freedom in collecting taxes directly, it did not come close to fully compensating for the subsidy losses resulting from Ama’s weak tax-raising capabilities (Yamauchi 2007: 27). The town was projected to become a “second Yūbari,” a town in Hokkaido that famously had to declare bankruptcy in 2006 and became a “municipality under rehabilitation” (Matanle et al. 2011: 213–215). This same fate would have seen Ama placed under national government control, losing nearly all autonomy and decision-making power. Even this brief summary of Ama’s peripheralization features all four familiar components: out-migration, dependency, disconnection, and stigmatization.

Save the island! Ama’s road to stability Ama attempted to combat economic and population decline, but the 1989 “Second Ama Town Comprehensive Development Plan” (Dai-niji Ama-chō sōgō shinkō keikaku) showed all the signs of largely exogenous efforts focused on public works. Primarily drawn up by consultants, the plan resulted in, among other things, a harbor-side hotel and a new boat for marine tourism. While citizen participation was a stated goal, hearings and surveys amounted to little more than “deciding the town tree and flower” (Ama-chō Shokuin Sōgō 2014; Shimada 2016: 15). When work began on a follow-up development plan, it was decided that public employees would essentially draw up the plan themselves and not unquestioningly follow consultants’ directions again. Any new infrastructure should be of real benefit to the citizens. One result of the third development plan was the Kinnyamonya Center (see Figure 12.1), a wooden multi-purpose building that greets every arrival to the island (the name Kinnyamonya was derived from a local folk song; Shimada 2016: 16). It served as the ferry terminal from the beginning and later became home for parts of the municipality administration—such as departments responsible for tourism and new residents—and for fishery and agriculture. This has made it possible for public employees to greet and interact with visitors and newcomers and to oversee the sale of local products in the integrated shop (Yamauchi 2007: 170–174). The building also houses a souvenir store and a restaurant that serves local food. In the course of formulating the third development plan, a young public employee organized a road trip for 50 local politicians, public employees, and citizens to the towns of Yufuin and Ōyama in Ōita Prefecture and Oguni in Kumamoto

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FIGURE 12.1 

Hishiura port with the Kinnyamonya Center in the background

Source: Photo taken by author.

Prefecture (Shimada 2016: 16). These towns were considered model examples of rural revitalization built upon local resources (Fujimoto 1992). While the tour provided inspiration for innovative ways to combat decline, it also strengthened the relationships among participants. Their determination to change Ama’s situation led them to establish a town-planning group (machi-zukuri dantai). This group met regularly, discussing new rejuvenation methods that strongly influenced the eventual third development plan (Ama-chō Shokuin Sōgō 2014; Shimada 2016: 16–17; Tomisawa 2012: 67–68). Some young public employees from this town-planning group later played an important role in branding local products like oyster and beef and spearheaded the town hall’s efforts to attract newcomers (Shimada 2016: 17). During these early promising developments, Yamauchi Michio, himself a returnee to Ama, became mayor in 2002 and immediately was confronted with the Trinity Reforms, which deeply affected the town’s finances. Over the next few years, he spearheaded administrative and fiscal reforms with a “Plan to Promote Ama’s Independence” (Ama-chō jiritsu sokushin puran). The general focus was on local autonomy and self-responsibility: “protecting our island on our own, building the island’s future by ourselves” (Ama-chō 2015: 2). Instead of relying on government subsidies and grants, action was taken on the local level. To save money that could be invested in new projects, the salary of the highest-ranking town officials

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was cut by 50 percent starting in 2005, and the rest of the town employees saw their salary cut by between 16 and 30 percent. Other measures included ending the seniority-wage system, reducing local government staff, and cutting public works spending (Ama-chō 2015: 2; Shimada 2016: 20). These efforts can be characterized as “small government” and were a typical response to ensure a more efficient, costeffective administration across Japan (Elis 2011: 48). The town also held a number of council meetings with local citizens from each ward, with the goal of apprising them of the dire circumstances, listening to their concerns and gaining their support. More than anything, the dramatic salary cuts for town officials and local politicians are said to have helped citizens understand the urgency of the crisis and the importance of citizen support in curative efforts (Ama-chō 2015; Shimada 2016: 22). During the course of the Great Heisei Mergers, Ama eventually decided against a municipal merger, with the two towns of the neighboring islands, Chibu and Nishinoshima, opting to remain autonomous.

Product branding, new technologies, and education reform According to official town reports, the reforms led to savings that were then invested in various measures promoting the local economy and welfare. Among other things, the reforms established support funds for childbirth and childcare, with the aim of combating the declining birth rate (Ama-chō 2015). The first major investment into new businesses was the Cell Alive System (CAS), a freezing technology for local seafood products that would reportedly improve freshness and taste, resulting in higher seafood sales in Japanese and foreign markets. This resulted in an income increase for local fishers whose products are processed and sold using CAS. The town built the required facilities with national subsidies, municipal bonds, and funds from its own budget, with CAS providing expert knowledge (Shimada 2016: 9; Tomisawa 2012: 69–70). Other such public-private ventures included the branding of wagyū cattle as “Okigyū.” Additional local products have undergone (re)branding under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ (MAFF) policy to develop rural mountain and fishing villages (Ama-chō 2015: 8), such as the Haruka brand iwagaki (rock oyster) or the Abe-endorsed sazae curry. Between 2004 and 2014, the town also built 50 new homes and renovated 45 abandoned houses as part of a policy to attract new citizens. Approximately 22 additional homes were designated for people who want to explore the possibility of living on Ama (Ama-chō 2015). New public facilities have been developed since the mid and late 2000s: a library, a former nursery transformed into a multi-purpose community space (Ama Mare), and a new learning center, intended for the use of local high school students and open to the public (Oki Learning Center). One of Ama’s most famous projects is its high school. In the late 2000s the school faced the threat of closure due to dwindling students and teaching staff (89 and 15 respectively in 2008) resulting from students attending high school outside the island (Ama-chō 2018). The town successfully petitioned the board of education for more teachers, overhauled the curriculum, and urged people to enroll

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their children in the school. Three new subjects were added: career planning (yume zemi), a class for students hoping to attend one of the major universities (tokubetsu shingaku), and a class on the local region (chiiki sōzō) that encourages students first to learn about their environment through excursions around the island and then to come up with solutions for problems in their local community (ODKG 2014; Shimada 2016: 11–12; Tomisawa 2012: 76). Classes on such subjects as career planning utilize information communication technology (ICT) to connect the island to the mainland.They invite professionals to give lectures and conduct exchanges with high school students from the mainland (ODKG 2014). In addition, a shima ryūgaku (island study abroad) program was introduced, establishing a boarding school for students from outside Shimane Prefecture.The municipality provided financial support to these students for expenses related to moving to the island, boarding, and home visits (Shimada 2016: 11). The student population subsequently rose, numbering 179 in 2018—with 85 coming from outside the Oki Islands. The number of teaching staff increased to 35 (Ama-chō 2018). Regional schools all over Japan have since started to emulate Ama’s concept (CKMP n.d.). In an effort toward place branding, in 2011 the town introduced its now famous catchphrase nai mono wa nai, which was developed by young public officials (Amachō 2011). The tongue-in-cheek double meaning of “nonexistent” and “there is nothing we don’t have” proved popular and has become widely known. It is often mentioned in press articles about the island (Asahi Shinbun 2017) and fits well into the town’s general narrative of taking pride in and making the most of what is locally available, turning “handicaps” into “advantages” (Ama-chō 2015; Yamauchi 2007). The outlined efforts demonstrate the importance of locally determined strategies, spearheaded by committed public officials, in Ama’s road to stability. However, a look at the funding also makes clear that many of these efforts were only possible through the tax grants and subsidies Ama receives as a designated depopulated area and remote island. The 2017 Border Island Law, which aims to secure Japan’s maritime territory, acknowledges the Oki Islands as local communities that need to be preserved (Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet 2017). Starting in 2019, measures implemented through the new law will significantly reduce the cost of ferry tickets for local citizens in order to lower transportation expenses and increase mobility (Oki Kisen n.d.; Shimane-ken 2017: 14).

Repopulating the island? Ama’s recruitment of in-migrants As is often the case in depopulated regions, out-migration and a lack of return and in-migration, which would introduce expert knowledge and innovation, have been major issues for Ama. In 1998, the town started an internship program. Interns were given a monthly stipend of ¥150,000 and furnished lodgings at a reduced rate. Contracts were fixed to one year, with the possibility of renewal. Interns were assigned to the city hall and encouraged to start their own business—for example, by further developing and marketing local products. Some public-private partnerships

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developed with the help of these interns, such as a sea cucumber (namako) processing plant, which the town supported through the construction of the factory (partially through municipal bonds), and an herbal tea (fukugi-cha) that is produced in a work center for local citizens with disabilities (Tomisawa 2012: 70–71). Many of the return and in-migrants living in Ama at the time of writing came to the island through programs set up by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) in 2009 and 2010 to help depopulated areas: the “Community Building Support Staff ” (Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai) and the “Village Supporter” (Shūraku shien’in) programs (MIC 2009, 2010). These programs, which deploy recruits to rural areas to work in revitalization projects and tend to the needs of municipalities and their citizens, employed 56 people in Ama in 2016 (Shimaneken n.d.). Ama has also developed important networks with universities in Tokyo such as Waseda or Hōsei (Hōsei University 2015; Waseda University 2017). In 2005, junior high school students from Ama visited students at Hōsei University for exchange and discussion. This led to the idea of inviting young university lecturers and students to visit Ama for holding lectures and fostering exchange with the community; the “Ama Wagon” project ran from 2008 until 2010. Young people in their early 20s are rare on Ama since the island lacks a university or vocational school, so the project was also meant to inspire local students and provide insights into life outside the island (Shimada 2016: 23). One of the young university staff members who gave a visiting lecture on Ama later returned to live on the island and became a key figure in the education reform of the local high school. Through these collaborations, Ama has attracted quite a few new citizens who became familiar with the town either through participating in a study tour or through stories heard from friends and older students in university classes. The town also continues to benefit from strongly positive media exposure. Lifestyle magazines like Sotokoto and Turns regularly feature Ama or specific projects there and have launched special events displaying the island. In July 2017, the front pages of the widely circulated daily Asahi Shinbun covered a visit to the island by the well-known news presenter and journalist Kuniya Hiroko (Asahi Shinbun 2017). This exposure has helped create an overall successful and attractive image of an active, engaged, and vibrant community on a remote island enriched by innovative projects.

Urban-rural in-migrants’ motivations and their role in Ama’s efforts When I visited Ama in 2016, one of the projects in progress was a “Japanesestyle cooking school.” A former nursery in the Saki district was rebuilt for the Shimashoku no Terakoya (Temple School for Island Food) cooking school and the adjunct Ritō Kitchin (Remote Island Kitchen) restaurant opened in an abandoned building close to the Oki Shrine, the island’s major tourist attraction. Since opening in 2017, the cooking school has been featured in, among others, the lifestyle

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magazine Sotokoto, has been promoted through the air carrier JAL, and is supported by the cabinet office through the Chihō sōsei program ( JAL 2018; Prime Minister of Japan and His Cabinet 2017). Newcomer Takeshi, who works for the tourist association and is responsible for the cooking school project, stresses the level of his involvement in the decisionmaking process: “Well, the basic guideline was that the island’s resources, foodstuffs should be used. But aside from that, for example the curriculum [. . .] was left to us.” Takeshi contrasts this experience positively with his previous job at a big company in Tokyo. At the time, he was given very little decision-making responsibility and did not receive credit for his work. Now, he observes, “I can make decisions. Together with the department head and Shun’ya [another in-migrant], we each bear a third of the responsibility. That makes me really happy. But the money is not enough. Well, that’s regional revitalization,” he says, acknowledging the problems the town still faces in financing its projects. Takeshi continues: “In Ama I can grow. And in terms of my age, the cooking school project will take about three years, so I will be thirty when I see the result and that’s also why I chose this.” He came to Ama after quitting the unsatisfying job that made him feel like just another “cog in the machine.” In contrast, he says, the prospect of shouldering the responsibility of a project has been interesting, challenging, and ultimately more rewarding. Thirty-year-old Ayako, a teacher at the local high school, came to the island because of her interest in Ama’s education reform. “What they’re doing is really interesting,” she says. “That will become the future shape of education in Japan, active learning. [. . .] A lot of young people are coming to live here and it’s a great place to start lots of new things. [. . .] People who have an amazing vision are assembling.” Ayako points to the attractiveness of Ama as a place full of potential where active young in-migrants with creative ideas come together. As outlined earlier, Ama’s success in attracting young in-migrants in particular has spread through media and university networks and has furthered the inflow of new people. The urban newcomers tend to value the freedom, responsibility, and meaningful work that they find in Ama, echoing research findings on the motivation of volunteers and in-migrants in Ishinomaki and Ama (Klien 2015, 2016). For the in-migrants, Ama’s need for new people, knowledge, and ideas offers an abundance of opportunities, a space where they can try out new things and be part of something innovative. The lack of bigger-city amenities also makes Ama attractive to many, with a lack of choices leading to appreciation of what they have. Says thirty-year-old Eriko, “Here you cannot buy much and there is not much choice, so that makes it easier. If you think in the middle of the night ‘I want ice-cream,’ you can’t just go and buy it. But that makes you appreciate it more.” And as Takeshi’s colleague Shun’ya puts it, “If the differences to bigger cities would vanish, there would be no reason for me to stay in Ama.”Thus, peripheralization is positively interpreted: a lack of becomes an abundance of opportunities and appreciation for the available, mirroring the town’s motto “nai mono wa nai” and “turning handicaps into advantages.” In addition, work, leisure, and lifestyle are interwoven, as meaningful work provides happiness and satisfaction, and great import is placed on personal growth. This is

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juxtaposed with a critical evaluation of consumption-driven lifestyles in the bigger cities. Nancy Rosenberger’s (2017) study on young alternative farmers has found a similar mixture of a neoliberal mindset and post-growth thinking.

Challenging peripheralization? Returning to the central research questions, we can see that Ama’s approach to revitalization aims to tackle the various issues behind rural peripheralization, including out-migration, disconnection, dependency, and stigmatization. To this end, the town employs a variety of strategies: tourism, local branding of products, improvement of infrastructure, new technologies, education reform, and attraction of inmigrants with creative and knowledge capital. In addition, Ama also benefits from a positive media narrative. The town places great importance on local autonomy in its strategies and on locally conceived plans while still utilizing the knowledge and skills of outside actors and the financial capital of prefectural and national grants and subsidies. In-migrants provide the young, innovative workforce for local projects the town needs. In turn, in-migrants are attracted by the image of Ama as a vibrant, creative, and innovative town that will provide fulfilling work. However, the town screens to select those applicants they see as promising for their projects, and the overall strategy for rejuvenation is locally decided—and until recently was forcefully promoted by the (now former) town mayor Yamauchi Michio. The research literature on de-peripheralization often cites public figures like Yamauchi, who regularly assume a double role in political leadership and public office, as vital for successful local endogenous development (Kühn 2016: 34; Stimson et al. 2011: 5). Successful public-private partnerships, which are considered equally important for revival (Ray 2006: 286), have helped Ama build new businesses and develop and brand local products, bringing them to previously untapped markets and introducing new employment opportunities. Early on, Ama also invested in improving the local quality of life through childcare funds and new public venues such as the library, the Oki Learning Center, and Ama Mare, which offer opportunities for leisure, foster exchange, and host events that bring the community together. The town’s slogan has provided a strong leitmotif echoed in its policies, aiming to reinterpret the narrative of peripheralization from “nonexistent” to “there is nothing we don’t have,” stressing local resources and local autonomy. The education reform has helped to connect local students with their community, not just focusing on the problems but also fostering their understanding of the possibility for change. Literature on rural development stresses that skills and knowledge needed for rural revitalization can often be gained from outside peripheralized regions. It is important that a portion of the highly educated return to their hometowns with the knowledge capital they have acquired (Leibert and Golinski 2017: 260). For Ama, about 97 percent of high school graduates leave the island, and only two to three percent return.This is where Ama’s innovative projects may be of help in motivating young citizens to move back after completing their education.

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The hope is that the Oki Dōzen high school program can also contribute to the migration backflow by raising student awareness about the island’s problems and cultivating opportunities for creative solutions, motivating students to contribute to Ama at a later stage through their learned profession (Tomisawa 2012: 74). The fostering of new networks and social capital to bridge disconnection has been seen as vital in the research literature (Kühn 2016: 43), and Ama has done so by building networks and exchange opportunities with universities on the mainland and using technology such as ICT to bridge the distance from its high school to mainland knowledge centers. This brings new knowledge and skills to the island and forges ever-growing connections beyond the island. Together with the programs run by the municipal and national governments, these more informal networks have also helped to address the issue of out-migration. However, the literature points out that out-migration is especially difficult to influence (Leibert and Golinski 2017: 278), and it is challenging to pinpoint where the reason for Ama’s success ultimately lies: the networks fostered with universities, the positive outcomes of the internship program (new local products), the town’s resulting willingness to continue pursuing innovative projects such as education reform, or the media narrative that portrays the town as filled with young, vibrant, and engaged university graduates who form a creative community that in turn attracts new in-migrants. One reason for the continued political exposure may also be found in Ama’s geographical position. Its inclusion in the 2017 Border Island Law points to larger national security concerns and possible political interest in keeping Ama’s population stable, which may ultimately benefit local revitalization projects, further showcasing the complex relationship of local and national decision-making and both the dependence on and advantage of tax grants and subsidies. While the town has seen successes with its revitalization ventures, new high school, and increasing population of newcomers, many problems remain. Population shrinkage has slowed but not ceased, and many ventures and projects cannot sustain themselves entirely. Should funding be reduced, can they be maintained? Out-migration rates are still higher than return and in-migration rates, and not all new citizens are settling down for the long term. Looking back on both Prime Minister Abe’s speech from the introduction and recent policies, it is not entirely clear whether the responsibility of rural revitalization should be placed on young people and the local municipalities themselves. Doing so may create the possibility for more bottom-up initiatives, but success depends on, among other factors, a local government with a vision, the human and creative capital to foster new innovation, and existing resources that can be built upon. This highlights the struggle still faced by peripheral rural regions, which carry the burden of responsibility and are increasingly expected to invest in local-asset-based strategies while being largely unable to independently sustain them. Under such contradictory conditions, achieving self-sustaining local economies in peripheralized regions remains an elusive goal.

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Rosenberger, Nancy. 2017. “Young organic farmers in Japan: Betting on lifestyle, locality, and livelihood.” Contemporary Japan 29 (1), 14–30. Shimada, Akifumi. 2016. “Ama-chō ni okeru chiiki-zukuri no tenkai purosesu: ‘jirei’ demo ‘hyōhon’ demo naku, jissen shutai ni yoru ‘hanseiteki taiwa’ no sozai toshite” [The development process of community planning in Ama Town: Not a ‘case’ nor a ‘sample’—material for a ‘reflective dialogue’ driven by practice]. Jichi Sōken 456, 1–34. Shimane-ken. 2017. “Tokutei yūjin kokkyō ritō chiiki no chiiki shakai no iji ni kansuru keikaku” [Plan for the preservation of local communities in specified inhabited national border island areas]. www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/admin/region/chiiki/tokutei_chiiki/ tokuteiyuujinin.data/keikaku.pdf (accessed February 10, 2019). ———. n.d. “Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai, shūraku shien’in haichi jōkyō suii” [Change in the situation of the community building support staff and hamlet supporter distribution]. www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/admin/region/chiiki/chusankan/go_on/jinzai.data/ H20-28haichijoukyosuii.pdf (accessed October 10, 2018). Sōmushō. 2017. “Kaisei kaso chiiki jiritsu sokushin tokubetsu sochi-hō” [Revised special law promoting independence in depopulated areas]. www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/ jichi_gyousei/c-gyousei/2001/kaso/kasomain0.htm (accessed October 10, 2018). Stimson, Robert, Roger Stough, and Peter Nijkamp. 2011. “Endogenous regional development.” Robert Stimson, Roger Stough, and Peter Nijkamp (eds.), Endogenous regional development: Perspectives, measurement and empirical investigation, 1–19. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Thompson, Christopher. 2014. “Are you coming to the matsuri? Tsunami recovery and folk performance culture on Iwate’s Rikuch [sic!] coast.” The Asia-Pacific Journal—Japan Focus 12 (5/2), 1–32. https://apjjf.org/2014/12/5/Christopher-Thompson/4070/article.html (accessed March 6, 2019). Tomisawa, Konomi. 2012. “Ama-chō ni miru ‘chiiki-zukuri’ no honshitsu” [The essence of ‘community planning’ visible in Ama Town]. Chiiki Inobēshon 5, 65–78. Toyama, Misao. 1993. Ora ga mura no ichioku en wa nani ni baketa ka [What did we transform our village into with 100 million Yen?]. Tokyo: Ondorisha. Traphagan, John W., and Christopher Thompson. 2006. “The practice of tradition and modernity in contemporary Japan.” John W. Traphagan and Christopher Thompson (eds.), Wearing cultural styles in Japan: Concepts of tradition and modernity in practice, 2–24. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Vanclay, Frank. 2011. “Endogenous rural development from a sociological perspective.” Robert Stimson, Roger Stough, and Peter Nijkamp (eds.), Endogenous regional development: Perspectives, measurement and empirical investigation, 59–72. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Waseda University. 2017. “Ama Būtan purojekuto” [Ama’s Bhutan project]. www.waseda.jp/ inst/wavoc/news/2017/03/27/2560/ (accessed October 10, 2018). Yamauchi, Michio. 2007. Ritōhatsu: ikinokoru tame no 10 no senryaku [From a remote island: Ten strategies for survival]. Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai. Yasui, Manami. 2000. “Shōhi sareru ‘furusato’ ” [The “hometown” is being consumed]. Keiji Yano (ed.), Kokyō no sōshitsu to saisei [Loss and regeneration of the hometown], 91–132. Tokyo: Aoyumi.

13 EMBRACING THE PERIPHERY Urbanites’ motivations for relocating to rural Japan Cornelia Reiher

Introduction During the past decades, rural areas in Japan have been mainly discussed in a rather pessimistic way because of increasing regional and rural-urban inequalities (Kitano 2009; Tamura 2007), declining economies, infrastructure and local finances (Reiher 2014; Shirai 2005) as well as shrinking populations due to demographic aging, declining birthrates and out-migration (Elis and Lützeler 2008; Flüchter 2005). Recently, however, publications in and beyond academia that view rural development in a more positive way are booming in Japan (see, e.g., Hashimoto 2015; Sakuma et al. 2017; Yamanō 2018). Journals like the monthly Chiikijin present examples of successful revitalization projects or urbanites that have relocated to the countryside and celebrate the charm of Japan’s rural areas: There exist vital towns and villages where beautiful landscapes, nature and traditional lifestyles have been preserved and where successful regional revitalization [chiiki-zukuri] takes place on a small scale. There are many villages where local administration and residents work together to retain landscapes and townscapes, where traditional rites and festivals are alive, and fishing towns where traditional fishermen’s houses still exist. In these areas, the number of newcomers who are attracted by the idea of living there has grown. [In this issue] we will discover what it is that enables the preservation of these areas. (Suzuki 2018) This quote from Chiikijin evokes an atmosphere of hope for Japan’s rural areas. According to Chiikijin, positive features of rural and peripheral regions, urban-rural migration and successful revitalization go hand in hand. This quote also strongly

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refers to the idealized notion of rural communities inherent in the term furusato (one’s home town) that is characterized by beautiful nature and traditional lifestyles; it connotes nostalgia, warmth and a feeling of security that is constructed in opposition to urban spaces (Ivy 1995: 105–106). Although this idealized notion of rural communities has been mobilized in regional revitalization discourses since the 1970s, the success of such portrayals has been limited (Reiher 2014). The question of what actually enables continued existence of rural communities has been explored by scholars, local government officials and the Japanese government for a long time (Kitano 2009; Knight 1994). In Japan, an increasing number of people are interested in relocating to rural areas, and the number of those who actually do so is growing (MLIT 2018; Odagiri 2015). If, as the previous quote from Chiikijin suggests, the future of rural communities is closely related to inmigration, it is important to analyze why people are moving from urban to rural areas in Japan. Therefore, this chapter will analyze motivations of urban-rural migrants in Japan and discuss the relationship between rural revitalization and urban-rural migration by drawing on a case study from Kyushu where, despite its peripheral location, government programs were successfully employed to attract newcomers from mostly urban areas. With 49 in-migrants in 2017, the city of Taketa in Ōita Prefecture ranked first in attracting newcomers from urban areas through the Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai puroguramu (COKT; English: Community Building Support Staff Program). This program was initiated in 2009 by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC; Japanese: Sōmushō) and provides municipalities in rural Japan with resources to support people from urban areas to move to their communities and to promote revitalization activities (Sōmushō 2018a). In total, since 2011, more than 300 newcomers have come to Taketa, a city of 22,000 people. In this regard, Taketa is unique, especially considering that people from the more urban areas of Kantō and Kansai areas are relocating to such a remote place. The Taketa case raises questions about the feasibility of wider “de-peripheralization” of remote areas and the conditions that might foster such processes. In order to answer these questions, I will first discuss the conjunction of rural revitalization and urban-to-rural migration in Japan and the concept of “deperipheralization.” I will then introduce Taketa, its revitalization strategies, the promotion of in-migration and the interlinkages between regional revitalization (chiiki okoshi) and urban-rural migration. The appropriation of the COKT program is of particular interest in this context because the program is funded by the central government and thus relates to the problem of central-local dependencies. Finally, I will introduce data from interviews with newcomers to Taketa and discuss their motivations to relocate to the countryside in general and to Taketa in particular. Since 2004, I have visited Taketa several times. Through these occasional visits over more than ten years, I recognized great changes in Taketa’s cityscape, population and revitalization strategies. The data presented in this chapter was collected through fieldwork in Taketa in April 2018. I have conducted in-depth qualitative interviews with local government officials, members of the COKT program and migrants from urban areas who independently came to Taketa between 2012 and

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2017. I visited their homes and workplaces and drove and walked around Taketa with them. Additionally, I draw on documents from local, prefectural and central governments.

Urban-rural migration, regional revitalization and the COKT program Urban residents’ interest in—and migration to—rural areas has grown not only in Japan, but rather the Taketa case relates to a wider global phenomenon. For example, young German urbanites have relocated to rural areas in Brandenburg to start farming (Baumann 2018) and retirees from the UK have moved to rural Spain or France (Benson and O’Reilly 2009). According to a survey by the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) from 2017, in Japan one out of four young people from the city is interested in moving to the countryside (MLIT 2018). Asked about the appropriate place to raise children in a Cabinet Office survey in 2014, Japanese women and men in their 20s, 30s and 40s agreed that the countryside is a better place to raise children than the city. The number of people who are moving from urban to rural areas in Japan, through relocation support schemes, has consistently increased over the last ten years. Between 2009 and 2013, it almost tripled from 2,864 to 8,181 persons (Odagiri 2015: 25, 27). People who relocate to rural areas in Japan are diverse in terms of age, gender and profession. Japanese central and municipal government actors began promoting retirement migration to rural Japan from the mid-2000s. Schemes have particularly targeted the retiring baby boomer generation (Godzik 2008). Retirement migration in Japan includes both newcomers and people who return to their hometowns after retirement. While retirement migration remains important in Japan, since the early 2000s working-aged people in their 20s, 30s and 40s have started relocating from urban areas to the countryside. This is related to the structural instability of Japan’s labor market that has created job insecurity, especially for the younger generations (Klien 2016; Odagiri 2015: 29). Against this backdrop, changing values and beliefs among the younger generation have raised “fundamental doubts [. . .] about a growth-oriented society” and led them “to envisage modes of life that emphasize sustainability and small-scale activities at the local level rather than prioritizing economic growth” (Klien 2016: 56). This includes a prioritization of quality of life over income, as well as changing perceptions of rural areas (Klien 2016; Nakagawa 2018; Rosenberger 2017). Factors that affect people’s decision to relocate to rural areas in Japan include the search for more “self-determination,” “environmental awareness,” “spiritual growth” and “health promotion” (Nakagawa 2018: 24). Other authors have identified different motivations for urban-rural relocation, especially amongst young people, including “personal satisfaction” and a “lack of clear long-term opportunities,” as well as “the desire to make a contribution to society or community” (Klien 2016; Odagiri 2015; Rosenberger 2017). After the triple disaster of March 2011, some urban residents in their 20s and 30s initially moved to remote northeastern

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Japan for volunteer work and eventually settled there (Klien 2016). Others moved to the countryside to start farming, choosing to live “in harmony with nature, intimate others, and community” as an alternative to the neoliberal narrative (Rosenberger 2017: 14). Thus, the countryside can become a “place to work” (shigoto no ba), a “place to find one’s self ” ( jibun sagashi no ba), a “place to make a contribution” (kōken no ba) and a “place to settle down” (teijū no ba) (Odagiri 2015: 34). When well-educated and highly motivated people move to rural areas, they bring inspiration, ideas and potential for the revitalization of rural towns and cities (Klien 2016). Therefore, attracting talents—people with specific skills—to rural areas has been one main goal of revitalization strategies for rural areas in Japan during the past two decades (Godzik 2008; Kitano 2009; Rausch 2008; Reiher 2014; Sōmushō 2018a). While retirement migrants mainly want to spend relaxed sunset years, municipalities are increasingly looking for younger migrants who want to be active, start businesses and make a contribution to their host communities. In this sense, the COKT program, established in 2009, is one program that aims to attract younger people to relocate “to play a role in the revitalization of the region” (Odagiri 2015: 31). Initiated by Sōmushō in 2009, the COKT program provides municipalities in rural Japan with resources to support people from urban areas to move to their communities and to promote revitalization activities. Sōmushō considers the active recruitment of talents as an effective strategy to preserve and strengthen the “regional potential” (chiiki-ryoku) of areas with shrinking and aging populations (Sōmushō 2018a). Therefore, Sōmushō provides the municipalities with financial support to enable them to attract residents who become members of the COKT program for a fixed term in order to support agriculture, forestry and fisheries; to work on the maintenance of rivers or in any other kind of activity that supports the life of the residents in the area (Sōmushō 2018a). In this sense, COKT is a program that aims at matching young people and rural communities (Odagiri 2015: 24). The implementation of this program is a collaborate effort of Sōmushō, the Japan Organization for Internal Migration (Ijū-JOIN), the Japan Center for Regional Development (Chiiki Kasseika Sentā) and the Sutanbai (“standby”) Recruitment Company that helps people who want to relocate to find jobs and the municipalities. The subsidies are designed to allow engagement of municipalities in activities that support in-migration. Municipalities are also encouraged to cooperate with other organizations that are committed to the revitalization of rural areas like NPOs and universities (Sōmushō 2018a). In 2017, 4,830 people in 997 municipalities all over Japan were employed through the COKT program. The prefectures of Hokkaido and Nagano initially employed 602 and 385 people respectively. This was followed by the prefectures of Shimane (227), Kōchi (185), Okayama (172) and Ōita (171). By 2017, 61.5 percent of all participants were male and 38.4 percent were female; 33.3 percent were in their 20s, 38.3 percent in their 30s and 19.5 percent in their 40s (Sōmushō 2018b). In a 2013 survey of COKT participants by Ijū-JOIN, the most frequent motivation was “to play a role in the revitalization of the region,” followed by “I was already

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thinking about moving here and through the [COKT] activities I want to prepare for settling down here for good” (Odagiri 2015: 33). 56 percent of COKT members stayed in the area where they worked for COKT after graduating from the program in June 2013 (Odagiri 2015: 34). Therefore, Odagiri (2015: 25) attributes the growth in urban-rural migration to the COKT program. Although urban-rural migration might contribute to rural revitalization, successful revitalization in Japan seems to be mainly related to the geographical, infrastructural, economic and social relations to Japan’s metropolitan areas, Tokyo in particular. Kitano (2009) has identified the distance to Tokyo as the major obstacle to revitalization of rural areas in Japan. His findings suggest that in the competition over capital, consumers, in-migrants and companies from the metropolises, proximity and access to the urban centers play an important role. He argues that the further away from Tokyo a municipality is located the more difficult sustainable revitalization becomes (Kitano 2009: 160–163). This is particularly problematic for peripheral areas because of the similarity of many revitalization strategies in the field of tourism, place branding and the promotion of local products in Japan that often refer to the same features of rurality inherent in the furusato concept: nature, tradition and nostalgia (Reiher 2010; Steffensen 1996). Yet, the conceptualization of peripheries as outskirts, determined by their distance to a center, has been challenged by a more process-centered perspective that focuses on the dynamic processes through which peripheries actually emerge. This includes political, social, economic or communicative processes that link local, national, regional and global space(s) with each other. This notion is expressed in the term “peripheralization” (Kühn 2015: 368) and recognizes that spaces and places are not static but rather may change over time (Massey 2005). In Japan, the discursive peripheralization of mostly rural areas has been linked to terms like inaka (wasteland) and the previously discussed furusato—or chihō—referring to all administrative entities outside of Tokyo (Tamura 2007). Throughout Japan’s modern history, the concepts of inaka and furusato have primarily constructed rural areas in opposition to urban centers, particularly Tokyo (Ivy 1995; Wigen 1995). Politically, Japan’s rural development policies and the lack of local government fiscal autonomy have created peripheries and reinforced local governments’ dependencies on the center (Hüstebeck 2014; Shirai 2005;Yoshimi 2009). Regional economic inequalities in Japan have been produced and manifested through economic planning of the Japanese government (Kitano 2009) and increased social inequalities between Tokyo and rural areas due to limited access to education, social welfare and health care services (Tamura 2007). But, if peripheries are “made,” a periphery may change in long-term perspective; “de-peripheralization” is possible and peripheries need not remain peripheries forever (Kühn 2015: 374). De-peripheralization would include a redefinition of center-periphery relations and thus Kühn (2015: 377) addresses the need to focus on peripheral actors’ dependencies on resources from the center and in turn their agency in exercising greater independence. In short, while urban-to-rural migration is increasing in Japan and has become the focus of regional revitalization programs like the COKT program, a municipality’s

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remoteness might be an obstacle to successfully attracting in-migrants and other resources. However, a periphery does not necessarily have to be a “pre-given” space. Rather, it is a social construct.The following sections of this chapter identify factors that have motivated relocation of urbanites to Taketa, exploring the periphery-center dependencies to address the greater question of, if and how “de-peripheralization” is possible.

Taketa and the COKT program Taketa City is located in Ōita Prefecture and surrounded by Mt. Aso and the Kujū mountains. It is an old castle town where the Nakagawa clan resided from 1600 to 1868. In 2005, Taketa’s neighboring towns Kujū, Naoiri and Ogi were merged with Taketa. Taketa represents itself as a rural place amidst beautiful nature that is characterized by agriculture, hot springs and historical sites such as the Ōka castle ruins or the narrow streets of its old castle town ( jōkamachi) area. Its main branches of trade are agriculture and tourism. Agricultural products of note are rice, citrus fruits, mushrooms, vegetables, flowers and “Bungo beef.” Its main touristic sites are the castle ruins and the museum of the famous Japanese composer Taki Rentarō (Taketa-shi 2014). Taketa is located in a remote area difficult to access. Travelling from Tokyo to Taketa by train takes about nine hours. The 173 km journey from Kokura (Kitakyūshū) to Bungo Taketa station alone lasts four hours. In contrast, travelling by bullet train (shinkansen) from Tokyo station to Kokura, a distance of approximately 1,000 km, takes four and a half hours. Like many other municipalities in rural Japan, Taketa has experienced depopulation and aging since the 1960s. Relating to all municipalities that today constitute Taketa City, the population declined from 60,023 in 1955 to 22,083 in 2018. In 2015, the share of residents 65 years or older stood at 45.4 percent. In 2017, 53.5 percent were 60 or older (Taketa-shi 2017: 3). Within Ōita Prefecture, Taketa ranks second highest with regard to demographic aging (Ōita-ken 2017). The prefecture itself has an elderly rate of 30.1 percent and in 2015 ranked 10th among all prefectures in Japan and first among all prefectures in Kyushu (MLIT 2017). Due to the high percentage of elderly people and scarcity of available jobs in Taketa (interview with the mayor of Taketa; April 5, 2018), in 2015 only half of Taketa’s population was employed; 31.0 percent of the working population were employed in the agricultural sector, 12.6 percent in manufacturing and 55.7 percent in the service sector (Taketa-shi 2017: 14). These demographic trends were also reflected in Taketa’s cityscape. In 2012, the main street in front of Bungo Taketa train station was a typical shutter street (shattā dōri), with closed shops and lapsed buildings. In 2018, however, this had changed noticeably. Across from the train station is a new hostel, renovated and opened by former members of the COKT program. Directly across the street is the office of a company for community building run by the municipality, where another in-migrant from Tokyo supports entrepreneurs to establish new businesses in Taketa. Next door is a small café where an elderly lady, who is a Taketa native, sells

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handmade food. A little further down the street is a restaurant, famous for its fried chicken (karaage), and next to it, in a former record shop, exists a gallery run by a former COKT member from Yokohama that displays the work of local artists, sells souvenirs (o-miyage) and functions as an office. Locals and newcomers alike ascribe these changes to the local government’s revitalization strategy it introduced in 2009. All countermeasures against depopulation, falling birthrates, demographic aging, the expected deterioration of the local community and the related sense of crisis (kiki-kan) in Taketa are based on the mayor’s insight that “if there aren’t enough people living in this city, there are not enough resources to build a local community. Therefore, we bring these resources to our city by gathering young skilled and motivated people here to make it flourish again” (interview with the mayor of Taketa; April 5, 2018). Specific measures to attract urbanites to Taketa include programs that offer discounted rents to newcomers with children, creating employment through support programs for establishing new businesses and a support system that provides advice on relocating to Taketa. The latter includes presentations at relocation fairs (ijū fea) in the Kantō and Kansai regions as well as in Fukuoka, personal assistance to potential newcomers and access to a database of available housing. Taketa’s current mayor’s revitalization approach is comprised of three main pillars: the promotion of health tourism (hot springs and food), the in-migration of people “with skills that suit Taketa” and the revitalization of Taketa’s old castle town (interview with the mayor of Taketa; April 5, 2018). Right after taking office in 2009, he developed a new vision for Taketa, including a Manifesto for the Return to the Countryside (Nōson kaiki sengen) that states: At present, Taketa is facing a declining birthrate, demographic aging and depopulation as its most pressing problems. There are many empty houses and abandoned paddy fields on the one hand, but on the other hand, we see the beautiful landscape and nature, and take pride in its spring water and hot springs, its culture and art. Because we clearly see the role of Japan’s rural communities as hosts, we are the first community in this country to announce the concept of the “return to the countryside” and promote migration and settlement for the retiring baby boomer generation to find their final abode as a strategy to revitalize rural communities. (Taketa-shi 2010) The retiring baby boomer generation is not the only target group of the local government’s efforts to invite newcomers. Local citizens also seem to appreciate the inmigration of young people. One reason for the appreciation of young newcomers is that it becomes increasingly difficult for residents in their 70s and 80s to fulfill their community duties, such as organizing the festivals of their respective neighborhood association ( jichikai) or taking care of funerals, cleaning community properties, and cutting grass (interview with COKT member Ms. I. in Taketa; April 6, 2018).

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Between 2011 and April 2018, more than 300 people relocated to Taketa, some of them individually, some of them through COKT. Most of them are in their 30s, states the local government employee responsible for the program (interview in Taketa; April 7, 2018). Therefore, the COKT program is an important means to attract younger people to Taketa. The first urban resident relocated to Taketa in 2012. A further 29 people were hired in 2014 (Shiga 2015: 205), and by 2017 Taketa had attracted 49 newcomers with the COKT program, thereby ranking first among all 997 municipalities taking part in the program (Sōmushō 2018b). COKT members receive a monthly salary of about ¥160,000 and free rent from the municipality. The municipality receives about four million yen from the central government annually for each person in order to pay the monthly salary, rent for an apartment and moving expenses. Although this is not enough money to make a living in a big city, local government employees and participants find it sufficient for life in the countryside (interview with the local government employee responsible for in-migration in Taketa; April 7, 2018). Taketa’s broader vision of revitalizing the city by promoting crafts, the old castle town, and tourism is also reflected in the nine fields of activities COKT members in Taketa can apply for.These are: 1) promotion of in-migration and support for inmigrants, 2) promotion of in-migration via social media, 3) event organization for the revitalization of the old castle town, 4) attracting and supporting tourists from abroad, 5) support for regional revitalization, 6) promotion of traditional crafts and arts, 7) agriculture, 8) supporting regional revitalization via the promotion of food and hot springs, and 9) lifelong learning (Shiga 2015: 206). The realization of these activities would be impossible without financial support from the central government. This is not only true for the COKT program itself but for related projects, for example the renovation of old buildings in the castle town area where COKT members open workshops or hotels.The local government seems to be particularly skillful in using subsidies from different ministries—like MLIT; Sōmushō and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)—and the municipal merger special bonds (gappei tokureisai) in order to finance local projects (interview with the mayor of Taketa; April 5, 2018). One employee at Taketa city hall is responsible for relocation support, presents Taketa at relocation fairs, organizes interviews in Tokyo, Osaka and Fukuoka and corresponds with people interested in relocating to Taketa, shows them available houses and introduces them to neighbors and possible cooperation partners. The mayor personally meets each COKT member. When selecting candidates for the program, he checks whether they want to settle down in Taketa after their threeyears term and whether they have a vision for their time in the program and their life afterwards. Their plans are evaluated in terms of feasibility and relevance to Taketa’s revitalization strategy (interview with the local government employee responsible for in-migration in Taketa; April 7, 2018). The local government employee in charge of coordinating COKT therefore considers COKT participation a preparation phase for the in-migrant’s future life

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in Taketa. Beyond the original idea to pay people for helping in rural communities with revitalization projects, Taketa’s strategy aims to encourage long-term relocation. The salary paid through COKT enables participants to experience life in Taketa, get to know the city, find a job or develop a business plan and make an informed decision about staying in the city. “It [COKT] provides them with time to think about whether they really want to move here” (interview with the local government employee responsible for in-migration in Taketa; April 7, 2018). According to the mayor (Interview in Taketa; April 5, 2018), the most important success of the program so far is that it gives locals hope, courage, and dreams. However, local residents have criticized the mayor’s revitalization efforts. They perceive that activities are primarily toward promotion of Taketa outside the city and associated attraction of newcomers, rather than improving the life of local residents. Some local residents feel that outwardly orientated revitalization reflects the municipal government’s concern for supporting newcomers, rather than long-term residents. In addition, some residents consider the program a waste of tax money, particularly because many of them are unaware that COKT members are paid by the central government and not by the municipality (interviews with COKT members Ms. I. and Ms. S. in Taketa; April 6, 2018). Accordingly, not all residents have welcomed the newcomers. Some of my informants recall rather negative encounters with locals when they arrived in Taketa, and some feel pressured to contribute to Taketa’s revitalization and the activities of their respective neighborhood associations in order to legitimize receipt of their tax funded salaries (interviews with newcomer Mr. K. and COKT members Ms. I. and Ms. S. in Taketa; April 6, 2018). Nevertheless, most of my informants have friendly relations with their neighbors and appreciate receiving gifts such as flowers, agricultural products, ready-made dishes or cakes as a positive aspect of rural life. At the same time, COKT members, artists and craftsmen have strong networks within their respective groups and many newcomers maintain close relationships with friends and families in Kantō and Kansai.

Embracing the periphery? Reasons for moving to Taketa Despite some criticisms from local residents, COKT has encouraged urban-rural relocation to Taketa. Why has COKT proven successful in Takeda? This section explores and compares the motivations of newcomers who have relocated to Taketa both independently and as part of the COKT program. Findings are based on a representative sample of eight interviews that I conducted in Takeda during spring 2018.The sample was selected from a larger body of interview data to reflect diversity found in the wider population of Taketa newcomers, with regard to place of origin, age, gender, family status and occupation before moving to Taketa and in Taketa, membership of COKT and duration of residency in Taketa. There are demographic differences between my interviewees and the participants of previous studies in different areas of Japan, such as Kyushu and Tōhoku. For example, the Taketa participants are older and more likely to have children than the volunteers whom Klien (2016) studied in Ishinomaki. Most in-migrants to Taketa

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are in their 30s and 40s, which is a similar age bracket to Rosenberger’s (2017) rural in-migrants who moved to the countryside to start farming. Ms. I. came to Taketa in 2017 and joined COKT. She is 41 years old and unmarried. She was born in Ōita Prefecture and had worked in sales in Tokyo and Saga Prefecture. When she became a COKT member, she began working in the city hall where she was responsible for developing and marketing local brand products. When I met her, she had just finished her first year with COKT and had begun to work in the division for welfare and elderly care. She came to Taketa because she was unhappy with her previous job.When one of her co-workers, who is originally from Taketa, told her about the city, she visited the place and loved the atmosphere. To Ms. I., this particular atmosphere is especially tangible in the historical castle town with its history, traditional crafts, workshops, shrines and temples. She decided to move to Taketa, and when she later found out about COKT she applied for the program. COKT offered her a way to relocate and receive a salary while she was still trying to find out what to do to make a living once she would have graduated from the program. Having found where she wants to live, Ms. I. is currently focused on finding a meaningful job. Ms. S. is 37 years old, single and was born in Yokohama. She came to Taketa in 2013 and joined COKT. After graduating from university, like many of her friends and fellow students she could not find a job. She worked in casual jobs and did volunteer work related to contemporary art for many years. Before moving to Taketa, she had worked and lived in Ōita Prefecture for a while and liked it. When she joined COKT, she first worked in the municipal hall for different projects, including relocation support and food education. She has graduated from the program and now runs a gallery in Taketa in an abandoned record shop on the main street. At the same time, she coordinates an art project and works as a freelancer. She repeatedly mentioned that she came to Taketa because she sensed “opportunities for doing crazy projects.” To her, Taketa seems to be an interesting city where open-minded people support new and unconventional projects, offering a space to realize her visions. She wanted to settle down after working in non-permanent jobs throughout her professional life. While these two women represent a group of people with fragmented professional biographies and a lack of clear long-term opportunities who have come to Taketa and joined COKT because they finally wanted to settle down in an interesting place, other newcomers have chosen a life in the countryside for health and environmental reasons. Mr. I., a 37-year-old craftsman, is another COKT graduate. He moved to Taketa in 2015 with his wife and small child. Originally from Yokohama, he relocated because he was worried about radiation after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in March 2011 and wanted his child to grow up in an “environment with safe air, safe food and soil.” However, relocating his workshop and equipment was complicated and expensive, and it took several years to realize this plan. When he began searching for a place with affordable rent and appropriate space for his workshop, he visited Kyushu and found a house in Ōita Prefecture that he and his wife liked. Yet, he did not want to go with the first house he saw and therefore

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visited other places, too. Although he had already made a decision when he came to Taketa, he was impressed by the personal assistance of the local government employee who showed him around and the mayor’s vision of promoting crafts and arts to revitalize the town. He moved to Taketa because the mayor persuaded him to open his workshop in Taketa by offering him a place in the COKT program. This provided a salary for three years until his workshop would start making enough profit to live on. In contrast to Mr. I., three of my other informants relocated independently from the COKT program. All came with their families. Among them, two relocated for health and environmental concerns. Mr. K., a former talent agent in his mid-40s from Osaka relocated to Taketa in 2013 together with his wife. He had lived and worked for more than 20 years in Tokyo. At the time of the interview, he was working in Taketa in a company for town revitalization owned by the municipality. His main responsibility involved organizing management seminars for founders. After feeling fed-up with his life in Tokyo because he had had done “all that one can do in a big city,” Mr. K. became increasingly interested in agriculture and started to critically reflect on the distant relationship between food production and consumption for urban residents living in rented properties. In addition to healthy and safe food, he was also hoping to discover the meaning of “true values” in the countryside as a spiritual experience. He then began to systematically look for a place in the countryside that was interesting and “about to flourish in the near future.” After writing to more than 30 municipalities and visiting about half of them, the reason he decided to move to Taketa was the enthusiastic support of the local government employee in charge of relocation support. Mrs. S., a female freelance illustrator in her mid-40s, became interested in Taketa through a similar experience. After she had relocated with her children from Chiba Prefecture to Ōita in 2011 in the wake of the 3.11 nuclear disaster, she was looking for houses in Ōita Prefecture and, through a radio advertisement, learned about Taketa’s support scheme for families with elementary school children. Her family moved to Taketa in 2013 where they found housing and received a discount on their rent. Her husband worked in Tokyo until they relocated to Taketa. She is particularly interested in food and agriculture, cautious about food safety, had rented and farmed a piece of land in Chiba Prefecture and already thought about moving to the countryside before the 3.11 triple disaster. While it was health and environmental concerns, among other reasons, that motivated these three informants to relocate to the countryside, they also explained that they chose Taketa over other municipalities in rural Japan because of its support system for in-migrants and the personal commitment of local government employees. This is also true for two of my other informants who are artists. Mr.Y., a single artist in his late 20s, came to Taketa in 2016 to join the COKT program after graduating from art school in Ōita City. Originally from Miyazaki Prefecture, he came to Taketa because he already knew artists who worked in Taketa as members of the COKT program and used the free studio space the local government provides in the abandoned school building of the former Taketa Sōgō Gakkō (TSG

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studios). As an artist he does not have to work in the city hall but can spend all his time on his art projects. It was this freedom accompanied by a fixed salary, the free studio and the network of artists and craftsmen who live and work in Taketa that attracted him the most. Mr. N., a bamboo artist in his mid-40s who is originally from Osaka, was personally invited by the mayor to work and live in Taketa and relocated in 2012. He received financial support and the mayor offered him a studio in the abandoned school building and personally selected a house he himself would have wanted to live in. Beyond this personal support and warm welcome, the artist decided to relocate to Taketa with his wife and two children because of the rich natural resources, the slow life and the low living costs. The natural resources and slow life in the countryside also motivated Mr. H., another COKT graduate in his late 30s, to come to Taketa. In 2012, he relocated with his wife from Chiba Prefecture where he had worked in sales. Both joined COKT and later restored an abandoned house close to Bungo Taketa train station where they opened a hostel in 2017. The couple came to Taketa because Mr. H.’s wife was not happy with their life in the city and wanted to live in the countryside. She found quality of life more important than work and thought that the quality of life would increase in a rural town. With existing plans to open a hostel when they relocated, Mr. and Mrs. H. chose Taketa due to its attractiveness for tourists: nature, history, hot springs and food culture. In sum, although there are many places in rural Kyushu like Taketa that fulfill the imaginary of rural towns, my informants initially decided to move to Taketa because of the excellent support system provided by the local government. This includes personal support like employment opportunities, housing and interesting people who provide a warm welcome. Participants were also attracted by financial incentives such as discounted rent, specific programs like COKT or access to other funding for the establishment of businesses. It was the financial incentives and the local government’s support, as much as the advantages of rurality and Taketa as an “interesting” city, that attracted the people I interviewed. When my interviewees called Taketa an “interesting city,” they often referred to the mayor’s revitalization initiatives that have promoted (traditional) crafts, restored the old castle town area and invited urban residents to relocate to Taketa through the COKT program. Apart from these factors that are particular to Taketa, my interviewees’ individual reasons to relocate were diverse and often similar to factors that other authors have previously identified as motivations for urban-rural-migration in Japan. In Taketa, three of my eight participants had come for “health promotion” reasons (Nakagawa 2018) in search of healthy and safe food and clean air. The two single women came for “a lack of clear long-term opportunities” (Klien 2016) after fragmented work biographies in their previous locations and wanted to “settle down” (Odagiri 2015). One informant also mentioned the goal of achieving “spiritual growth” (Nakagawa 2018) through discovering “true values” in the countryside. Most of them also came to Taketa with goals of contributing to the community (Klien 2016; Rosenberger 2017) and supporting Taketa’s revitalization.

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Conclusions In sum, there are three connected reasons why people have relocated to Taketa despite its remote location, weak economy, lack of employment opportunities, and dramatic demographic aging. One reason is the strong commitment and strong leadership of a charismatic leader, or what Kitano (2009) terms strategic intent and political will. The personal commitment of the mayor and the municipal government employee in charge of promoting in-migration have played significant roles in attracting newcomers to Taketa. Almost all of my interviewees, including both COKT participants and independent relocators, highlighted personal support from the mayor as an important motivation for their move to Taketa. The mayor’s commitment distinguishes Taketa from other rural communities that the city is competing with for in-migrants. The second major contributor to successful in-migration in Taketa is the support system itself. This is of course related to the existence of committed local government employees and the mayor who has developed a vision for the city’s future, applied for funding, maintained the database of available housing, provided potential settlers to Taketa with information on housing for reasonable prices and strategically employed the COKT program to attract migrants and hand-pick them. These support mechanisms, which make Taketa unique among many other rural communities in Japan, seem to be even more important drivers of relocation than migrants’ longing for nature, safe food, and a place with culture and history. The third significant contributor to relatively high relocation rates is the construct of Taketa as an “interesting” or “soon to flourish” city. This impression of Taketa is related to the personal commitment of the mayor, local government employees, locals and newcomers, whose initiatives have made Taketa “interesting” through restoring historical buildings, inviting artists and craftsmen to the city, encouraging the re-use of abandoned buildings and the foundation of enterprises and creating an atmosphere of openness toward newcomers. All these individual initiatives seem to have created the impression of Taketa as an “interesting town” where “crazy things are possible” and that is “about to flourish in the near future.” In conclusion, this chapter stresses the importance of local actors’ agency in regional revitalization when appropriating government programs to their own needs but also recognizes its limitations. Revitalization efforts in Taketa are connected with local actors’ hope that a periphery does not have to stay a periphery and that “de-peripheralization” is possible. Locals hope that the in-migrants will start successful businesses, pay taxes and create new networks with places in and outside of Japan and its metropolitan areas. Realization of these plans has been supported by newcomers’ business activities as well as professional and social networks, with visiting friends, family, artists and craftsmen often later motivated to move to Taketa themselves. However, the majority of newcomers were recruited via the COKT program that is funded by Japan’s central government. Other programs for in-migrants in Taketa are also based on government funding. With regard to a “de-peripheralization,” understood as autonomy from the center (Kühn 2015), it becomes evident that the

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financial dependencies between Taketa’s local government and the central government are still strong. Although there is an increase in local agency reflected in the skillful appropriation of government programs to local needs, Taketa’s reliance on government programs consolidates local governments’ subjection to central authorities. While the Taketa case demonstrates increased agency of local actors expressed in the enthusiasm and commitment of local government officials, newcomers and long-term residents, the decade-long dependencies of Japan’s peripheries on the center still constrain processes of “de-peripheralization.”

References Baumann, Christoph. 2018. Idyllische Ländlichkeit: Eine Kulturgeographie der Ländlichkeit. Bielefeld: Transcript. Benson, Michaela, and Karen O’Reilly (eds.). 2009. Lifestyle migration: Expectations, aspirations and experiences. Farnham: Ashgate. Elis, Volker, and Ralph Lützeler. 2008. “Regionalentwicklung und Ungleichheit: Raumdisparitäten als Thema zur Prime Time—eine Einführung.” Japanstudien 20, 15–33. Flüchter, Winfried. 2005. “Shrinking cities between megalopolises and rural peripheries.” Philipp Oswalt (ed.), Shrinking cities, volume 1: International research, 83–92. OstfildernRuit: Hatje Cantz Verlag. Godzik, Maren. 2008. “Ruheständler als Lebenselixier? Ruhestandswanderung und lokale Neubelebungsstrategien am Beispiel von Atami und Ishigaki.” Japanstudien 20, 129–162. Hashimoto, Kōshi. 2015. Chihō sōsei no riron to jissen [Theory and practice of regional revitalization]. Tokyo: Sōseisha. Hüstebeck, Momoyo. 2014. Dezentralisierung in Japan: Politische Autonomie und Partizipation auf Gemeindeebene. Wiesbaden: Springer. Ivy, Marilyn. 1995. Discourses of the vanishing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kitano, Shu. 2009. Space, planning and rurality: Uneven rural development in Japan.Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing. Klien, Susanne. 2016. “Reinventing Ishinomaki, reinventing Japan? Creative networks, alternative lifestyles and the search for quality of life in post-growth Japan.” Japanese Studies 36 (1), 39–60. Knight, John. 1994. “Rural revitalization in Japan: Spirit of the village and taste of the country.” Asian Survey 34 (7), 634–646. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Massey, Doreen. 2005. For space. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: Sage Publications. MLIT (Ministry of Land, Infrastructure,Transport and Tourism). 2017. “Chiiki-betsu ni mita kōreika” [Demographic aging in the different regions]. http://www8.cao.go.jp/kourei/ whitepaper/w-2017/html/zenbun/s1_1_2.html (accessed August 20, 2018). ———. 2018. “Heisei 29-nendo kokudo kōtsū hakusho (gaiyō)” [Whitebook on land and transport (outline)]. www.mlit.go.jp/common/001239760.pdf (accessed August 20, 2018). Nakagawa,Yoshinori. 2018. “Psychological and behavioral predictors of rural in-migration.” Rural Sociology 83 (1), 24–50. Odagiri, Tokumi. 2015. “Tayō-na wakamono to tayō-na nōsan gyoson o tsunagu chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai” [Community building support staff connecting diverse youth and diverse villages]. Tokumi Odagiri, Tarō Hirai, and Shinobu Shiikawa (eds.), Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai: Nihon o genki ni suru 60-nin no chōsen [Community building support staff

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program: Strategies of 60 people who make Japan flourish], 23–37. Tokyo: Gakugei Shuppan. Ōita-ken. 2017.“Ōita-kennai no kōreisha no jōkyō (Heisei 28-nen 10-gatsu 1-nichi genzai)” [The condition of demographic aging in Ōita Prefecture]. www.pref.Ōita.jp/uploaded/ attachment/1043622.pdf (accessed September 10, 2018). Rausch, Anthony. 2008. “Japanese rural revitalization: The reality and potential of cultural commodities as local brands.” Japanstudien 20, 223–245. Reiher, Cornelia. 2010. “Selling tradition in Japanese rural tourism.” Orientwissenschaftliche Hefte 28, 121–151. ———. 2014. Lokale Identität und ländliche Revitalisierung. Die japanische Keramikstadt Arita und die Grenzen der Globalisierung. Bielefeld: Transcript. Rosenberger, Nancy. 2017. “Young organic farmers in Japan: Betting on lifestyle, locality, and livelihood.” Contemporary Japan 29 (1), 14–30. Sakuma, Nobuo, Yoshihiro Inoue, and Tadaharu Itō. 2017. Chihō sōsei no bijon to senryaku [Visions and strategies for regional revitalization]. Tokyo: Soseisha. Shiga, Ikuo. 2015. “9-tsu no misshon o suikō suru kyōryokutai o tairyō saiyō” [We employ many COKT members to fulfill nine missions].Tokumi Odagiri,Tarō Hirai, and Shinobu Shiikawa (eds.), Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai: Nihon o genki ni suru 60-nin no chōsen [Community building support staff program: Strategies of 60 people who make Japan flourish], 205–207. Tokyo: Gakugei Shuppan. Shirai, Sayuri. 2005. “Growing problems in the local public finance system of Japan.” http:// coe21-policy.sfc.keio.ac.jp/ja/wp/WP31.pdf (accessed November 1, 2008). Sōmushō. 2018a. “Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai suishin yōkō” [Guideline for the promotion of community building support staff]. www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000563626.pdf (accessed September 3, 2018). ———. 2018b. “Chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai no katsuyaku-saki (ukeire jichitai ichiran, Heisei 29-nendo)” [Places of community building support staff ’s activities: Receiving municipalities in 2017]. www.soumu.go.jp/main_content/000539424.pdf (accessed September 3, 2018). Steffensen, Sam K. 1996. “Evolutionary socio-economic aspects of the Japanese era of localities’ discourse.” Sarah Metzger-Court and Werner Pascha (eds.), Japan’s socio-economic evolution: Continuity and change, 142–172. Folkestone: Japan Library/Curzon Press. Suzuki, Nobuko. 2018.“Kurashi-yasui machi, utsukushii mura” [Easy-to-live-in towns, beautiful villages]. Chiikijin 36. http://chiikijin.chikouken.jp/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ tokusyu.compressed.pdf (accessed September 10, 2018). Taketa-shi. 2010. “Nōson kaiki sengen: toshi to ijū-teijū no suishin” [Manifesto for the return to the countryside: The promotion of migration and the city]. www.taketa-city. com/vision/policy/e1.html (accessed August 20, 2018). ———. 2014. Ōita-ken Taketa-shi ijū gaidobukku [Guidebook for relocating to Taketa in Ōita Prefecture]. Taketa: Taketa-shi Kikaku Jōhō-ka. ———. 2017. “Taketa-shi tōkeisho” [Statistical yearbook of Taketa City]. www.city.taketa. Ōita.jp/outline/dw/29th-toukei.pdf (accessed August 20, 2018). Tamura, Shigeru. 2007. Jichitai kakusa ga kuni o horobosu [Inequalities between the municipalities ruin the country]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. Wigen, Kären. 1995. The making of a Japanese periphery, 1750–1920. Berkeley: University of California Press. Yamanō, Hiroshi. 2018. Chiiki purodyūsu, hajime no ippō [Producing the region, first steps]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō. Yoshimi, Shun’ya. 2009. Posuto sengo shakai [Post-postwar society]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho.

PART IV

Conceptual interventions for a new understanding of rural Japan

14 REINVENTING RURALITY Hybridity and socio-spatial depolarization in northern Japan John W. Traphagan

Introduction In this chapter, my aim is to explore the example of an entrepreneur who, through her activities in developing a novel business in Japan’s Iwate Prefecture in the Tōhoku region, has engaged in a process of creating hybrid spaces that blend the rustic and cosmopolitan. Drawing on ethnographic data and interviews with individuals who have started restaurants and focusing on one of these individuals, my interests lie in considering how small business owners consciously work to reconstruct Japanese rurality in ways that display elements of what Woods terms the “global countryside,” understood as rural space that reflects conditions of global interconnectedness and interdependence (Woods 2011: 492). As will become evident later in the chapter, I approach this feature of rural interconnectedness and interdependence in a somewhat different way from Woods in that I view this contemporary turn in rural life as representing the emergence of what I term “neo-rurality,” which encompasses the idea of a global countryside but also incorporates a sense of active and intentional reinventing of the rural as a hybrid space that expresses components of both tradition and modernity (Thompson and Traphagan 2006). My aim in this chapter is to explore the depolarization of the Japanese countryside by looking at the micro-level—the case of one restaurant—as an expression of material culture hybridization (Altaweel and Squitieri 2018), as well as a discussion of the identity of the woman who created and owns that restaurant as a related expression of hybridity. By looking at the micro-level of experience, we can see ways in which depolarization of the periphery and center in Japan is both expressed and constructed at the level of individual lived experience. Obviously, a single example does not provide a basis for generalization, but it does represent a way to look deeply into processes of depolarization and hybridization as they are expressed and experienced within the context of daily life. That said, the example I discuss here is not unique—in the course of my research I have interviewed

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several entrepreneurs who have started similar businesses and also engaged in conscious reformulation of the meaning of rurality in the process of creating those businesses (Traphagan 2017). Several of the individuals with whom I have discussed their business activities returned to the region presented here after several years living in urban areas such as Tokyo or Sapporo to start businesses focused on specialty foods, such as a man who created a French pastry shop along the bypass route between rice fields and the town’s business district and another who transformed his 200 year-old family house into a pizza parlor at the center of a former samurai village that the local government is converting into a historical preservation district. Others with whom I have spoken have pursued businesses such as clothing stores that are designed to reflect a more cosmopolitan feeling than local shops historically found in the area. A common theme among these entrepreneurs is a desire reflected in the comment of one woman who started an eclectic store to sell clothing for young people alongside a variety of cute and interesting import items: “My aim was to create a shop that would appeal to young women, particularly high school girls, and would reflect an atmosphere of similar shops in Tokyo.” The specific case I focus on here in this chapter represents one example reflecting ways in which some local entrepreneurs are reframing rural life to include elements of the cosmopolitan. This contributes to an ongoing process in Japan of socio-spatial depolarization of the urban and rural as individuals and organizations imagine and create a new kind of rurality and rural lifestyle that blends imaginary, conceptual, and material aspects of rusticity and cosmopolitanism.

Conceptualizing rurality That the nature of 21st-century rurality is difficult to characterize analytically seems evident in the varied terminologies social scientists have devised to address the changing and emerging nature of the countryside in many social contexts around the world. Often, these concepts operate around binary oppositions of social, geographical, economic, cultural, and political frames of experience such as periphery and center, traditional and modern, agricultural and industrial, or rural and urban. Underlying these binaries is a sense that peripheral social and geographical spaces contrast sharply with centers of cultural, political, and economic activity in terms of both lifestyles and in the attitudes of residents. As Kühn (2015: 369) notes, peripheralization is associated with the idea that social relations have spatial implications related to the interactions and interpretations of non-metropolitan and metropolitan regions that also often express temporal inequalities of lived experience between areas deemed peripheral and central. These interpretations are also often connected with notions of margins and marginality characterized, often vaguely, as places and peoples left behind but also as places harboring traditions viewed as culturally and socially authentic (de Souza 2018). Peripherality frequently indexes ideas about differential access to power and unequal distribution of power that can lead to variations in spatial development, although the term power is infrequently used with clarity, and the nature of power differences between peripheries and centers is often not clearly defined in the literature (Kühn 2015: 376).

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The peripheral/marginal and central, of course, are not absolutes but exist along sliding scales in which peripheries may become centers over time. Indeed, because both peripheries and centers are composed of social actors with agency, not only do the relationships between peripheries and centers change over time, but individuals and groups may intentionally attempt to reshape these relationships or reinvent the social and spatial composition of either context. However, it is not necessarily the case that actors in rural areas will aim at reconstructing a periphery into a center or attempt to distinguish it from a center. Instead, they may engage in trying to build a distinct sort of spatial and social context that does not fit neatly into the binaries of urban/rural, peripheral/central, or modern/traditional. This process of reconceptualizing the nature of rurality in Japan is what I want to focus on in the remainder of this chapter. I am particularly interested in active, rather than passive, behaviors that contribute to the depolarization of social and spatial contexts in northern Japan. I see this process as a locus of hybridization, which can involve some of the more typical examples associated with globalization, such as intermarriages and international trade but also involves the creation of hybrid spaces or material hybridities—that often reflect hybrid identities—which are themselves depolarized (Kraidy 2005: 46).These are not loci of homogenization but are instead loci of interspatial and intersocial borrowing and fusion, drawing from both local and global sources and from generative processes creating new and different types of spaces (and identities) that do not fit neatly into categories such as urban and rural or agricultural and industrial.

Rurality and neo-rurality in northern Japan Rural Japan has been the focus of considerable research by anthropologists and other social scientists since the 1930s, beginning with Embree’s ethnography Suye Mura:A Japanese village (1939). Numerous studies of rural life in Japan have followed, including Norbeck’s Takashima: A Japanese fishing community (1954), Beardsley, Hall, and Ward’s Village Japan (1959), Smith’s Kurusu: The price of progress in a Japanese village, 1951–1975 (1978), Dore’s Shinohata: A portrait of a Japanese village (1978), and Bernstein’s Haruko’s world: A Japanese farm woman and her community (1983), as well as more recent works like my own The practice of concern: Ritual, well-being, and aging in rural Japan (Traphagan 2004) and Wood’s Ogata Mura: Sowing dissent and reclaiming identity in a Japanese farming village (2012). The list is long, and the depth of ethnographic detail related to rural Japan from the 1930s until the present is impressive. Perhaps part of the reason for this highly developed research literature on rural life in Japan is related to a general fascination among scholars after the Second World War with processes of modernization and the reconfiguring of Japan as an urban, industrial society with a broadly defined middle class, as exemplified in Vogel’s (1963) study of urban white-collar families in Tokyo in the late 1950s. This literature describes a fairly rapid transition during the postwar period from rural areas traversed by “wash-board corrugated” roads more easily navigated on a scooter described by Dore (1978: 22), to a countryside crisscrossed with limitedaccess highways and elevated Shinkansen tracks, in addition to well-developed road

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systems that people drive upon to purchase goods at large shopping malls, often in towns neighboring those in which they live or in more distant cities (Traphagan and Brown 2002). Research related to changing patterns of life in the Japanese countryside, of course, must be contextualized in the political, economic, and social flows of the nation-state and global economy. It is difficult to characterize towns like Ishii in Tōhoku, where I have spent much of my time as an ethnographer and which is the subject of the present study, in terms of binaries like agricultural and industrial. On first glance, the town looks decidedly agricultural, with its wide expanses of open farmland—not only used for planting rice but also for dairy farms set amidst rolling hills where corn is grown in fields that abut large barns housing dairy cows. But nestled into the hills adjacent to that farmland is a Toyota factory that produces the Prius C, as well as pharmaceutical and semiconductor production facilities. To ride the Shinkansen north from Tokyo into Tōhoku is to be confronted not with a transition from urban/industrial to rural/agricultural Japan but to glide through a pastiche of urban and rural spatiality intertwined in a latticework of variously populated areas linked through expressways, rail lines, and communications networks set amidst rice fields, McDonald’s restaurants, Seven-Eleven convenience stores, high-rise hotels, and shopping malls with large parking lots to accommodate the automobile-centered lifestyle of the Japanese countryside. Kelly’s (1990) nuanced description of rural social patterns in the Japan of the 1980s and his notion of “regional” as opposed to agricultural Japan has proven to be a useful way to rethink the relationship between rural and urban spaces. Kelly describes an ongoing process of metropolitanization of rural lifeways in which farming no longer takes significant amounts of people’s time, nor does it represent the primary framework through which life is organized. Instead, as Kelly (1990: 218) wrote, patterns of work, school, and family life have become largely “indistinguishable from those of [. . .] relatives and acquaintances who have moved to metropolitan Tokyo,” and this seems even more evident as of 2018. People move easily across regional, national, and international borders, and it is common for residents of Ishii to have had significant living experiences in other parts of Japan, as well as in other parts of the world. Today’s middle-aged, college graduate in Ishii grew up at a time when study abroad was becoming more common, and even those who did not attend college may well have visited other countries for recreation or for study related to work— study trips for farmers have been organized for many decades in this part of Japan. The emergence of regionalized social spaces and behaviors is related to a general standardization of life patterns that has occurred throughout Japan as different parts of the country have become “synchronized” with metropolitan centers and a mainstream or middle-class consciousness (chūryū ishiki) continually expressed and reconstructed in various forms of media that are available throughout the country and that in the 21st century are easily accessible via the Internet and through cable and satellite television broadcasts. This process of metropolitanization is itself situated within a postmodern demographic context of negative population growth or a situation of late-stage

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demographic transition where birth rates are low and death rates are high, leading to a long-term decline in population.This produces short-term problems related to a decrease in the work force and increase in elderly population that can become a drain on the economy as there are fewer workers paying into government programs and more people placing demands on those programs as they age (Hall 1996; Traphagan 2014). In Japan, another by-product of this has been a proliferation of empty buildings and abandoned grave sites that have become readily evident over the past 15 years in areas like Ishii as older people have died without resident offspring to continue caring for the family property or gravestone (Traphagan 2018). Kelly’s work moved our understanding of Japan in a direction that recognizes the ongoing process of socio-spatial depolarization of periphery and center in contemporary Japanese life, but there is also a certain lack of clarity to the term “region” that can make it difficult to work with analytically, particularly when one considers local attitudes and ideas about social and geographical space. The concept of region helps in identifying the interconnectedness among different types of social and geographical communities in Japan, but it also can cloud the fact that many Japanese, including those with whom I have spoken in Ishii and other parts of Tōhoku, think of the region discussed in this chapter as rural/agricultural and contrast that to regions like urban/industrial Tokyo. In other words, the notion of a binary relationship is often reproduced in local discourses about socio-spatial differences and is particularly evident in the use of terms like inaka, which can imply a feeling of agricultural lifeways that contrast with the lifeways of more densely populated areas and unambiguously urban spaces like Tokyo, despite the fact that one certainly finds urban and industrial areas within the context of regions described as inaka, as noted earlier. I raise this point because the term regional, while analytically helpful, also has the problem of somewhat clouding the fact that Japanese themselves often draw a fairly clear distinction between what is rural/agricultural and urban/industrial, even if the meaning in some ways shifts in relation to context and analytically the socio-spatial dimensions of the relationship are not always readily evident, due to the depolarization that has occurred in the region over the past several decades. Quite a few scholars have attempted to address the blurriness of rural and urban regions in several parts of the world that have undergone processes of socio-spatial depolarization. In examining changes in the Benelux region of Europe, Gulinck and Dortmans (1997: 37) use the term “remnant rurality” as a way to characterize regions removed from urban centers but within which there may also be patches of urbanity as well as well-developed infrastructure, such as high-speed rail and limited-access highways, which link together all parts of a region and connect that region to larger political and economic structures. However, I find the notion of “remnant” rurality problematic from an analytical perspective, because it lends itself to a feeling that the rural involves something from the past that is fading away, rather than being a social and spatial context that is continually reconstructed by locals to reflect desires and hopes for life at present and in the future, even while it may draw on imaginaries from the past. Human agency is left out of the picture as is

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a sense of the ways in which people redefine the metaphors they use to represent their own patterns of life. Another term that has been helpful in thinking about areas outside of Japan but that have similarities to places like Tōhoku is “neo-rural.” Unfortunately, the terms neo-rural or neo-ruralism have been defined inconsistently with meanings ranging from back-to-the-land movements and areas of eco-political territory constructed as geographical and epistemological challenges to contemporary urban spaces and capitalist exploitation of the land (Nogué 2012: 27; Resina 2012: 10). In my own work, I have used the term to refer to regions that: 1) are culturally and socially viewed by locals (and outsiders) as rural, 2) continue to carry ecological systems such as agricultural plains or forested mountains as unbuilt surface features while also having highly built areas with dense populations, 3) have engaged in strategic practices associated with building economic and social sustainability while attempting to retain value structures and ideas associated with images and discourses of the rustic, and 4) are linked to larger regions, including the global social imaginary, through infrastructure such as transportation and communications networks, as well as other flows like the dissemination of cultural commodities such as anime or Hollywood films (Traphagan 2018: 162). When applied to the context of northern Japan, this definition is intended to incorporate the attitudes of people living in Tōhoku, attitudes that often represent the region as an aesthetic landscape and containing value structures distinct from that of the urban and industrial (Salabert 2012: 46). However, people in the region also recognize that contemporary regional Japan—or neo-rural Japan as I am calling it here—is linked to the expression and movement of global ideas and products. When we look at this part of Japan, at least, we see a region that retains a significant agricultural element and is perceived by many as rural but also represents a context that displays an entanglement of local, national, and global flows that challenge the idea of peripherality and contribute to the process of depolarization of the urban and rural. This region is also a locus of innovation as governments work to address the problem of negative population growth and a variety of long-term economic and social concerns present, particularly in relation to the continued aging of the population and the associated increases in need for healthcare services (Lit 2006). This brings me to the focus for the remainder of this chapter, an ethnographic exploration of one way in which local residents are resituating their social and spatial environment as a depolarized space that is neither peripheral nor central, neither agricultural nor urban.

The gelato shop at the end of the universe About ten kilometers from the center of Ishii, there is a small farm house across from a narrow road that twists through rice fields, many of which are no longer being farmed but were in use as recently as 15 years ago. A small yellow and green sign indicates that the tiny road is the place to turn if looking for the gelato and cheese shop that sits among corn and hayfields about two kilometers to the north (see Figure 14.1). The narrow tanbo road—or road that traverses rice paddies, leads

FIGURE 14.1 Gelato

shop located across from hay fields that are farmed to feed local

cows Note: The architectural style of the shop does not reflect local design but is instead modeled off of images of European architectural styles. The brick chimney to the right of the building is not working—there is no fireplace in the building—it is for aesthetic purposes only.

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to a somewhat larger road that crosses an area dotted by the remnants of family dairy farms that were at one time similar to the high-tech dairy farms Hansen (2014) discusses in the other major dairy production area, Hokkaido, although in Ishii many of these farms have ceased functioning as a result of older household members no longer being able to physically continue the farm work and younger family members having moved away. Like in many parts of the Japanese countryside, one sees the occasional collapsed building or empty house, as well as the more localized phenomenon of barns where there had once been dozens of cows that now stand as empty shells or serve as storage. The gelato shop, which I will call Ishii Creamery, is the only business of any kind within a radius of a few kilometers of the farm where it is located.The closest businesses are a Family Mart convenience store about five kilometers away, a hot spring (onsen) resort about three kilometers away, and the local office of the agricultural cooperative, which includes a small grocer in addition to offices for the cooperative’s services such as insurance and a grain elevator, about another three kilometers from the shop. There used to be a gasoline stand that was part of the agricultural cooperative, but it closed several years ago. In short, Ishii Creamery is located in an unlikely spot for a business of any kind, surrounded by open fields and remnants of dairy farms, let alone being a good place to start a restaurant. In fact, Mariko explained in one conversation that she was heavily counselled against locating the shop in that area by local business men on the grounds that she would be unlikely to attract many customers.The long lines on hot summer days and regular busloads of customers on their way back from the hot spring, however, have made it clear Mariko made a good, if unconventional, decision. The first floor of the shop is devoted to the primary business owned and run by Mariko, a woman in her mid-50s who was raised in the farmhouse just behind the gelato shop. She also runs a bed and breakfast in the apartment over the shop, although she rarely has visitors and generally does not have time to take care of guests during the busy season for the shop—most of her guests visit during the winter skiing season when gelato demand is slow. When she started the business ten years ago, her plan had been to use the milk from her family farm to emphasize freshness, but her father died suddenly, making the dairy farm component of the business impossible to continue. On most mornings, she hops in her pickup truck and drives to the agricultural cooperative where she purchases locally produced milk she uses for making cheese and gelato. After high school, Mariko attended a dressmaking school in Tokyo and was employed by a clothier upon graduation. She also worked in department stores in Tokyo fitting men’s clothing but after about 20 years started to think about returning to the countryside: “I came to appreciate the lifestyle in the countryside [inaka],” she explained, “and was attracted to the natural beauty of the region. I also wanted to live life at a pace that seemed slower than the city.” Mariko followed a fairly common pattern of return migration, in which an adult child returns to his or her natal home often to live with and ultimately care for elder parents (Kelly

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and White 2006; Traphagan 2000) but also in recent years to start a business, as was the case with Mariko. Indeed, starting a new phase of life and new career was her primary motivation for returning, although being close to her parents as they grew old was an additional element in her decision.The story of Mariko starting a cheese and gelato shop amidst the rice fields of northern Japan is not simply one of a local woman returning to her natal home; instead, it is also a story that brings together the cosmopolitan, the rural, and the global into both the experiences and identity of Mariko and the shop she owns. During several conversations, observations, and my own limited activities helping in the shop, we have discussed a wide range of topics related to the creation of her business; here I will focus on a few key elements that relate to socio-spatial depolarization in Tōhoku. Life at Ishii Creamery is busy, particularly on hot summer days, as customers visit from mid-morning until early evening. At times, cars are parked in the small lot in front of the shop as well as in the hayfield directly across. Mariko leads a very busy life, despite her desire to live at a slower pace when she returned. Ishii Creamery provides an excellent example of both the hybridization and depolarization of the urban and rural.The shop itself is constructed as a cosmopolitan space, architecturally modelled after a house one might find in Europe rather than Japan, with the inside a brightly lit space, lacking anything that one would specifically associate with Japan in terms of décor. Most of the decorations are objects that either Mariko brought back from her time in the Netherlands or that others have brought to her as souvenirs from travels around the world. There are pieces of Delft Porcelain, a large bottle of champagne, and even a couple of Cheesehead hats from Wisconsin that are worn by fans of the Green Bay Packers American football team. Mariko herself is a sports fan, although her main interest is soccer rather than American football. The floor of the shop is composed of terra cotta tile and there is red brick trim throughout the restaurant that contrasts with the modern light oak tables, chairs, and counters. The bed and breakfast above the shop also displays a cosmopolitan flair, with hard-wood floors and beds rather than futon and tatami mats. As Mariko explained to me, it was her intent when designing the interior and exterior of the building to create a space that would have the feel of something not only beyond the Japanese countryside but beyond Japan itself from both aesthetic and cultural perspectives. The sign that she hangs on the door to show whether she is open or closed is written in English, not Japanese, although potential customers rarely pay much attention to the shop hours. If people see that she is inside, they will usually come in regardless of the visibly displayed hours of operation. This is a behavior that Mariko has noted differs markedly from what she experienced working in large departments stores in Tokyo, where store hours are clear and people do not attempt to purchase items outside of those hours. Although Mariko does not complain, it is fairly obvious that at times she finds the off-hours demand something of an intrusion either into her work time (preparing for the next day) or the rare opportunities she has for leisure and rest.

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In short, Ishii Creamery is a locus of global cultural flows, both in terms of its design aesthetic and its products, that is situated amidst the rice fields of the Japanese countryside. And the creation of this locus was not an accident, but was a planned and designed product of Mariko’s goals in creating the shop, as well as her experiences living in the cosmopolitan spaces of Tokyo and Europe. Mariko herself is something of a hybrid culturally. When we spoke, I noted her speech patterns, which over the years that I have known her have come to increasingly reflect the local dialect in Ishii as opposed to the standard Japanese she used when I first met her. She retains interests in world politics—and world soccer—that developed earlier in life when she lived in Tokyo, but rarely does she dress in the stylish clothes that once were part of her daily routine. Whether at the store or when we were talking, Mariko was usually dressed in work clothes—pants, rubber boots, a blouse and white apron, and a white hat, although not the type of hat farm women in the area typically wear while working but something more like the style one would find at a gelato shop in Tokyo. Mariko is an outgoing person who enjoys talking, particularly with the customers who frequent her restaurant—she has many regulars who visit not only for the gelato and cheese but also to spend time chatting with Mariko. What follows are a few excerpts from several conversations I have had with Mariko over the years and, as I have observed the context of the gelato shop, that identify some of the elements of depolarization and hybridization evident in both the shop and Mariko’s identity. On one afternoon while we had a few minutes to relax in the kitchen of her family farmhouse, Mariko began by talking about her interests in returning home and a desire to enjoy the natural environment, slower pace, and relaxed social interactions that she viewed as characterizing the town where she grew up. After this, we moved into a discussion of how she started her business. JT:  How

did you obtain the financial backing necessary to start a business? father helped. He set me up with twenty million yen [roughly US$200,000] that I could use to develop the business. He paid for the building and machinery necessary to operate and paid for my trip to the Netherlands to learn cheese making. This was a loan, which I paid back to him at the rate of about 100,000 yen per month. He also paid for me to learn cheese and gelato making through an apprenticeship at a production facility not far from here as well as a study trip to the Netherlands, where I focused particularly on cheese making. JT: Why were you interested in starting a business? MARIKO:  I didn’t intend to start a business. Ah, how do I say this, I didn’t have a feeling to create a business at that time. Well, I wanted to make cheese. That’s all. Basically, I wasn’t really thinking that I was starting a business and wasn’t thinking about selling products; I was only thinking that I needed to do my best so that things would go well. I liked my job in Tokyo, but I felt there was a ceiling for working women to get a promotion in the company, especially in a big company. I thought that if I wanted to get a promotion, probably it’s MARIKO: My

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better to work in a smaller company or start my own business. But starting in business is tough. However, I enjoy it because I can manage my business as I want. Especially as a woman . . . well, women don’t think on the basis of statistics or theory. A woman follows her own feeling—this is right or wrong, this is good or bad, this will be going well or not, etc.—compared with men. It’s comfortable for me to conduct my business through my feelings as a woman and with the help of female part-time workers. Women can share the sense or feeling of things, and are not required to explain their actions using statistics. It’s comfortable. One of the key elements that arises in this portion of our conversation is that Mariko’s experience in returning to Tōhoku is not represented in terms of a return to “traditional” values, which are, in fact, associated by many Japanese with social constructs such as an ideology of patriarchy and expectations of women’s economic dependence and linkage to the domestic sphere among the affluent middle-class (Hashimoto 2008: 31). Of course, the relationship between ideologies associated with tradition and modernity in Japan is complex, and as Hashimoto (2008: 31) notes, contemporary Japanese live in a context where they are constantly negotiating “a tapestry of premodern, modern, and postmodern elements into a synthetic model” that embraces contradictions and transformations in gender relationships and is neither unambiguous nor linear. While Mariko’s return to Ishii was tied to a desire to live in the open spaces and more community-centered lifestyle she associates with the region, it also was closely related to her ambitions to run a business in a way that is unfettered by perceived masculine (traditional, patriarchal) ideals that are expressed in the business world not only through patterns of behavior but by a relatively low glass ceiling that limits the capacity of women to control their own careers and rise to positions of authority and power. We can see in this example, as well as in the way she has gone about developing her business, that Mariko represents in her own identity a depolarization of urban and rural—on the one hand she has an interest in returning to the more rustic environs and lifestyles of Tōhoku but on the other hand she has a variety of cosmopolitan experiences including years working in Tokyo, international travel (she has visited tourist places such as Turkey, Mexico, and the US), and an extended period in the Netherlands to learn her craft that have influenced her ambitions as a business woman and shaped her ideas about gender hierarchies, particularly within the business world. Interestingly, Mariko has hired employees who have similar experiences—she has a strong preference for hiring women, in part because she does not find men to be terribly bright, and one of her main employees is similar to Mariko, having travelled extensively, while having a preference for the lifestyle of the countryside. The contrasts of traditional and modern value structures are something Mariko has discussed several times in our conversations. For example, upon returning to Tōhoku, Mariko has had several experiences that brought lifestyles and attitudes associated with the cosmopolitan and rustic into direct contact and conflict. One

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of the most salient of these is related to marriage. Despite the fact that there are significant numbers of women (and men) in middle-age who have never married in Japan (Retherford et al. 2001; Ueno 1994), there remains an attitude among at least some (usually older) people in Ishii that marriage is both expected and a desired state of life. As a result, people will often make efforts to arrange meetings or marriages between single individuals, despite the fact that there may be little or no desire on the part of those involved to find a spouse, leading to strategic attempts to avoid being introduced to potential marriage partners. For example, one individual who has participated in my research over the years, a man now in his mid-50s, surprised me when I visited him last because he was wearing a wedding ring. When I asked if he had married (in the past he had told me that he did not wish to marry, but was constantly pressured by his parents, relatives, and neighbors to find a wife) he laughed and explained, “no, no, I just started wearing this so that people would think I’m married and stop trying to arrange a marriage for me!” Shortly after returning to Ishii, Mariko encountered neighbors dropping by her family residence to discuss with her parents the possibility of marriage to a local man. This attempt to arrange a marriage was something that Mariko found quite objectionable, although over several conversations I found that she was ambivalent about marriage in general. At one time while riding in a car together, she explained that she really did not care much for men and had absolutely no desire to marry. Another time when we were talking in more depth about marriage, she told me: At one time I wanted kids, but having a husband never interested me much. I don’t really want to be married. I suppose if the right person came along, it would be ok, but I think it really would be more of a nuisance [mendokusai] than anything else because I would have to take care of my husband. It would be much more time-consuming than my life is now, and I really don’t have much time in any case with running the shop. People do come around to try to match me up with someone occasionally, but I think they just have too much time on their hands. At my age, it’s difficult to see what the point of marriage would be.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have tried to bring the issue of socio-spatial depolarization of periphery and center down to the level of the individual. My aim has been to explore the experiences and ideas of one business woman as an example of how depolarization of urban and rural contexts can be performed in the life and work of an individual—or perhaps another way to think about this would be to view Mariko’s identity as hybridized and depolarized, including elements of both the cosmopolitan and rustic which are, of course, expressions of her own experiences growing up in Ishii, moving to Tokyo, traveling outside of Japan, and even living in another country for several months. Mariko’s case is by no means unusual in Ishii or in surrounding towns. Many people now in their 50s and younger have grown

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up in an era where national and international travel is a normal part of life. And as Japanese have traveled, the country has become increasingly internationalized by the transnational movement of people, ideas, and things that have been encouraged through national policy, particularly when it comes to higher education, since the 1980s (Breaden et al. 2014). What is interesting here from an analytical perspective is the ways in which Mariko has taken that experience and made it an element in the social and spatial fabrication of her shop and, thus, created a new and innovative reinventing and reimagining of the Japanese countryside. Ishii Creamery is a product and expression of Mariko’s experiences, interests, and vision for her shop and forms a locus of socio-spatial depolarization nestled deeply within the Japanese countryside but that contains hybridized elements of center and periphery, cosmopolitan and rustic. Her choice of products—gelato and cheese—are not really native to Japan, although dairy has been produced in Ishii since shortly after the end of the Second World War and in Hokkaido considerably longer. It was a logical decision to incorporate the family business/farm into her plans for building a career after returning to Ishii, and part of the decision was related to resources available to her through her father’s interest in finding a way to continue the family farm—for which there was no successor when Mariko decided to return. But Mariko’s choice of cheese and gelato was a decision to incorporate the global and cosmopolitan into the structure of both her career and her shop—to bring food styles and the overall aesthetic of her shop from a perceived center and to place it in the context of the periphery. She could have chosen to simply continue producing milk for sale through the agricultural cooperative that would end up in grocery stores, or she could have simply made a soft ice cream shop typical of the area, but she wanted to create something innovative and hip that she would enjoy as a career and that would also allow her to be in control of that career. In other words, her own identity as someone who has travelled and who is in her own way a product of hybridized flows associated with globalization is directly expressed in the shop—both in the products she makes and in its cosmopolitan aesthetic. In many ways, this depolarized social and spatial context is evident even in the gelato that Mariko produces. Two of her specialties are blueberry and asparagus gelato, both of which are popular flavors among patrons of the restaurant.The blueberries are grown in the garden directly next to the shop and the asparagus is grown behind the family farmhouse, as are tomatoes usually used for tomato sorbet when in season. Mariko places a great deal of emphasis on the freshness of the ingredients she works with and notes that one of her goals is to use local produce in the gelato she makes. And asparagus has become a symbolic product of Ishii celebrated at the town’s summer festival, which links her shop to local political and economic activities related to creating products that are closely associated with specific areas and that can appeal to locals, attract visitors to the town, and be sold in antennae shops that introduce locally produced goods to customers in major cities like Tokyo (Thompson 2004)—asparagus-flavored gelato may sound a bit unusual, but it has become a favorite of Ishii residents and of Mariko’s shop. In short, not only

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Ishii Creamery but the gelato itself represents a hybridized materiality of local and global flows, bringing together local produce and an internationalized, cosmopolitan product in the form of the gelato. While Ishii Creamery may be the gelato shop at the end of the universe far removed from what is often viewed as the mainstream of Japanese life— cosmopolitan Tokyo—it is also a locus of invention, hybridization, and socio-spatial depolarization. It is a place in which neo-rurality is being constructed as a depolarized social and spatial context in which periphery and center come together in a social, aesthetic, and ideational frame of rustic cosmopolitanism.The conceptualization of Mariko’s shop has emerged in relation to her experiences from numerous parts of the world while the products she makes have local content in ingredients, flavor, and meaning. What we see in the ethnographic example I have discussed here is the intersection of the rustic and cosmopolitan within a depolarized sociospatial context of entrepreneurial innovation and material hybridization.

References Altaweel, Mark, and Andrea Squitieri. 2018. Revolutionizing a world: From small states to universalism in the pre-islamic pre-west. London: UCL Press. Beardsley, Richard K., John W. Hall, and Robert E. Ward. 1959. Village Japan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bernstein, Gail Lee. 1983. Haruko’s world: A Japanese farm woman and her community. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Breaden, Jeremy, Stacey Steele, and Carolin S. Stevens. 2014. Internationalising Japan: Discourse and practice. London and New York: Routledge. de Souza, Peter. 2018. The rural and peripheral in regional development: An alternative perspective. London and New York: Routledge. Dore, Ronald. 1978. Shinohata: A portrait of a Japanese village. Berkeley: University of California Press. Embree, John F. 1939. Suye Mura: A Japanese village. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gulinck, Hubert, and Carl Dortmans. 1997. “Neo-rurality: The Benelux as a workshop for new ideas about threatened rural areas.” Built Environment 23, 37–46. Hall, John B. 1996. “Negative population growth: Why we must, and how we could, achieve it.” Population and Environment 18, 65–71. Hansen, Paul. 2014. “Hokkaido’s frontiers: Blurred embodiments, shared affects and the evolution of dairy farming’s animal-human-machine.” Critique of Anthropology 34, 48–72. Hashimoto, Akiko. 2008. “Blondie, Sazae, and their storied successors: Japanese families in newspaper comics.” Akiko Hashimoto and John W. Traphagan (eds.), Imagined families, lived families: Culture and kinship in contemporary Japan, 15–32. Albany: State University of New York Press. Kelly,William W. 1990. “Regional Japan:The price of prosperity and the benefits of dependency.” Daedalus 119, 207–227. Kelly,William W., and Merry I.White. 2006. “Students, slackers, singles, seniors, and strangers transforming a family-nation.” Peter J. Katzenstein and Takashi Shiraishi (eds.), Beyond Japan:The dynamics of East Asian regionalism, 63–83. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. Kraidy, Marwan M. 2005. Hybridity, or the cultural logic of globalization. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

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Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23, 367–378. Lit, Phua Kai. 2006. “The Japanese experience with population ageing and the financing of social security, health and other social services for the elderly: Lessons for other nations.” Asian Journal of Social Science 34, 618–629. Nogué, Joan. 2012. “Neo-ruralism in the European context: Origins and evolution.” Joan Ramon Resina and William Viestenz (eds.), The new ruralism: An epistemology of transformed space, 28–41. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Norbeck, Edward. 1954. Takashima: A Japanese fishing community. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Resina, Joan Ramon. 2012. “The modern rural.” Joan Ramon Resina and William Viestenz (eds.), The new ruralism: An epistemology of transformed space, 7–27. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Retherford, Robert D., Naohiro Ogawa, and Rikiya Matsukura. 2001. “Late marriage and less marriage in Japan.” Population and Development Review 27, 65–102. Salabert, Pere. 2012. “A semi-Peircean essay on ‘new ruralism’ by means of nature.” Joan Ramon Resina and William Viestenz (eds.), The new ruralism: An epistemology of transformed space, 42–55. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Smith, Robert J. 1978. Kurusu: The price of progress in a Japanese village, 1951–1975. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Thompson, Christopher S. 2004. “Host produced rural tourism:Towa’s Tokyo antenna shop.” Annals of Tourism Research 31, 580–600. Thompson, Christopher S., and John W.Traphagan (eds.). 2006. Wearing cultural styles in Japan: Tradition and modernity in practice. Albany: SUNY Press. Traphagan, John W. 2000. “The liminal family: Return migration and intergenerational conflict in Japan.” Journal of Anthropological Research 56, 365–385. ———. 2004. The practice of concern: Ritual, well-being, and aging in rural Japan. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. ———. 2014. “East Asia’s population problem.” Georgetown Journal of International Affairs 15, 17–26. ———. 2017. “Entrepreneurs in rural Japan: Gender, blockage, and the pursuit of existential meaning.” Asian Anthropology 16, 77–94. ———. 2018.“Empty houses, abandoned graves: Negative population growth and new ideas in neorural Japan.” Brown Journal of World Affairs 24, 161–174. Traphagan, John W., and L. Keith Brown. 2002. “Fast food and intergenerational commensality in Japan: New styles and old patterns.” Ethnology 41, 119–134. Ueno, Chizuko. 1994. “Women and the family in transition in postindustrial Japan.” Joyce Gelb and Marian Lief Palley (eds.), Women of Japan & Korea, 23–42. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Vogel, Ezra F. 1963. Japan’s new middle class: The salary man and his family in a Tokyo suburb. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wood, Donald C. 2012. Ogata Mura: Sowing dissent and reclaiming identity in a Japanese farming village. New York: Berghahn Books. Woods, Michael. 2011. “The local politics of the global countryside: Boosterism, aspirational ruralism and the contested reconstitution of Queenstown, New Zealand.” GeoJournal 76, 365–381.

15 REREADING THE CHANGING JAPANESE RURAL PERIPHERIES New approaches and actors for the future Tolga Özs¸en

Introduction: ideals versus realities of Japanese rural communities From an economic, social, cultural and demographic perspective, peripheral communities in Japan suffer from significant survival problems. Even though recent studies have shed new light on these issues, most readings of Japanese peripheral communities still paint a rather dark picture of rural Japan. In addition, the prevailing understanding of the Japanese countryside often revolves around ideas that support more “traditional” points of view, for example that production is centered around rice agriculture, access to information is generally limited by physical and sociocultural boundaries, knowledge is transferred in a vertical structure from generation to generation, village populations are stagnant, social structures are homogeneous and closed and social relationships are established within and defined by physical boundaries. In reality, however, rural areas have changed in some respects. Production structures are no longer based solely on agriculture.According to the 2019 Japan Statistical Yearbook, roughly 70 percent of agricultural households farm only part-time (MIC 2019). In Japan, information access and acquisition channels are as differentiated in the countryside as they are in city centers. Most households have internet access. A 2007 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) report on internet usage found that usage rates were 70 percent in prefectures and villages already in the early 2000s (MIC 2007: 3).Transfer of know-how has also changed, mainly due to the spread of information technologies through personal devices. The transfer of knowledge and experience in village life, from production to cultural capital, is no longer closed (within the village) or vertical (from parents to children). Many rural areas nowadays are sparsely populated by a high proportion of elderly households. However, in suburban areas and mountain villages alike, lifestyles, consumption

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habits, production participation, social activities and social relationships are not as homogeneous and closed as they once were. The agricultural workforce has been continuously decreasing, as has agriculture as an income source and its integration in the rhythms of everyday life (Tokuno 2011). The spatial autonomy once held by Japanese rural communities has begun to unravel. Rural Japan is becoming more dynamic and transitional in every respect. Income sources are more diversified, and mobility has increased. Temporary migrants, retirees and in-migrants from urban areas can be counted among new members of rural society. These manifold changes in rural Japan make it necessary to introduce a new approach to understanding present-day Japanese rural society. In order to solidly ground this framework, I will first briefly explain existing approaches, qualitatively and quantitively reexamining concepts such as family versus household and center versus periphery and identifying changes that have occurred. After outlining the conceptual background, I will introduce a new field methodology and the actors of this new framework, based on Tokuno’s and my own studies.

Limits of Japanese rural community concepts We have witnessed a transition from a stable, monolithic rural society centered around physical spatial boundaries to a dynamic society based on relationships. At this point, I am particularly interested in two primary concepts: “center and periphery” and “family (ie) and household.” Since these definitions have provided the basis for defining the problems thus far, it is necessary to evaluate them in view of present-day conditions. Kühn (2015) focuses on redefining the concepts of center and periphery when discussing socio-spatial inequalities. He highlights three different aspects in particular: economic polarization, social inequality and political power. Kühn develops a new comprehension framework for the center-periphery correlation. While summarizing the main differences between the concepts of periphery and peripheralization, Kühn emphasizes that, in the old comprehension framework, the concept of periphery is defined as a remote, sparsely populated location that is static (Kühn 2015: 369). In Japan, too, discussions on social policy, revitalization measures and even academic studies generally see rural areas as being remote locations. Moreover, the conditions found in rural areas are often perceived as being some kind of destiny that cannot be avoided. The actors in rural areas are often seen as being unchanged from the past. By discussing Japanese rural communities based upon Kühn’s framework, I offer an alternative approach for understanding the directions in which Japanese rural communities will transform and for identifying the primary factors for defining and creating a new understanding of rural Japan. As I emphasized at the beginning of this discussion, there are different readings of the changing conditions in Japanese rural communities. While explaining the concept of peripheralization, Kühn (2015) emphasizes social relations and networks in particular. This corroborates my assertion that social relations, lifestyles, production-consumption behaviors and the transfer of cultural capital have gone

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beyond the narrow confines of physical spaces. Today, the concept of periphery is dynamic, especially from political, economic, social and communicative points of view. The game itself, especially the actors, is changeable. Peripheries do not necessarily remain peripheries forever; for this reason, actors and networks are more important than ever before (Copus 2001). Ōno Akira’s rural analysis concept is very popular and well-known in Japan (Ōno 2005, 2008) and largely concurs with the old comprehension framework outlined earlier. In his analysis, Ōno introduces the term “settlements at the borderline of their existence” (genkai shūraku) and emphasizes that the demographics of rural Japan will gradually diminish and production will continue to decline. At the end of this process, villages will eventually vanish due to the failure to fulfill their social and production functions. The primary reason that Ōno’s analytical framework is so prominent is mainly due to his research methods. He has gauged the rate of aging, which is concrete and measurable, and by using population age structure as indicator of a community’s social sustainability he thus has made the progression of the problem easily understandable to experts in social policy and the media in particular. Ōno’s framework assesses the future of the village on a static plane and within a fixed territory, using the proportion of elderly among the rural population as the basic criterion. This approach paints a broad, one-sided picture of a rapidly aging village in which social relations and production capability eventually weaken to the point that the community disappears. But because each village and each region has unique social and economic dynamics, the single criterion of quantitative demographic data—the heart of Ōno’s discussion framework—cannot explain the entirety of contemporary rural Japan. Another essential factor is the diversity of household types that include elderly members. There are marked differences between villages where only 20 percent of the population is elderly but all of them live alone and those with an elderly population of 60 percent, all of whom live with large families. In addition, production structure, income sources, cultural capital, communication and interaction with the urban and metropolitan core areas must be considered. As Ōno’s analysis framework demonstrates, it is necessary to reread the concepts of family and household in a way that reflects contemporary rural life. Rural revitalization projects often reduce the concept of family to the household level. We may assume that the old understanding of rural spaces in Japan that I explained earlier underlies this thinking. In other words, because the old static, population-based definition of social structure is still influential, the concept of family is limited to people living together in the village (households). Most studies on present-day Japan examine nuclear family households consisting of father, mother and child(ren). However, nuclear family households—particularly in rural communities—can encompass a variety of living arrangements. For instance, Family A might consist of a father (36), a mother (34) and a daughter (7). However, families with a completely different composition are not uncommon, particularly in rural communities; Family B might consist of an older father (79), an older mother

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(76) and a single adult male child (53). Both scenarios are considered nuclear family households. From a functional and qualitative point of view, these two household types do not have much in common. Clearly, a more nuanced understanding of (rural) households is required. Some alternative approaches take a broader view of families, considering the village as an organism that transcends physical boundaries, in particular examining the rural second and third generations who currently live in cities and the likelihood that they will return to their villages. Any approach based on the premise that rural communities are static will be limited in its viewpoint and the solutions it proposes. This understanding can help in the reexamination of center-periphery relationships and family-household concepts alike.

The possibility of a new approach: Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method While Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method (T-gata shūraku tenken shuhō; hereafter TSAM) provides a new viewpoint on rurality and the potential of certain actors to ensure rural sustainability and might seem to be a new approach, it is based on the foundations laid by John F. Embree (1972 [1939]), Suzuki Eitarō (1948) and other colleagues, particularly Seiichi Kitano, Ikutsune Adachi, and Yōzō Yamamoto (1974; Yamamoto 1981). TSAM is a mixed framework with a straightforward goal and deep roots in classical Japanese rural sociology approaches and modern quantitative methods. Tokuno’s method attempts to identify the realities of everyday life in changing circumstances (Matsumoto 2015: 93; Ozsen 2015; Tokuno 2010; Tokuno and Kashio 2014). The TSAM can help diagnose rural community issues both macro-quantitatively and micro-qualitatively, resulting in more effective policies and practices and optimizing the material, human and time resources spent on policymaking and implementation.

Data collection procedures Tokuno’s framework roughly consists of the following stages: 1) A target village is identified by analyzing demographic, economic and cultural variables. Villagers are invited to a large indoor area and, upon their arrival, researchers explain the purpose and methodology of the work. 2) Villagers are divided into groups (kumi, soshikigumi etc.) according to physical or sociocultural proximity and functionality. 3) Each group draws a simple sketch of the village, marking all households using black ink to identify residents according to relationship (mother, father, child, wife, grandchild etc.), age and occupation. 4) Next, participants use red ink to provide information about children not living in the village, noting household structure, age, occupation, location, frequency of parental interaction (weekly, monthly, only at New Year (o-shōgatsu) and/or

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the annual event of commemorating one’s ancestors (o-bon)) and method of interaction (face-to-face, telephone, internet etc.) (see Figure 15.1). 5) After a short break, the second stage begins. Each group is instructed to draw a vertical line down the center of a piece of paper. Participants then write down any social problems within their family in the first (left) column and any economic-agricultural problems in the second (right) column (see Figure 15.2). 6) In the third stage, researchers collect the papers with demographic and social data from the first stage and the “problems” written down in the second stage. Together, the researchers and participants analyze the groups’ and village’s potential, strengths and weaknesses in the medium and long term.

FIGURE 15.1 

Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method (TSAM), steps 1–4

Source: Photos taken by author; for sketch see Tokuno and Kashio (2014: 137).

FIGURE 15.2 

List of the social and economic issues of households, step 5

Source: Photo taken by author; for sketch see Tokuno and Kashio (2014: 138–139).

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7) In the fourth stage, researchers ask the participants to share what they have learned about problems in the community and then create their own “action plan” for addressing them. 8) After all steps are completed, researchers collect the data, identify the village’s current issues and propose solutions. In most cases, a survey can be completed in three sessions, though the process may take anywhere from a month to a year. Whatever the time commitment, the end results give participants and researchers an opportunity to evaluate existing factors from different perspectives. One of the most important factors is the generation of out-migrated descendants (tashutsushi), the second and third generation who live primarily in cities. In the following section I will take a closer look at this population.

The tashutsushi population: a versatile actor First, it should be noted that the population identified here as tashutsushi—or outmigrated descendants—are native to a village yet mostly produce and consume in a city.When necessary, they are included in the social, cultural and productive systems of the village much more than other actors (in-migrants from urban areas, temporary migrants etc.). Their lifestyle and production-consumption relationship with the urban center may present new possibilities for the future of the village, including rehabilitating its image (see Kühn 2015: 371). Metaphorically, the out-migrated children have two swords, like the Nitō-ryū practitioners of the Japanese martial art of kendō: The first is that they originate from a village and the second is their connection to the various networks of the city to which they migrated. The generation of village offspring residing outside the place of birth has been discussed in academic studies on rural communities for over 20 years, especially as an actor in parental care and in debates on agricultural succession. However, those discussions evaluated the potential of out-migrated descendants primarily in the context of permanent residence, with minimal criticism of the concept. Returning to the village of origin permanently, thus contributing to both the family and the village, might initially seem ideal, but deeper analysis reveals a more complex picture. The Kumamoto Metropolitan Area Tashutsushi Survey (Kumamoto toshiken zaijū tashutsushi chōsa) provides a rough idea about the population of out-migrated descendants and their intentions regarding moving back to the village. This small case study was conducted in 2007 and a report was drafted in 2008 by the Kumamoto University Regional Sociology Department (hereafter KURSD) under the leadership of Tokuno Sadao. I was a member of the research team. The case study included 88 out-migrants originally from Yamato Town in Kumamoto Prefecture who currently lived in the Kumamoto Metropolitan Area. Of respondents, 52.3 percent were male and 47.7 percent female. The questionnaire was composed of six sections addressing the out-migrants’ thoughts and intentions regarding their

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hometown, with topics such as social mobility, return migration, community education, regional identity, agriculture and aging. Survey results indicated that 40 percent of the out-migrated descendants do not intend to return to the village, and 34 percent have not yet even considered the matter (KURSD 2008). Only 26 percent of respondents view return migration favorably. For them, the major factors for permanently returning to the village include retirement, the end of child-rearing and the necessity of caring for aging parents. The vast majority (82%) of the out-migrants who consider returning to the village to be a positive option plan to do so after retirement (Ozsen 2009: 142). Other studies have also shown that a significant portion of this population is middle-aged (Ashida 2006; Kubō et al. 2013). In short, the Japanese village seems likely to continue facing the sociodemographic issues of aging and depopulation. Certain scenarios may create additional problems: For instance, consider a hypothetical returning post-retirement pensioner who is the oldest male child. His wife accompanies him, but in the sociocultural environment of the village it may be necessary for her to resume the role of daughter-in-law (yome) despite her age and perhaps even during her pre-retirement career. This will introduce psychological and social concerns that have not been experienced in rural areas to date.While the permanent return of out-migrated descendants is generally considered a welcome solution to community sustainability and revitalization, it clearly has drawbacks. On the other hand, out-migrants today have a feature that makes it important for new approaches, namely the physical proximity to the place of origin. This feature became even clearer due to results of Tokuno’s analysis framework (Tokuno 2010: 33–34) and was later supported by additional studies (Hayashi 2015; Tokuno and Kashio 2014). The data collected through TSAM indicates that out-migrated descendants typically reside an average of one to two hours by car from their hometowns. For example, the Tsuchiura hamlet—I am using pseudonyms for this and all other settlement names—located in Yamato Town of the larger Aso region in Kumamoto Prefecture has a high concentration of elderly residents (nearly 80%). Preliminary fieldwork through TSAM indicates that there are 46 out-migrated children, half of whom live within a one to two hour drive. In Miyazaki Prefecture, the Sasayama hamlet also has a high population of elderly residents (52.5%), with 40 residents and 23 out-migrated descendants, half of whom used to reside one to two hours from the village. Several cases in the southern part of Fukuoka Prefecture support this pattern. Nohara, a relatively suburban settlement with easy accessibility, has nearly 150 comparatively young residents and about 70 out-migrated descendants. TSAM results indicate that nearly half of them (31) reside in the same region. The number becomes even higher (nearly two-thirds of the out-migrated children) when Fukuoka Prefecture is included in the analysis. Current field data from various regions in Japan (see Figure 15.3) confirm the observation that out-migrants tend to reside, on average, one to two hours by car from their hometowns or villages (Ashida 2006; Hayashi 2015; Kubō et al. 2013; Ozsen 2009; Tokuno 2008; Ueno 2016).

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FIGURE 15.3 Average

distance of out-migrated descendants from their hometowns by

region Source: Graphic design by the author.

Factors such as physical mobility and a strong transportation infrastructure make it likely that the dynamic and versatile out-migrants will contribute to their parents and the village community in numerous ways. Mainstream studies on this part of the population often overlook these contributions. I think that fully evaluating the potential of out-migrated descendants requires new perspectives; thus, as TSAM does, I examine the realities of everyday life in changing circumstances and discuss them in detail. Types of support differ from case to case. Table 15.1 indicates that some support activities are provided more often than others by the out-migrated descendants. Survey results identify a trend in their attitudes regarding support of and contribution to their parents and community. Let us take a closer look at each activity. Parental care: For more than two decades out-migrated descendants have been considered as an actor in parental health care. Today, since most peripheral Japanese communities are aging, health-care support is among the first issues to arise. Table 15.1 shows that they do not view providing care for parents as a primary

270  Tolga Özs¸en TABLE 15.1  Frequency of support activities of out-migrated descendants (in percent)

Always Sometimes Occasionally Never N/A

Financial support

Family business (farming)

Housework

Parental care

Personal interaction

Transportation

6 12 16 64 2

8 20 16 54 2

10 14 20 53 2

2 4 4 82 6

28 28 22 18 4

14 10 20 46 10

Source: Kumamoto University Regional Sociology Department 2008.

area of support. One reason might be that most of the older people in rural areas are able to maintain their daily life by themselves. In a previous study, I found that, among people in their 70s, more than 80 percent of males and nearly 50 percent of females still drive a car (Ozsen 2008: 141–143).This does not mean that the elderly population in rural areas does not require assistance, but it provides a reason why health-care support is not a top priority for out-migrated children. Daily support: Other methods of support—such as daily face-to-face interactions with parents and assistance with housework and transportation (shopping)—are more common than parental care. Among out-migrated descendants in Kumamoto Metropolitan Area, about 20 percent visit their parents once per week and half of them once per month. Usually, interacting with parents includes more than simply spending time together, including indefinable latent contributions that are not currently counted within the support/contribution concept. For example, performing housework (e.g., cleaning, washing etc.) is not usually the primary purpose for the regular visits to their parents; most do not travel one to two hours simply to wash their parents’ dishes or clean the windows. However, this kind of latent support may ease the parents’ burden. Transportation assistance: this is another means of providing daily support that has not yet been fully considered. Today, most of the elder population in peripheral Japan is independently physically mobile. This does not mean that providing transportation assistance would be unnecessary. In peripheral communities, the everyday activity of shopping, for instance, can be complicated by insufficient accessible facilities and transportation infrastructure. Studies on this issue (Ishizaka and Midorikawa 2005; Ozsen 2009; Ueno 2016) have shown that providing transportation for shopping activities can be a tangible type of support. Financial support: In many societies, it is normal for adult children to support their parents financially; in some cases it is even expected. In Japanese society, adult children are expected to provide a variety of types of support to their parents, including financial support. In this sociocultural relationship structure, the extent of parental economic support provided by urban out-migrated descendants might be expected to be substantial. However, Ashida states that they tend to send less than ¥50,000 a year to

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their parents (Ashida 2010: 61). A Kumamoto case study indicated that only six percent of them provide consistent financial support to their families (KURSD 2008). For those who consider financial support to be an obligation for children, not sending money—or sending small amounts—may be interpreted as failing to fulfill a filial obligation. However, a variety of reasons may contribute to the minimal economic support. On one hand, many rural elderly parents remain at least partially economically self-sufficient. In fact, out-migrants often benefit from opportunities provided by their parents. In Kumamoto, a primary reason that they visit their home village is to obtain rice and vegetables freshly harvested by their parents. Nearly 18 percent of out-migrated descendants frequently, and 24 percent occasionally, return to the village for this purpose (KURSD 2008). Moreover, grandchildren receive allowances and gifts each time they visit. In some instances, the out-migrants’ socioeconomic situation does not allow them to send significant sums of money to their parents. In Kumamoto, about 50 percent of them belong to lower income groups; only about 20 percent are white-collar workers, while the rest are predominantly blue- and/or pink-collar workers (KURSD 2008). An even greater misperception is also at work. The social expectation for children to provide financial support for their parents is directly linked to the understanding of the center-periphery relationship. Economic relations between children and parents are shaped by the presumption that those living in urban areas experience better economic conditions than those living in the countryside. However, fieldwork indicates that parents living in the periphery enjoy more stable and predictable socioeconomic conditions than their offspring in the city. As with many other observations presented in this chapter, reality differs greatly from mainstream opinion. Emotional support: When discussing the support provided by the out-migrants to their parents and home village, moral or spiritual support is frequently overlooked. More often than not, social gerontology studies consider the welfare of elderly people in terms of subjective feelings. The power and influence of moral or spiritual support may be subjective, but that does not mean it should be minimized or ignored. For example, as has been noted earlier, about two-thirds of out-migrated descendants visit their parents at least once a month and provide opportunities to spend time with their grandchildren (KURSD 2008). The intensity of the grandparent-grandchild relationship is strongly related to the subjective well-being of the elders, as the work of Ishizaka and Midorikawa (2005) demonstrates. In a study in Mie Prefecture, 58.7 percent of the elderly parents described the time they spent with their children and grandchildren as ikigai—that is, their reason for being (Ishizaka and Midorikawa 2005). Recent studies on ikigai emphasize the relationship between suffering from depression and separation from grandchildren and reiterate the importance of emotional support (Asahi Shinbun Digital 2016). Support for transferring family (ie) and community (mura) traditions to the next generation: +++So far I have reviewed the potential means of support that the outmigrants can provide without becoming permanent residents of their hometowns.

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They also contribute to their rural community as a whole. Evolving traditions and the transfer of cultural capital to future generations is an important factor in preserving a community’s identity. While the out-migrated descendants have their own networks and identity in the city, they retain the identity of a villager as well (Hayashi 2015; Konno 2015). This identity is not some superficial romantic idea of living in the city while longing for nature. It embraces many cultural elements, including the local dialect and cuisine, traditional dances, songs and even the manner of grieving. In Yamato Town, 69 percent of the out-migrants frequently visit the village on official holidays (e.g., o-bon, o-shōgatsu), and 49 percent visit for ceremonial occasions such as cemetery visits, funerals or memorial services.These numbers demonstrate that they maintain interactions with the rural community. As I mentioned earlier, the out-migrated descendants metaphorically have the ability to fight with two swords. The second sword—that of an urban dweller—is more dominant due to their social networks and daily habits. However, almost all of them indicate they are still attached to their home villages (89.7%), characterize the nature and culture there as rich (92.0%) and view their relationships with their rural family in a positive light (77.3%) (KURSD 2008). Moreover, they maintain daily interaction with their parents and the community. I suggest, then, that the first sword is neither intangible nor merely part of a romantic discourse. There is a solid foundation for sustaining the transmission of rural cultural capital to future generations. When scheduling special events, parents often try to prearrange a common date with their children in the cities, and the out-migrated descendants work to adhere to the schedule as well as they can. At this point, the transmission of the cultural capital of the village to future generations can be achieved only if more weight is given to the out-migrants’ first sword (the villager identity) and the joint work of the villages with them. It is unlikely that a one-sided effort will yield satisfactory results. Taking into account all of these potential support and contribution patterns, it can be inferred that out-migrated descendants realistically evaluate their parents’ condition and choose support activities that fit the needs of the parents’ daily life. They retain both their rural and urban identities and learn the most effective application of both.

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted the inadequacy of old approaches to rural communities in Japan. In particular, as Kühn suggests, the difficulties these regions are facing should not be treated as a destiny. Especially the notions of family and household today have to be critically examined, as different actors within a family contribute to a dynamic network that tries to cope with their problems. It became clear that no Japanese village community has a unified, monolithic and static population. I challenged the view that rural Japan is solely agricultureoriented, with strict physical, social and cultural boundaries concerning social relationships. Rather, today’s rural communities are dynamic, changeable and

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multi-faceted. The previously existing urban-rural dichotomy is now less prevalent than is often imagined and therefore must be questioned. This does not mean that the village and the city have become completely analogous. This chapter has also addressed popular solutions for the countryside, which are also directly linked to the image of the periphery in Japan. Most discussions focus on substantial changes—for example, trying to make the urban population an income source for sustaining rural communities or trying to persuade out-migrated descendants to leave behind everything they established in the urban centers and return to their hometowns. Conversely, analytic frameworks often overlook the daily contributions and support activities they provide to rural communities. Today, numerous interactions between parents and children ease the parents’ lives and may even help the entire community—for instance, during festivals. There is a clear need for an alternative approach in order to reevaluate and understand the dynamics in rural communities. Kühn supports the importance of actor networks, which could be observed in this study as well. Using Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method (TSAM) to document the everyday realities of rural communities in Japan, I identified different actors and the contributions they are likely to offer. One significant actor is the population of out-migrated descendants. In many previous studies out-migrated children were asked whether they would return to the village permanently. I demonstrated that they could make significant, concrete and sustainable contributions to their families and villages even without moving back to their hometowns. I identified their potential contributions, based on everyday realities and cultural and emotional interactions. Even if they have two “swords,” metaphorically speaking, the issue is not the number; it is about utilizing the two swords in a meaningful way. Focusing on the roles of the out-migrants in everyday life in order to identify solutions to the problems in rural societies is crucial for local policymakers, academics and the media, who deal with issues concerning the sustainability of rural villages. Using Tokuno’s analysis framework, I updated the definition of rurality by demonstrating that the rural community is a dynamic, variable, changeable and versatile actor. Tokuno’s framework can be used to identify the potential contributions of different “invisible” actors (e.g., foreign agricultural interns, foreign brides, internal migrants from urban areas and, in particular, out-migrated descendants) in the short, medium and long term. Thus, the observation of changing actor networks and dynamic processes as aspects of the peripheralization of rural communities could be supported by the Japanese example and the discussion of Tokuno’s method provided in this chapter.

Acknowledgments I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Prof. Dr. Sadao Tokuno for his invaluable support during the fieldwork and for his permission to use the TSAM and Kumamoto field data. I am also deeply grateful to Dr. Takafumi Matsumoto and Dr. Akiko (Kimura) Ikeda, key members of TSAM development team, for their

274  Tolga Özs¸en

guidance, support and teamwork during the fieldwork. Without them, neither this chapter nor TSAM itself could have been completed. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge the work of past and present members of the Kumamoto University Regional Sociology Department.

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MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). 2007. “Heisei 18-nen ‘Tsūshin riyō dōkō chōsa’ no kekka” [Results of the 2006 ‘Survey on trends of communication usage’]. www.soumu.go.jp/johotsusintokei/statistics/data/070525_1.pdf (accessed June 20, 2018). ———. 2019. “Nihon tōkei nenkan, Heisei 31-nen” (2019 Japan statistical yearbook). www. stat.go.jp/data/nenkan/68nenkan/zuhyou/y680802000.xls (accessed March 6, 2019). Ōno, Akira. 2005. Sanson kankyō shakaigaku josetsu: gendai sanson no genkai shūraku-ka to ryūiki kyōdō kanri [Preliminaries of an ecological sociology of mountain villages: The existential threatening of mountain villages and communal management]. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson Bunka Kyōkai. ———. 2008. Genkai shūraku to chiiki saisei [Marginal settlements and regional revitalization]. Sendai: Kahoku Shinpō Shuppan Sentā. Ozsen,Tolga. 2008. “Nōson shakai ni okeru kōreisha no shakaiteki ichizuke: Kumamoto-ken Yamato-chō no 60–70-dai o taishō ni” [Reconsideration of older people in super-aged rural society Japan]. Kumamoto Daigaku Shakai Bunka Kenkyū 6, 135–149. ———. 2009. “Nōsanson iji sonzoku ni okeru tashutsushi no kanōsei: Kumamoto toshiken zaijū no Yamato-chō shusshin tashutsushi o jirei ni” [The rural future from the viewpoint of living-apart adult children: What do they mean to the future of their hometown? A case study on Kumamoto metropolitan area]. Kumamoto Daigaku Shakai Bunka Kenkyū 7, 139–153. ———. 2015. “Seikatsu kōzōron-teki na shiten kara Toruko no nōson o minaosu” (Rereading the Turkish rural community from the viewpoint of life structure). Sadao Tokuno, Atsushi Makino, and Takafumi Matsumoto (eds.), Kurashi no shiten kara no chihō saisei: chiiki to seikatsu no shakaigaku [Regional revitalization from the viewpoint of daily life: Sociology of community and life], 139–162. Fukuoka: Kyushu Daigaku Shuppankai. Suzuki, Eitarō, and Seiichi Kitano. 1948. Nihon nōson shakai chōsahō [Social survey method of rural Japan]. Tokyo: Kokuritsu Shoin. Tokuno, Sadao. 2008. “Nōsanson shinkō ni okeru toshi nōson kōryū, gurīn tsūrizumu no genkai to kanōsei: seisaku to jittai no hazama de” [Urban and rural interchanges on rural promotion: Feasibilities and limitations of green tourism within social policies and actual circumstances]. Sonraku Shakai Kenkyū 43, 44–79. ———. 2010.“Shukushōron-teki chiiki shakai riron no kanōsei o motomete: toshi tashutsu­ shi to kaso nōsanson” [Study of the possibility of reduced type community theory]. Toshi Shakai Gakkai Nenpō 28, 27–38. ———. 2011. Seikatsu nōgyōron: gendai Nihon no hito to shoku to nō [Livelihood agricultural thesis: People, food and agriculture in contemporary Japan]. Tokyo: Gakubunsha. Tokuno, Sadao, and Kashio Tamaki. 2014. T-gata shūraku tenken to raifu hisutorī de mieru kazoku shūraku josei no sokojikara: genkai shūraku-ron o koete [The hidden power of women, village and family made visible in life histories and TSAM: Overcoming the debate on marginal settlements]. Tokyo: Nōsangyoson Bunka Kyōkai. Ueno, Junko. 2016. “Tashutsushi no hōmon no shakaiteki kōka to sono jōken: sanson ni okeru jinkō ryūshutsu to shakai kaisō” [Social effects and conditions of out-migrants’ visits to their village of origin: Adjacent local labour market, social class and parents’ wellbeing]. Momoyama Gakuin Daigaku Shakaigaku Ronshū 50 (1), 67–94. Yamamoto,Yōzō. 1981. Nōson shūraku no kōzō bunseki [Analysis of rural settlement structure]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu Shobō.

16 ENVIRONMENTAL ACTIVITY GAPS AND HOW TO FILL THEM Rural depopulation and wildlife encroachment in Japan John Knight

Introduction This chapter examines the problem of wildlife encroachment in depopulated rural Japan as a form of peripheralization. Rural peripheralization tends to be understood in terms of a polarized relationship with urban centers, with the emphasis often placed on the economic and political marginalization of rural areas vis-à-vis the cities and an increasing rural-urban inequality (Kühn 2015). On the face of it, rural depopulation might seem to fit readily with this perspective, with villages that undergo major population decline through large-scale outmigration to urban centers (driven by larger economic forces) deemed to become more peripheral as a result. In the following I will add a different perspective to the peripheralization concept, one that switches the focus to the village relationship with the forest and how it changes in the era of depopulation. The Japanese term for rural depopulation, kaso, denotes a numerical change in residential populations over time and is typically represented in the statistical form of tabulated population aggregates, which allow for municipal localities to be compared and ranked in terms of the degree and rate of population decrease. The “ka” of kaso indicates that the reduction in population is excessive, as is captured in Kumagai Fumie’s translation of kaso as “[an] excessive diminution of population” (Kumagai 1996: 4). The term “underpopulation,” sometimes used to translate kaso (e.g., Takeuchi 1976: 35), similarly suggests a reduction in population that has gone too far, resulting in a state of population deficiency. This idea of a people-to-place disproportionality in depopulated areas is explored here by foregrounding the changing human relation to the environment in upland areas of Japan. I argue that in mountain villages kaso should be understood as an activity problem as much as a numbers problem. According to this perspective, human presence in upland settlements depends not just on how many people live

Rural depopulation and wildlife encroachment  277

there but on how environmentally active they are. In the era of large-scale rural depopulation this activity regime wanes and remaining residents struggle to maintain the village environment as a space of human settlement. A key site of this struggle is the boundary between the village and the surrounding forest. Encroachment by forest animals is seen as one expression of the human activity deficit in upland areas. Frequent and sometimes large-scale crop damage by wildlife is a feature of life in mountain villages across Japan. Monkeys, wild boar, deer, bears and other animals increasingly enter and exploit parts of the upland village environment as cover-rich feeding grounds in a development that remaining residents often feel powerless to resist and in some cases even come to see as a harbinger of the demise of the village and its reclamation by the forest. This apparent link between diminished human activity and wildlife encroachment is explored by focusing on three areas of reduced outdoor activity—what I call “activity gaps”—that have a bearing on the problem of wildlife encroachment: a cutting gap in the form of a reduction in vegetation removal from the village and nearby forest that increases the cover available for wildlife; a picking gap whereby fruit is left unharvested on trees, which attracts wildlife to the village; and a chasing gap consisting of a decline in direct human resistance to wild animals entering the village. This chapter draws on fieldwork data from the Kii Peninsula, especially the municipality of Hongū Town (that today forms part of Tanabe City) in Wakayama Prefecture, and from the island of Shōdoshima in Kagawa Prefecture, along with a range of secondary sources on rural depopulation, forestry and the wildlife problem in Japan.

Three environmental activity gaps Cutting Vegetation removal is crucial to the human settlement of upland areas of Japan. Cutting plants is important productively, where what is removed is used as a resource. This is the case with the satoyama or “agricultural woodland” (Takeuchi 2003: 9) surrounding the village that has long been exploited, among other things, as green fertilizer for fields, as fodder for animals as well as a source of wood from coppiced trees (Iiyama 2003: 150; Kamada 2017: 95). Because of regular cutting, the satoyama tended to have a preponderance of young trees and grasses (Takeuchi et al. 2016: 34). This plant-removing human activity interfered with the process of forest succession and allowed otherwise uncompetitive plant species to survive (Kamada et al. 1991: 45; Takeuchi 2003: 21). Vegetation removal can also have an interceptive purpose, especially in the context of village farming. This was something famously highlighted by the philosopher Tetsurō Watsuji: Grass pulling—the extermination of weeds—is the core of the farmer’s work in Japan: If it is once neglected, cultivated land turns almost at once into

278  John Knight

jungle. . . . Neglect in this battle is practically the equivalent of the abandonment of farming. (Watsuji 1961: 69–70) The Japanese farmer is not just a grower of plants but also a remover of plants competing with the plants being grown. Without this human interception of rival plants, the farmer’s planted seeds or seedlings will not go on to reach productive maturity. The conifer (sugi) plantation is another site where vegetation-controlling human activity is called for. In the postwar period, conifer plantations for timber production were established in the forest around villages, in many cases replacing erstwhile satoyama vegetation, while also being established more widely. The importance of hard work in yamazukuri or timber growing (literally “forest growing”) is something emphasized in mountain villages reliant on forestry. On the Kii Peninsula this theme is captured in a number of well-known sayings including “the forest is raised with sweaty hands” and “[the forester’s] sandals are the forest’s fertilizer,” which make the point that the man who visits his plantations a lot tends to have better trees. Much of this sweaty labor involves the use of sickles, saws, hatchets or chainsaws in tasks such as weeding, vine-removal, pruning and thinning aimed at controlling and optimizing the growth of the trees. A common term applied to the well cared for plantation is birin or “beautiful forest.” At one level, this beauty refers to the visual effect of the light that human activity allows into the plantation through operations such as thinning and pruning. These are the words of one small-scale forest landowner in Hongū: While the branches are still on the tree you can’t see through the forest, but, after the pruning, only the stems are left and you find that you can see far into the distance through your forest! . . . It feels good. It’s like when you look at a painting by a skillful painter. (Ueno Takeo, interview, November 1, 2003) The beauty of the “beautiful forest” also refers to the orderly growth and development of trees into high-quality timber that comes from the consistent application of silvicultural activity over decades, which may well include the contribution of multiple generations of the same family. There tends to be much less of these various kinds of vegetation cutting in present-day upland Japan. Human exploitation of the satoyama greatly diminished in the 1950s and 1960s when firewood and charcoal were replaced by fossil fuels and chemical fertilizers replaced green fertilizer. Having lost much of its livelihood value, the satoyama ceased to be a site of regular cutting activity, and the unchecked growth of vegetation has led to the disappearance of open areas and a decline in vegetative diversity as just a few plant species come to predominate in the emergent canopy and understory plants are shaded out. There has also been a conspicuous lack of human activity in the conifer plantations. Many have not been adequately thinned, if thinned at all, with the trees

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standing at the same high density as when they were planted as saplings. The trees are often unpruned, with branches growing on the middle and lower parts of the stem (degrading the quality of the timber because of knot formation), while many trees are covered in vines. Where undergrowth clearing is not carried out, the planted conifers eventually become interspersed with various other trees and other forms of unremoved vegetation. These “ugly” and “dirty” neglected plantations appear as dark thickets that jar with the orderly, light-rich birin ideal. This change in the human relation to vegetation affects the upland village’s relationship to wild animals. The abandonment of the satoyama makes it a coverrich space that forest animals can enter with little risk of being spotted. The wild boar is one animal that takes advantage of this situation, as abandoned bamboo groves dense with bamboo stems provide it with bamboo shoots to eat and allow it to conceal itself and remain safe. Plantation forest along the village perimeter can serve as a convenient, cover-providing site from which animals make low-risk crop-raids to outlying fields. A monkey can dart out of the plantation straight into a field of rice-stalks and, if disturbed, instantly flee back into the safety of the dark conifers nearby. Wild animals even come to inhabit parts of the village itself. Wild boar use abandoned fields as sites of feeding (on worms, especially between summer and autumn), as resting sites and (in the case of old rice fields) as favored sites for wallowing (Eguchi 2003: 134; Honda 2007: 251). The primatologist Muroyama Yasu­ yuki has referred to the emergence of “field-born and field-raised” monkeys that have been carried into fields as infants by their mothers and come to see crops as “our food” (Muroyama 2003: 25). Abandoned tea groves on village hillsides provide excellent cover for animals that come to feed on nearby field crops, leading one observer to describe the tea groves as village “apartments” for wild animals that are so secure that they can raise their young there (Inoue 2008: 100).

Picking Failure to harvest fruit trees is another activity gap that has a bearing on the wildlife problem. Persimmons (kaki) are the prime example of this. Persimmon trees are ubiquitous in Japanese villages, and the sight of the trees laden with of orange fruit is a much-loved feature of the late autumn countryside. The trees are often to be found near houses, and picking the copious amount of fruit they bear has long been a popular seasonal activity for family members in which near neighbors may well lend a hand. In the past persimmons were valued in Japan as “a precious sweettasting food,” while also having the status of “a survival food during famine” (Yamazaki et al. 2009: 63). The hachiya variety of astringent persimmons was consumed as hoshigaki or “dried persimmons,” which involved picking the fruit when still hard and bitter and then air-drying it under the eaves of the house until it becomes sweet enough to eat. Today, however, much of the persimmon crop in rural areas goes unharvested, especially hachiya fruit. One reason is that dried persimmon is much less popular as

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a sweet snack in present-day Japan where people have a wide selection of sweets and confectionary to choose from (Yamazaki et al. 2009: 63). Another reason for not picking the fruit is that the trees in question may well belong to people who have left the village. Even where residents do own the trees, they may not bother to harvest them, especially in the case of elderly villagers for whom the task of harvesting is too physically demanding. Consequently, come the early winter, the branches of the trees sag under the weight of the now soft, over-ripe persimmons until the fruit drops to the ground in what is considered a miserable sight to behold (Inoue 2008: 146). Monkey feeding on the “abandoned persimmons” (hōkigaki) is not really a problem of crop loss, given that villagers do not attempt to harvest the fruit themselves and have effectively relinquished it. Nevertheless, it becomes a problem linked to crop loss where the fruit-feeding monkeys then move on to feed on more valuable field crops nearby. It is for this reason that monkey feeding on persimmons has been described as “the initial stage of crop-raiding” (Muroyama and Yamada 2010: 153). Other fruit trees, including chestnut trees and loquat trees, may be similarly seen as inadvertent monkey lures that lead to wider crop damage in the village (Inoue 2002: 42). If the deficit in cutting away vegetation allows forest animals to conceal themselves in the village environment, failure to pick fruit from village trees can create a powerful attractant that brings forest animals into the village. In the case of persimmon trees, the amount of fruit can be so large that whole troops of monkeys are attracted to them. Although it is a case of accidental attraction, this pull of village persimmons on monkeys has been likened to the “provisioning” practiced by monkey parks where regular food handouts are used to attract open-range monkey troops for tourism (Inoue 2002: 44).1

Chasing The villager’s activity imperative applies not just toward plants in and around the settlement but also toward the crop-seeking forest animals that sometimes enter it. One form this resistance traditionally took was the physical guarding of fields (from wild boar overnight and from monkeys during the day) in the runup to harvest, in what in the hot summer months was an uncomfortable and physically demanding duty. Field guarding becomes more complicated where the family’s fields are scattered in different places, requiring regular movement back and forth between them. When field-side encounters with animals did occur, the field-guard was expected to do what is known as oiharai or “chasing away.” Field guarding did not necessarily involve that many encounters with animals; the guard’s physical presence near the field might well suffice to keep animals away, especially where this presence was signaled through some form of continuous or intermittent noise-making. Patrolling, however, could lead to encounters where the guard arrived when an animal

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was already in the field, at which point the guard would shout and throw stones to expel it. Forest animals tended to keep away when people were about because of a wellestablished fear of humans that had developed against the background of hunting. What is variously called a “tense relationship” or “pressure relationship” between humans and forest animals is believed to have limited the incidence of wildlife crop damage. The earlier relationship between people and monkeys has been praised as an “adversarial relationship in a good sense” because of the way it kept the monkeys away from human spaces and from farmland in particular (Tarōda 2003: 13). This animal wariness toward people is said to have waned in recent times. An article in a specialized newsletter on the monkey problem highlighted in the following way this new state of affairs: [U]nfortunately the situation today is that we are being pushed around by wild animals. Farmers in mountain regions have lost the strength to chase the wild animals back and this is connected to the increase in damage. (Saru Shinbun 2011) There is a tendency to link this greater animal boldness with the aged character of the remaining village population. Older people tend to spend less time out in the fields, may not notice that there are monkeys or deer around until it is too late and, even where they do respond, may fail to do so with the alacrity and vigor needed to expel the animals straightaway. The decline in hunting is another reason given for this new animal boldness. On the Kii Peninsula, it is often said that monkeys are especially wary of hunters (and their dogs) and even that they can recognize the truck of a hunter and do not raid crops in fields where the truck is parked nearby. But there are far fewer hunters these days, with hunter numbers in Japan falling from more than half a million in 1975 to just over 190,000 in 2015 (MOE 2015, n.d.). Along with depopulation and aging, the scarcity of hunters is believed to contribute to the village’s inability to resist wildlife encroachment.

The activity deficit and the end of the village The village can be understood as something that emerges from human activity such as the removal of vegetation to create (and then maintain) the settlement clearing and the cultivation of the land to raise preferred plants that support human livelihoods. The village forms when human hands cut out the village (sato) from the forest (yama) but lasts only as long as these hands keep cutting away the vegetation that would otherwise turn it back to yama. The sato is not necessarily a permanent space; for it to endure—and avoid the fate of becoming forest once more—it must continue to be actively peopled. In sum, the sato is an activity-conditional space that requires an energetic human presence able to withstand the forces of vegetative reclamation and forest reversion.

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Animal encroachment is also suggestive of village regression to forest. Increased animal presence is an alarming development that calls into doubt the future of the village, a sentiment expressed in the comments of a local councilor about the village of Nakayama on the island of Shōdoshima (Kagawa Prefecture): [W]here you have houses with nobody in them, the surroundings become covered in tall grass. When that happens, monkeys and deer obviously come around more, and so you get the sense that the mountain forest is steadily falling down [onto us]. [. . .] At its worst, it could mean that, in decades from now, it [Nakayama] will become a place where human beings can no longer live! (Yada Tsunehisa, interview, July 6, 2007) This situation may also be characterized as a loss of human territory. Referring to the presence of wild animals in the upland village, the agricultural economist Sanshirō Iwatani has written that “[w]hen the land-use frontier recedes, this means that human territory shrinks and wild animal territory expands” (Iwatani 1982: 2, cited in Hasegawa 1996: 25). Such settlements are not just becoming more peripheral as sites of human residence vis-à-vis urban centers but are disappearing as human spaces as the forest encloses around them. Moreover, instead of being understood as part of a larger, progressive trend of modernizing urbanization, this final stage of peripheralization may well be seen in agonistic terms as an animal-driven expulsion of humanity from upland space, a perspective set out by Iwatani: In recent times, damage caused by wild animals has steadily increased in the periphery and at the edges of depopulated areas, and even where there is still a desire to work the land, in many cases it is becoming impossible because of wildlife damage. That is to say, it is not that human beings are being pulled away to cities and regional centers, but that they are being chased away from the land by wild animals. (Iwatani 1982: 2, cited in Hasegawa 1996: 25)

Filling the gaps What if this upland territory had a different future? What if it could be defended from the forest animals that seem to be laying claim to it by restoring the activity regime upon which its integrity traditionally rested? What if, in other words, the activity gaps associated with depopulation could in some way or other be refilled? There are a number of ways in which the depopulated village’s activity deficit can be offset.These include remaining residents doing more, local government stepping in to carry out or assist with particular tasks, recruiting new residents by encouraging return-migration and in-migration, and arranging for outside volunteers to come in to help.

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Cover removal is one area where remaining residents are encouraged to do more. The agricultural extension official Inoue Masateru has proposed that villagers think of cover-using crop-seeking animals in the village as engaged in a game of “hide and seek” with humans (Inoue 2014: 24). Villagers win the game where they make animal concealment harder by spending time and effort identifying and decommissioning possible sites of concealment in the village zone. Of particular importance is the removal of the vegetative cover at the edge of the village where abandoned plots next to the forest become overgrown. Muro­ yama Yasuyuki suggests that villagers create a gap of at least fifty meters between the edge of the farmland and the forest in order to make monkeys warier of raiding village crops (Muroyama 2003: 154). In his book on wild boar damage, Eguchi Yūsuke likewise calls for a vegetation-free “buffer zone” between outlying farmland and the forest edge as a means of preventing wild boar incursions (Eguchi 2003: 134). Efforts to restore the buffer zone extend to the satoyama. Muroyama and Yamada call for “frequent use of forests around villages” to “reconstruct the buffer zone of human activity lost in the 1960s” (Muroyama and Yamada 2010: 161). This would require people regularly to set foot in the satoyama, to thin the trees, to reduce the amount of undergrowth and generally make it a more exposed space that is harder for animals to use as a launch-pad for crop feeding. Calls are also made for stretches of plantation forest close to houses or fields to be thinned and weeded in order to reduce the degree of concealment afforded to monkeys (Miyagi-ken 2005: 20). Grazing animals can help create and maintain a buffer zone between village and forest. The use of animals as weeders is something referred to as “weeding by tongue” (Imamura 2009). Cows, sheep or goats are placed on the village perimeter (such as along the outside of a fence protecting cropland) to maintain a clearing that keeps wildlife away (Nakata 2009; NNSS 2014: 158–159; Shiga-ken 2009: 5). In Shiga Prefecture, grazing cows have proved effective in reducing wild boar crop damage, while goats have been used to protect vineyards from monkeys (Yamanaka 2009: 42). One kind of response to the second activity gap, the failure to harvest fruit, has been for volunteers to come and help with the picking in order to stop the fruit acting as an inadvertent attractant to monkeys. There are many examples of such fruit-picking volunteer events, often involving persimmons. They are sometimes specifically aimed at schoolchildren (Asahi Shinbun 2016) or university students (Kiyono and Nakatsuka 2015) or may involve more general civic participation (MOA 2007: 21–23). Many such initiatives are aimed at countering the fruit’s monkey-luring effect, there are also examples of fruit-picking events directed against bears (IHSHS 2008: 5; Kumamori News 2015; Mano et al. 2008: 50). Although in both cases this volunteer fruit-picking aims to counter animal-luring, in the case of the bear the concern is with human safety rather than crop protection. An example of volunteer fruit-picking is the “Monkey-Persimmon Battle Project” reported from Fujimi Town in Nagano Prefecture where students from a local high school come and help harvest persimmons in a local village. The scheme

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began when a group of students from the school learned about monkey raiding of local persimmon trees and approached their teacher with the suggestion that they step in to pick the fruit that the elderly villagers could not. The teacher, Mizo­guchi Noriyasu, liaised with town hall officials to take the idea forward, as a result of which a special “persimmon-picking” (kakimogi) event took place on October 25, 2005 in a village called Shimotsutaki where eight of the high school students acted as volunteer pickers (Mainichi Shinbun 2005). Mizoguchi (2007) approached the initiative as a kind of emergency harvesting operation in which the elderly village could draw on the youthful strength of the high school students to pick its persimmons and thereby avert the danger of monkey feeding on field crops. According to this initial vision, the fruit-picking students would fill the labor vacuum in the village created by depopulation and aging. The project continued for a number of years afterwards, but during this time Mizoguchi’s view of its impact underwent a significant change.2 He soon realized that the high school students’ practical assistance as fruit-pickers, involving as it did just a few trees, made little difference overall to the village’s persimmon problem as there were still a great many unpicked persimmons available to the monkeys. However, he noticed that, because of the stimulus provided by the young volunteers, the elderly villagers came to take a greater interest in the persimmon trees and to pick much more of the fruit themselves. He used the term kasseika or “activation” to characterize this change among the villagers. In sum, the project’s main contribution to offsetting the local gap in picking activity appears to have been in its mobilizing effect on elderly residents rather than the labor input of the volunteers. One obvious alternative to such initiatives would simply be for the persimmon trees to be cut down. The appeal of the felling option in depopulated villages is obvious enough. It deals with the problem once and for all, as there is no longer fruit to pick and therefore no need to find others to come in and pick it. Furthermore, along with the permanent removal of a monkey lure, felling the trees can make a potentially important contribution to cover removal in the village environment. This is because, with their long and tangled branches and thick foliage, large persimmon trees allow monkeys to conceal themselves from view when cropraiding and may well be an important part of the route taken by monkeys as they move from forest to field and back (Inoue 2002: 44). By increasing exposure in the village, felling such trees makes it a much less secure space for monkeys to enter. However, felling village fruit trees can encounter opposition. Objections include that the trees should be left in place out of respect for the ancestors who planted them generations ago (Akaza 2004) and that they are an important scenic element in the village landscape, especially the radiant sight of their orange fruit in autumn (Inoue 2008: 146). We might add that felling the trees instead of picking their fruit would have precluded the kind of intergenerational contact between students and elderly villagers (including its claimed inspirational effect on the latter) that appears to have occurred in the Fujimi example.3 The main response to the third activity gap, the failure to expel forest animals from the village, is to call on residents to do more. This may involve villagers

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amending their daily routines to spend more time out and about in the village. Apart from visiting and working in the fields more, villagers are encouraged to go for regular walks. An illustration of this is the proposal made by the wildlife crop damage specialist Eguchi that villagers take up regular strolling around vulnerable village farmland in order to leave a “human scent” there that will repel any wild boar that come around or to take their dogs for walks along a route that includes farmland visited by wild boar in the past (Eguchi 2003: 89). The latter suggestion would mean marking the field-side space with dog scent as well as human scent, thereby using the wild boar’s acute sense of smell against it. Another example of this encouragement of outdoor activity appears in an article on the monkey problem from the website of Miyoshi City. Using the catchphrase sanpo mo oiharai or “even going for a walk is chasing away,” the article explains the value of the outdoor stroll by informing readers that, as “monkeys avoid being seen by people,” the mere presence of people walking around the edge of the village will be enough to keep them away (Miyoshi-shi 2011). Taking a dog along on the walk is even better (as monkeys tend to be especially wary of dogs), and some prefectural and municipal websites suggest that dog-walkers include paths between farmland and forest in their daily route (see, e.g., Shiga-ken 2016). This promotion of outdoor activity extends to recreational pursuits in which a group of people gathers. A case in point is the croquet-like game known as gateball that is popular among the elderly in Japan. Played on a rectangular dirt ground and involving two teams of up to five players each, gateball is promoted as a pastime that allows older people to be more physically and socially active. However, it may also be seen as having a role to play in crop protection. This is illustrated by a report on deer, monkey and wild boar crop damage prevention from Kanagawa Prefecture, which explicitly identified village gateball as having the potential to contribute to the safety of crops in nearby fields (TCCY 2003).This source does not actually state why gateball activity should have this effect, but it seems reasonable to infer that it has to do with the number of people involved, the movement of the players across the ground and the sharp, cracking sound made when striking the ball. Calls are also made for villagers to act more assertively and aggressively toward animals spotted in and around the village. In response to monkeys, villagers should shout, bang metallic objects, throw stones, or fire other projectiles with catapults. The level of threat can be increased further by introducing new “chase away tools” such as rocket fireworks and air-guns. This strengthened reaction to crop-raids is aimed at restoring animal fear of people and creating what Inoue Masateru called a “psychological fence” around the village (Inoue 2014: 114). For this kind of fencing to really work, all villagers should be involved in actively resisting forest animals. As Inoue has put it, the psychological fence is built out of the activity of “everyone in the village” (Inoue 2008: 155). Great emphasis is placed on cooperation between villagers, by, for example, joining in when a neighbor is attempting to expel an animal (Yamabata 2010: 275). Technology can help facilitate an organized, collective response to wildlife incursions, such as where radio-tracking (or, more recently, GPS tracking) is used to monitor the movements

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of crop-feeding monkey troops that allows advance warning to be given to settlements at risk (Watanabe 2000: 85–86).Villagers that cooperate put themselves in a position to carry out a more ambitious form of expulsion. In the case of monkeys, this means not just chasing them out of the field but then additionally pursuing them into the forest itself in a way that deters them from returning in the future (Knight 2020). The obvious difficulty with this strategy is that in depopulated rural areas there may not be enough people able to engage in such energetic resistance on the scale required. “The view can often be heard that monkeys are wary when there are strong-looking men about, but that, when they face only women and old people, they simply make fools of them” (Mizuno 1995: 14). However, “strong-looking men” tend to be in short supply in many of today’s villages. One way of dealing with this labor gap in elderly villages is for municipal governments to step in and hire people to act as patrollers. In a paper on monkey chasing in Hyōgo Prefecture, Nakata et al. (2013: 103) make reference to “administration-organized chasing” involving hired chasers. They point out that the chasing itself is invariably done by men and may involve the use of real guns. The authors go on to identify a number of problems with municipally organized chasing: It covers a limited part of the day, the chasers cannot use guns in the village itself and, even where it succeeds in frightening the monkeys, its impact is lessened by the fact that the monkeys learn to differentiate the hired chasers from villagers. Another response is to arrange for outside volunteers to come in and act as patrollers and chasers. The locality of Nishimeya in Aomori Prefecture provides an example of urban volunteers helping farmers in this way. Enari et al. (2006: 57) make the point that the lack of “active, aggressive residents” in Nishimeya is offset by an infusion of younger people from the cities able to offer a much more vigorous form of resistance to raiding monkeys. For their part, the volunteers have the chance to “enjoy a rural experience” and participate in a form of “ecotourism” (Enari and Maruyama 2005: 13). An alternative to relying on other people to help restore the village’s threat to forest wildlife is to make use of the threat capacity of nonhuman actors. Dogs offer one obvious way of filling the gap in chasing activity. There is a long tradition of using dogs as field guards in rural Japan, and it is argued that the revival of their crop-protecting role is especially urgent in depopulated settlements where “the dog’s vitality can make up for a lack of human presence and energy” (Sakata 2011: 196). To this end, a growing number of farmers are using trained “monkey dogs” (monkī doggu) (Kugai 2009;Yamaguchi and Yamaji 2014;Yoshida 2012). Unlike the tethered guard dog, the monkey dog is let off the leash to pursue the fleeing monkeys into the forest in order to intensify their fright. Machines are a further option. The “wild boar repulsion robot” developed by Miyazaki University is one form that the mechanical field-guard can take (NNSS 2014: 81–82). It reacts to nearby movement by emitting a light beam and making a loud noise from a speaker. Similar machines can be employed against monkeys, as illustrated by the “scarecrow robot” pioneered by Iida City in Nagano Prefecture

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(NNSS 2014: 82–83). However, while they may chase away monkeys and animals in the sense of putting them to flight, these sedentary machines cannot pursue the animals as a dog can. The development of drones able to follow fleeing monkeys promises to overcome this constraint (Nikkan Kōgyō Shinbun 2016).

The limits of the activity gap perspective I have highlighted above an understanding of the wildlife problem in upland Japan that is linked to a deficit in human activity and that informs attempts to use new forms of agency to make good this deficit. A full critical evaluation of this activity gap perspective is beyond the scope of this chapter. However, this framing of the relationship between people and the environment raises a number of questions that should at least be acknowledged. One question has to do with the activity gap perspective’s emphasis on human inactivity as a factor in the wildlife problem. An obvious objection here might be that inactivity—people not doing what should be done—accounts for just a part of the relation between human behavior and wildlife encroachment, and that the contribution to the wildlife problem of various forms of human activity must be recognized too. A range of habitat-destroying human actions could be mentioned, including widespread logging (and vegetation clearance) in the pre-war, wartime and postwar years, monocultural conifer afforestation in the 1950s and 1960s and road building and resort development in mountain areas. Other, less conspicuous examples of problematic human activity could also be mentioned, including food waste disposal. It is common for villagers to throw kitchen waste on fields or dump crop waste at the edge of the village, actions which effectively create extra food sources for forest animals in the village zone (Inoue 2002: 43; Miura 2008: 37–38). These actions can have the unintended effect of giving animals that exploit these food sources the taste for human foods and, consequently, enhancing the village’s appeal to them as a feeding ground (recalling the effect of the unpicked persimmons). On top of this, mention should be made of the deliberate feeding of wild animals by rural residents that both accustomizes the animals to human foods and habituates them to people (Knight 2003: 116–117). Adopting a more balanced view of problematic human behavior with respect to the wildlife problem has important implications for how it should be tackled. One of these is that attention should be given to reforming the activity that does occur as well as to filling in for missing activity. Failure to do so may well limit the value of new initiatives intended to tackle the encroachment problem. A prime example of this arises in the Nishimeya example where the effectiveness of the volunteer patrollers in repelling monkeys appears to have been undermined by the crop-dumping actions of farmers that had the effect of continuing to attract the monkeys to the village (Enari et al. 2006: 76). In sum, while gap-filling activity of the kind described earlier may be necessary, what might be called remedial inactivity (ceasing to do things that worsen the situation) or indeed counter-activity (action to neutralize earlier harmful behavior) may also need to be included in the response.

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A second question that arises with framing human behavioral reform as a form of gap filling is that it may not give due attention to the social form of the activity. On the one hand, there are examples of often quite remarkable, super-active individuals in rural Japan who come to take on much of the burden of keeping local farmland safe from forest animals, seemingly on a mission to make up for the scarcity of working-age residents left in the village (see, e.g., Nakata et al. 2013: 109). On the other hand, there may well be an emphasis on widening participation in the activity in question in order for it to succeed. This applies to monkey-chasing, which in many cases takes place on an individualistic basis but needs to be reformed to become a collective activity that delivers a much more powerful fright to intruding monkeys (Yamabata 2013: 72). The challenge here is to reform existing activity rather than fill an activity gap. Another possible objection to the idea of filling activity gaps is that it misses the point that what matters is the effect of the activity rather than the activity itself and that, in some cases at least, the desired effect may be achieved by other means. Put another way, shrinking or bypassing the activity gap might be possible alternatives to filling it. An example of a gap-shrinking measure that tends to have a lot of support in upland areas is that of increased culling (or hunting) in order to reduce the population of crop-feeding wild animals and ease the burden of field-side defensive activities such as fence-building, fence maintenance, cover removal or guarding and patrolling. A variation on this would be where some non-human agent acts to reduce the pressure of wildlife on village farmland, such as the reintroduced wolves envisaged by the Japan Wolf Association that would, as it were, act as the farmer’s friend by preying on deer, wild boar and monkeys and thereby make the protection of crops from these animals less onerous (Knight 2003: 221). A prime example of activity bypassing, on the other hand, would be the felling of fruit trees to remove a monkey attractant from the village. On the basis that cutdown trees bear no fruit, the one-off act of felling would remove the need for annual fruit-picking activity thereafter. Felling achieves the intended effect of fruit-picking (appeal reduction) in that part of the village in a much more efficient (activityeconomical) way. It would therefore seem to be a prime illustration of a smart, “upstream” solution to the activity deficit of the villages involved, which fits with the diminished “activity budget” of these depopulated communities. This kind of activity-bypassing solution treats the activity in question as a burden. However, in some cases at least, the activity is more than simply a burdensome task to be carried out to produce a specific environmental effect but is also important as a social event. Participation in “wildlife countermeasures” is often said to promote village solidarity by providing neighbors with an opportunity to come together and achieve a common goal (Yamabata 2015: 65). Social benefits may similarly arise in volunteer initiatives that bring together different groups of people, whether this be young and old or urbanites and villagers. The Fujimi persimmon-picking initiative would seem to bear this out, insofar as the commitment of the young volunteers had the effect of motivating remaining villagers themselves to greater activity.

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A final question arising from the activity gap perspective on environmental change presented here has to do with its anthropocentrism. Animal activity is often treated simply as a problem for human residents rather than as a life-sustaining activity on the part of nonhuman inhabitants of upland space. Wild animal feeding on farm crops is seen as damage caused by a pest that highlights the deficit in human crop-protective activity rather than understood in terms of the food-getting needs of wild animals that have undergone a major loss of habitat. Similarly, the lack of silvicultural activity in the forest tends to be seen as negative, with little obvious appreciation that, for animals, this human inactivity may be a positive development. The primatologist Mito Yukihisa is among those who have made the point that the neglect of conifer plantations and the re-emergence of other forms of vegetation within them is a trend that can benefit wild monkeys (Mito 1998: 18). And yet any impression of a simple villager intolerance of or antipathy to the appearance of wild animals should be qualified. Not all forest animal activity in and around villages meets with this reaction. Sometimes what wild animals do in the village zone attracts the curiosity and interest of villagers, including the feeding activity of monkeys (Inoue 2002: 15) and even bears (Maita 1996: 52). Indeed, it can be argued that, as long as they are not deemed a threat to crops or to human safety, forest animals feeding in the village are good to watch. This is borne out by the aforementioned tendency of some villagers to offer food to monkeys and other animals encountered in the village. That some people feed animals and enjoy opportunities to observe them does not necessarily contradict the concerns about animal encroachment described in this chapter. With good reason, farmers tend to be sharply critical of such conduct among neighbors, and in many areas there are campaigns to discourage it. But, alongside the use of certain animals to protect farmland, animal-watching and food-giving villager behavior raise the possibility that the place of animals in the activity regime of upland Japan may be more fluid and less predictable than notions such as the “pressure relationship” suggest.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have approached the theme of peripheralization in rural Japan by focusing on the depopulating village’s relationship to the forest rather than to the city and by treating villagers as person-activity bundles (as opposed to the demographer’s countable, abstractable residents). This “energetical” version of the population unit provides an understanding of human presence in and engagement with upland space, but also of the effects of human absence and withdrawal from it. Seen in these terms, depopulation in upland areas is not just a numerical reduction of human presence but an alarming, if gradual, undoing of the settlement space established and maintained by the activity regime on which this human presence was based. The activity gap perspective set out here remains very much an anthropocentric view of change on Japan’s agrarian frontier. Although nonhuman activity is an

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integral element of the struggle that upland dwellers face to maintain their settlements as productive, inhabitable human spaces, it tends to feature as a foil to human activity rather than as an activity with a comparable standing.Yet among the various gap-filling initiatives set out earlier we can see examples of human secondment of animal activity aimed at reconstructing an upland activity regime that can support stable human settlement. In an age when animals appear as a boundary-breaching, field-invading problem that exacerbates the peripheralization of the mountain village to the point of its disappearance, this deployment of certain animals on the human side to counter wildlife encroachment and forest reversion reminds us that other, less antagonistic kinds of human-animal relations are possible in upland Japan. A key feature of the concept of peripheralization is that peripheries are not fixed and “pre-given” but “produced” (Kühn 2015: 368–369). There is perhaps an understandable tendency in the study of peripheralizing human settlements to see humans as the “producers” of this spatial change and to focus accordingly on the economic, fiscal and political forces involved. And yet in the case of remote settlements on the agrarian frontier that adjoin and overlap with areas of wildlife habitat, a more rounded approach to rural peripheries may be necessary, one that recognizes that they are often dynamic multi-species spaces shaped by nonhuman actors as well as human ones.

Notes 1 For a detailed account of provisioning-based monkey parks in Japan, see Knight 2011. 2 These comments are based on an interview with Mizoguchi Noriyasu on August 18, 2017 in Fujimi town hall. 3 This kind of argument in favor of socially cooperative fruit-picking and against felling fruit trees is made by the civic group Kakitoritaikai (Yoshida 2008).

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Honda, Takeshi. 2007. “Inoshishi higai no hasshō ni eikyō o ataeru yōin: nōringyō sensasu o riyō shita kaiseki” [Factors affecting crop damage by wild boar: The analysis using census data of agriculture and forestry]. Nihon Shinrin Gakkaishi 89 (4), 249–252. IHSHS (Ishikawa-ken Hakusan Shizen Hogo Sentā). 2008. “Jūgai bōshi e shūkaku taiken” [Harvest challenge to protect against wildlife damage]. Hakusan 36 (3), 15. Iiyama, Kenji. 2003. “Biological resources.” Kazuhiko Takeuchi, Robert D. Brown, Izumi Washitani, Atsushi Tsunekawa, and Makoto Yokohari (eds.), Satoyama: The traditional rural landscape of Japan, 149–178. Tokyo: Springer Japan. Imamura, Naraomi. 2009. “Ushi no ‘shitakari’ de kōsaku hōkichi no saisei o” [Towards the rebirth of abandoned farmland through cow ‘tongue-weeding’]. Nōgyō Kyōdō Kumiai Shinbun. May 14. www.jacom.or.jp/archive03/column/imamura-naraomi/imamuranaraomi090514-3237.html (accessed June 5, 2019). Inoue, Masateru. 2002. Yama no hatake o saru kara mamoru [Protecting mountain fields from monkeys]. Tokyo: Nōbunkyō. ———. 2008. Kore nara dekiru jūgai taisaku [Practical countermeasures for wildlife damage]. Tokyo: Nōbunkyō. ———. 2014. Josei ga yareba zunzun susumu jūgai taisaku [Wildlife damage countermeasures that succeed when carried out by women]. Tokyo: Nōbunkyō. Kamada, Mahito. 2017. “Satoyama landscape of Japan: Past, present and future.” Sun-Kee Hong and Nobukazu Nakagoshi (eds.), Landscape ecology for sustainable society, 87–110. Cham: Springer. Kamada, Mahito, Nobukazu Nakagoshi, and Kunito Nehira. 1991. “Pine forest ecology and landscape management: A comparative study in Japan and Korea.” Nobukazu Nakagoshi and Frank B. Golley (eds.), Coniferous forest ecology from an international perspective, 43–62. The Hague: SPB Academic Publishing. Kiyono, Mieko, and Masaya Nakatsuka. 2015. “Engai taisaku no chiiki shigen toshite no katsuyō to kanōsei” [Potential and utilization of monkey damage as local resources]. Nōringyō Mondai Kenkyū 51 (2), 128–133. Knight, John. 2003. Waiting for wolves in Japan: An anthropological study of people-wildlife relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2011. Herding monkeys to paradise: How macaque troops are managed for tourism in Japan. Leiden: Brill. ———. 2020. “How to chase a monkey: Reforming the oiharai response to crop-feeding macaques in Japan.” Society and Animals. Kugai, Masumi. 2009. “Nōka ga shiyō no aiken o kunren, saru o oiharau” [Training farmers’ pet dogs to chase away monkeys]. Nijūisseiki no Nihon o Kangaeru 44, 28–35. Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Kumagai, Fumie. 1996. Unmasking Japan today:The impact of traditional values on modern Japanese society (With assistance of D. J. Keyser). Westport, CT: Praeger. Kumamori News. 2015. “Naze kono kuma wa korosareneba naranai no ka” [Why must these bears be killed?]. December 31. http://kumamori.org/news/category/bearrescue/31224/ (accessed June 5, 2019). Mainichi Shinbun. 2005. “Nihonzaru kara nōsakumotsu o mamorō” [Let’s protect crops from monkeys]. October 27. Maita, Kazuhiko. 1996. Yama de kuma ni au hōhō [Ways to encounter bears in the mountains]. Tokyo:Yama to Keikoku-sha. Mano, Tsutomu, Tōru Ōi, Mayumi Yokoyama, Atsushi Takayanagi, and the Working Group for Bear Management, Mammalogical Society of Japan. 2008. “Nihon ni okeru kumarui no kotaigun kanri no genjō to kadai” [Current situations and perspectives on the

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monitoring and management of bear species populations in Japan]. Honyūrui Kagaku 48 (1), 43–55. Mito, Yukihisa. 1998. “Nihonzaru no hageyama” [The Japanese monkeys’ bare mountains]. Monkī 42 (3), 18–19. Miura, Shingo. 2008. Wairudoraifu manejimento nyūmon [Introduction to wildlife management]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Miyagi-ken. 2005. “Miyagi-ken nihonzaru hogo kanri keikaku” [The Japanese Monkey Protective Management Plan for Miyagi Prefecture]. www.pref.miyagi.jp/uploaded/attach ment/4727.pdf (accessed June 5, 2019). Miyoshi-shi. 2011. “Saru ni yoru higai o nakusu tame ni” [Ending damage caused by monkeys]. www.city-miyoshi.jp/docs/2010092900896/ (accessed January 1, 2012). Mizoguchi, Nobuo. 2007. “Jimotogaku-teki shuhō” [Local methods]. Shinshū Tsukinowaguma Tsūshin, 37–39 ( June 29). www.geocities.jp/shinshukumaken/tsushin37/tsushin37-9. html (accessed January 1, 2019). Mizuno, Akinori. 1995. “Hakusan chiiki no engai to inu” [Crop damage by Japanese monkeys in relation to dog management in Hakusan]. Wildlife Forum 1 (1), 11–17. MOA (Ministry of Agriculture). 2007. Chiiki ni okeru chōjū higai bōshi taisaku: torikumi jireishū [Wildlife damage defence countermeasures by locality: Case studies of local initiatives]. Tokyo: Nōrinsuisan-shō Seisankyoku. MOE (Ministry of the Environment). 2015. “1: shuryō menjō kōfu jōkyō” [1: The issue of hunting permits]. Heisei 27-nendo chōjū tōkei jōhō [Statistical information on wildlife for 2015]. Tokyo: Kankyōshō. www.env.go.jp/nature/choju/docs/docs2/h27/06h27tou. html (accessed June 5, 2019). ———. n.d. Shubetsu shuryō menkyō shoji shasū [The number of hunting permit holders by hunting category]. Tokyo: Kankyōshō. www.env.go.jp/nature/choju/docs/docs4/ syubetu.pdf (accessed June 5, 2019). Muroyama, Yasuyuki. 2003. Sato no saru to tsukiau ni wa: yasei dōbutsu no higai kanri [Dealing with monkeys in the village: Managing the damage caused by wild animals]. Kyoto: Kyōto Daigaku Gakujutsu Shuppankai. Muroyama, Yasuyuki, and Aya Yamada. 2010. “Conservation: Present status of the Japanese macaque population and its habitat.” Naofumi Nakagawa, Masayuki Nakamichi, and Hideki Sugiura (eds.), The Japanese macaques, 143–164. Tokyo: Springer. Nakata, Hiroyasu. 2009. “Ushi no hōboku ya ‘esaba’ no tenken katsudō de shūraku kara yasei dōbutsu o tōzakeru” [Keeping wild animals away from the village through cow grazing and feeding-site inspections]. Nijūisseiki no Nihon o Kangaeru 44, 46–53. Nakata, Shigeo, Kenji Suzuki, and Keiichi Inaba. 2013. “Hyōgo-ken ni okeru shūraku shutai no nihonzaru oiharai jirei” [Examples of village-initiated monkey-chasing in Hyōgo Prefecture]. Hyōgo-ken ni okeru nihonzaru chiiki kotaigun no kanri shuhō [Management techniques used for monkey troops in Hyōgo Prefecture] (Hyōgo Wildlife Monographs 5), 102–114. Tanba: Hyōgo-ken Shinrin Dōbutsu Sentā. Nikkan Kōgyō Shinbun. 2016. “Dorōn de saru geitai” [Using drones to repel monkeys]. September 30. NNSS (Nihon Nōgyō Shinbun Shuzaihan). 2014. Chōjūgai zero e: shūraku wa watashitachi ga mamoru (Towards zero wildlife damage: We will protect the village ourselves). Tokyo: Kobushi Shobō. Sakata, Hiroshi. 2011. “Inu o tsukatta engai taisaku” [Using the dog in monkey damage countermeasures]. Zenkoku Ringyō Kairyō Fukyū Kyōkai (ed.), Jūgai taisaku saizensen [On the front line of wildlife damage countermeasures], 195–213. Tokyo: Zenkoku Ringyō Kairyō Fukyū Kyōkai.

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Saru Shinbun. 2011. “Kyōsei” [Coexistence]. October edition. Shiga-ken. 2009. Engai ni tsuyoi shūraku kankyō tenken: jisshi no tebiki [Overhauling the village environment to make it resistant to monkeys: An introduction to implementation]. Ōtsu: Shiga-ken Nōseisuisan-bu Nōgyō Keiei-ka. ———. 2016. “Nihonzaru ni taisuru nōsakumotsu higai bōshi taisaku” [Defensive countermeasures against wildlife crop damage caused by monkeys]. www.pref.shiga.lg.jp/ nagahama-pbo/nogyo/nihonzaru.html (accessed January 1, 2017). Takeuchi, Kazuhiko. 2003. “The nature of satoyama landscapes.” Kazuhiko Takeuchi, Robert D. Brown, Izumi Washitani, Atsushi Tsunekawa, and Makoto Yokohari (eds.), Satoyama: The traditional rural landscape of Japan, 9–39. Tokyo: Springer Japan. Takeuchi, Kazuhiko, Kaoru Ichikawa, and Thomas Elmqvist. 2016. “Satoyama landscape as social-ecological system: Historical changes and future perspective.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 19, 30–39. Takeuchi, Keiichi. 1976. “The rural exodus in Japan (2): Disorganization and reorganization of rural communities.” Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies 8 (1), 35–41. Tarōda, Hitoshi. 2003. Nihonzaru no seitai to hogo kanri [The ecology and conservation management of the Japanese monkey]. Ishikawa: Ishikawa-ken Shizen Hogo-ka. TCCY (Tsukui Chiiki Chōjū Yamabiru Kinkyū Taisaku Kaigi). 2003. “Shika, saru, inoshishi ni yoru higai o fusegu tame ni” [Protection from damage by deer, monkeys, and wild boar]. www.pref.kanagawa.jp/docs/t4i/cnt/f986/documents/15825.pdf (accessed June 5, 2019). Watanabe, Kunio. 2000. Nihonzaru ni yoru nōsakubutsu higai to hogo kanri [Crop damage by and conservation management of the Japanese monkey]. Tokyo: Tōkai Daigaku Shuppankai. Watsuji, Tetsurō. 1961. A climate: A philosophical study. Tokyo: Ministry of Education, Printing Bureau, Japanese Government. Yamabata, Naoto. 2010. “Shūraku-gurumi no saru oiharai ni yoru nōsakubutsu higai keigen kōka: Mie-kennai roku chiku no kenshō” [Mitigate effect on damage to food crops achieved by collaboration of a whole village for chase-off of monkeys]. Nōson Keikaku Gakkaishi 28 (Special issue), 273–278. ———. 2013. “Kōka ga deru ‘shūraku-gurumi no oiharai’ no kōdō yōshiki to jirei ni tsuite” [An example of the behavioral pattern of effective “village-wide chasingaway”]. Yūsuke Eguchi (ed.), Dōbutsu ni yoru nōsakumotsu higai no sōgō taisaku [Comprehensive countermeasures against animal damage to crops], 70–80. Tokyo: Seibundō Shinkōsha. ———. 2015. “Chiiki shutai no jūgai taisaku to seikō jirei” [Examples of successful local wildlife countermeasures]. PPT presentation at the 2015 Chūsankan Symposium, Shimane Prefecture. www.pref.shimane.lg.jp/admin/region/kikan/chusankan/sympo/ H27_gisshinpo.data/kityouhp.pdf (accessed June 5, 2019). Yamaguchi, Kaoru, and Eiji Yamaji. 2014. “Yaseisaru oiharai inu jigyō no seika to kadai: Nishi Nihon chiku ni okeru sekkyokuteki katsuyō to chūshi shita jichitai no hikaku kara” [Achievements and challenges of monkey-chasing dog initiatives: Comparing municipalities in western Japan that utilize them and those that have discontinued them]. Nōson Keikaku Gakkaishi 33 (Special issue), 281–286. Yamanaka, Seigen. 2009. “Yaseijū o yosetsukenai einō kanri o!” [Farm management that keeps wildlife away]. Nijūisseiki no Nihon o Kangaeru 44, 36–44. Yamazaki, Koji, Shinsuke Koike, Chinatsu Kozakai,Yui Nemoto, Ami Nakajima, and Takashi Masaki. 2009. “Behavioral study of free-ranging Japanese black bears I: Does food abundance affect the habitat use of bears?” Toru Oi, Naoki Ohnishi, Toru Koizumi, and Isamu

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17 EPILOGUE Think global, act peripheral in Japan’s new ruralities Sebastian Polak-Rottmann, Ralph Lützeler and Wolfram Manzenreiter

The current academic and popular discourse about shrinking regions in rural Japan paints a rather bleak portrait of the future of the countryside. The contributors to our volume do not support this view uncritically. Some chapters directly address policy measures or local initiatives, while others discuss prerequisites for a substantial change of current conditions. Case by case they introduce local problems as well as specific structural characteristics that together shed light on the complex nature of rurality in Japan. Rather than boosting existing stereotypical notions of a peripheral, suffering, or sometimes even romantic, traditional, and authentically Japanese countryside, our authors address the agency and influence of national and global actors, challenging the idea of a homogeneous rural Japan. It becomes evident that while the degree of autonomy inhibits substantive influence on policy implementation, outsourcing tasks does not necessarily endanger local traditions. Power relations thus play a crucial role in understanding who changes the local environment and in what ways. Accordingly, we introduced the concept of peripheralization (Kühn 2015) as a possible means of grasping the interplay between local agents and national centers. We were interested in how local forces can overcome structural impediments and to what degree they are tied to regional or national governments. In order to best acknowledge the hybridity of rural Japan, we did not stop at the dichotomy of center and periphery relations at the national level. As much as rural areas are influenced by national core cities and governments, they are also entangled in patterns of exchange and dependency at the regional level. Furthermore, these overlapping enmeshments of flows and hubs in specific locations and across the entire country are also subject to global forces of trade, economic policy, tourism, and lifestyle choices in general.We argued that scholarly attention to aspects of globalization is necessary to better understand changes and challenges in rural Japan. Michael Woods’s concept of “global countryside” (2007) suggests an alternative take on the idea of rural areas. He emphasizes the fluidity and hybridity of the

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countryside while also addressing various agents that shape the distinctive nature of these regions: Tourists and food chains alike contribute to a changing landscape and employment situation in a manner similar to the way former urbanites and return migrants diversify local society on the ground (Woods 2007). Not surprisingly, the broad conceptualization and complexity of the global countryside is impossible to pin down within the limited scope of a single chapter-length study of a rural area in Japan. It is even harder to generalize findings and identify common ground for all the country’s different regions. The chapters of this volume account for this heterogeneity and show the different degrees to which and forms in which global forces influence rural life. Because globalization occurs in different places at varying paces, power hierarchies and the channels of authority and control are reconfigured on a new and sometimes border-crossing scale, opening up new possibilities of agency and constraining others. We were interested in how the concepts of global countryside and peripheralization together might enhance our understanding of the changing countryside in Japan. Thus, in the following we aim to identify which aspects of both concepts have been confirmed—and which rejected—throughout the case studies included in this book.

Japan’s regions as global countryside(s) For some contributors of this volume, Michael Woods’s concept of global countryside proves to be a suitable approach for framing their understanding of changes in rural Japan. However, not all of the characteristics cited by Woods were discussed in the chapters, as if foreign labor migration, non-national investment, and transnational political authorities are not of significance when it comes to Japan. While we know this is not the case, in the context of their contributions most of our authors either did not wish to expand their analytical framework into those areas or simply could not find evidence of relevant entanglements with regulators or markets abroad. Other aspects surface in the chapters, particularly in those that actively embrace the global countryside concept. In particular, the hybridity of rural areas occurs in different forms: As Hansen shows in his chapter, clearly distinguishing between rural, urban, and global places does not reflect reality. In his view, rurality should be seen as both part of and separate from national boundaries.What is perceived as local, Japanese, or foreign ultimately depends on who defines it. Thus, on the one hand, dairy products from Hokkaido or the ice cream and cheese shop in Tōhoku call into question the distinction between national and global but also point at the questionable concept of tradition as a whole. On the other hand, global influence in this sense is linked to power relations within the country: Once-remote areas are labelled as periphery and constitute an “other” vis-à-vis mainstream “Japaneseness.” Paradoxically, it is the remoteness and otherness sometimes associated with traditional Japanese ways of life that attract city dwellers to move into rural areas. Tourists and long-term migrants choose these regions as their new homes exactly because of their remoteness or their specific history. As with places that attract new

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residents to remote islands and mountainous areas, these newcomers—many of them considerably younger than the local residents—provide innovative ideas and networks that result in a constantly changing social environment. Even though new residents are often expected to adjust to established ways of living and traditional community rules, their influence is clearly visible through their activities. Their motivation to move to the countryside can be associated with the global trend of lifestyle migration that drives people away from bustling city centers into seemingly peripheral villages. However, this conception of a peaceful and harmonious place is shaped by discourse and challenged by social movements, nature, and international trade agreements, making the countryside a contested space. Global trade agreements, food chains, and neoliberal principles of profit maximization challenge former employment patterns and leave previous traditions— such as weeding—in the hands of a few part-time farmers. While most activities can be outsourced to the same large farming company that maintains most paddies in certain areas, this is one form of collective action that typically remains in the hands of local residents in many regions throughout Japan. Acting together in the interest of the common good must be interpreted as an essential social aspect of rural life. However, while its importance for human relations cannot be overemphasized, the act of collective activity also affects human/non-human relationships. Where humans leave, nature strikes back: The peaceful image of rural villages can only be maintained with a substantial and consequential amount of human labor. When the young labor force dwindles, wild animals start raiding fields. Global influence on the structure of the local economy is therefore visible not only in the corporatization of the farming industry but also ultimately in the decline of satoyama landscapes. In some cases, international trade and neoliberal processes have a more direct impact on local economies. A South Korean import ban on Japanese sea squirts following the triple disaster striking Tōhoku in 2011 triggered a complex set of measures to help local fishers. As a niche industry, sea squirt production, once dependent on international trade, is increasingly subjected to marketing initiatives to heighten demand on a national level. Even though sales have decreased due to the import ban, national subsidies have helped many of the companies survive—at least until the payments stop. In other places, small fisheries suffer from the establishment of food chains that alienate customers from producers. In the face of globalization pressure on catchment and wholesale prices, local fishers struggle to preserve their means of gainful employment. Although they suffer from a failure to keep pace with economic growth, they are reluctant to engage in alternative production strategies. Power relations in the neoliberal economic environment occur in the form of a complex network of actors: local (fishers, farmers, consumers), national (governments, institutions, organizations), and global (food chains, international agreements). However, rather than analyzing these factors separately, the global countryside approach enables an understanding of the interactions between these actors and their fluidity. Virtually every case study in this volume emphasizes the local rootedness of

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globalization, such as the local roots of a recent new form of farming corporations. Regional identity, therefore, is intertwined with national policies of corporatization, which in turn is associated with a competitive global economic environment. Nevertheless, local problems arise due to various circumstances in the different cases illustrated in the chapters. How do these regions cope with all these changes and challenges? From the understanding of a globalized countryside, we can infer that many local actors still adopt strategies designed nationally by (local) governments, even though global influences are at work. Some of our case studies suggest that precisely this lack of proactive strategies prevents the emergence of measures addressing the complexity of today’s rural Japan. Yet it would be wrong to assume that all policies or activities to tackle decline are doomed to fail.The multiple staterun subsidy programs to support community efforts to maintain roads, irrigation systems, and land improvement effectively slow or stop processes of local disintegration. The case studies of Iwaishima, Iwasaka, and Taketa in this volume provide insights into those rural areas where governmental measures helped ease local problems, and across the board, they demonstrate the necessity of locally grounded initiatives or leadership. Challenges for today’s rural Japan might have a variety of origins far beyond village borders. In fact, there is ample reason to assume that the struggles of the new ruralities we observe in Japan are directly linked to the country’s emergent loss of centrality in the global and certainly regional political economy. Peripheralization at the global level indirectly affects Japan’s internal peripheral regions and aggravates the archetypical structural problems of peripheries. However, peripheralization also triggers regional or local changes that affect everyday life and agency. Interestingly, many of these changes can be addressed at the same local level. Whether a strategy proves to be efficient in this sense depends on the flexibility of local authorities and measures at hand. To address local problems triggered by global forces, local initiatives that adapt to global circumstances seem a reasonable option. Insofar as global trends create, shape, mitigate, or reinforce peripheralization, the “global countryside” paradigm can be regarded as an important auxiliary tool in identifying realistic options available to peripheral areas for coping with impending decline. Therefore, the case studies of this volume teach us to “think global and act peripheral.” Depopulation and the aging of rural villages do not occur in isolation from global processes, and countermeasures require concerted action and hybrid networks of local as well as translocal actors. However, just as trade agreements, international shifts in lifestyle choices, and economic changes are subject to global developments, national power relations between centers and “peripheries” still shape the Japanese countryside to a significant degree. A forecast of future scenarios for the countryside in Japan is difficult to draw, particularly at times when national governments are increasingly under pressure by their populations to pay more attention to the costs and effects of the global climate crisis.While Japan is particularly vulnerable to natural disasters and other aftereffects triggered by climate change, the lack of voices demanding political action against global warming is somehow surprising—and a challenge to the unquestioned

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applicability of one of our key concepts. Given the decades-long history of academic debates on global warming leading to the border-crossing rallying of protest networks, we would expect from a “global countryside” more than just the surfacing of political statements that acknowledge the significance of rural spaces to contribute to watershed and land conservation or the prevention of global warming. In the framework of our second key concept, we are more likely to see the current state as a consequence of the void of political and creative power in peripheralized areas that have been more severely affected by natural disasters in recent years. In more theoretical terms, peripherality emerges as a direct expression of the lack of agency.

The many shades of peripherality Most authors confirm the existence of the different dimensions or characteristics associated with peripheralization—including those who do not specifically refer to the concept. In view of the huge extent of depopulation in many Japanese rural areas, it is not surprising that out-migration and aging are given attention in almost all the case studies within this book, as is economic decline. Increasing poverty levels are cited as a cause of rising deficits in municipality-based health insurance budgets and of income loss by small-scale coastal fisheries due to changing commodity chains and consumer preferences. The fact that “poverty” does not feature more prominently in the book might indicate that this is not a major problem in Japanese rural areas compared to urban regions. In fact, children who move to urban areas are not necessarily better off than their parents who remain in the countryside. Physical disconnection from the center and efforts to reconnect are central features of telehealth networks. This physical disconnection is also evident in new personal and virtual networks for linking up with universities on the mainland as a way to bring knowledge and skills to remote islands. The disconnection problem also resonates through all of this volume’s other case studies that deal with small islands. Using catchy brand images to recruit new residents is a recurring topic in the literature, and several authors in this volume point out ways that stigmatized peripheral areas have inverted their negative reputation to create a positive image instead. For instance, one imaginative town administration developed the ambiguous phrase nai mono wa nai (“nonexistent”) and turned it into an advertising slogan (“there is nothing we don’t have”). This practice of turning handicaps into advantages corresponds to the fact that, as mentioned earlier, peripheral areas are not viewed entirely negatively by all authors but interpreted as a kind of refuge where longestablished modes of economic activity or ways of living are preserved. From an urban perspective, rural life becomes associated with slow living, a lifestyle marker and critique of the efficiency goals and over-optimization of the neoliberal self. Peripherality in this sense is a powerful attractant for in-migration of urban refugees. Speaking on behalf of the ruralites, one of our authors explicitly asks whether the subjects living and working at the regional margins of Japanese society can reclaim their peripherality as a place of alterity.

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Almost all authors refer to the problem of the political and economic dependence of peripheral areas on centers of power and the question of how to solve it. The authors particularly emphasize the leading role of the Japanese government, including programs to subsidize efforts of rural areas to become more sustainable or the facilitation of global (economic) trends such as corporatization of primary sector activities. Taken as a whole, the contradictory role of national politics comes to the fore. On the one hand, the state has developed programs to help rural municipalities attain or preserve some form of autonomy: Land improvement programs and direct payments are some of the state’s most recent attempts to keep local actors and communities in operation. On the other hand, the state weakened the autonomy of smaller rural communities by pressuring them to amalgamate with larger neighboring municipalities during the “Great Heisei Merger” in the 2000s. More often than not, the territory of the newly created administrative units is at odds with the boundaries of traditional community organizations.The central institutions of rural society have become disempowered and lost their focus on local identity; in the post-merger era, they struggle with continuing their established roles of self-management. Many case studies reveal transaction costs of restructuring that easily offset the efficiency gains of larger administrative units. The state-driven exposure of rural communities to the impact of neoliberal corporatization, in turn, is not always evaluated negatively, as some case studies come to a more nuanced assessment. Overall, however, the view prevails that some form of national policy support is indispensable in empowering local actors to help themselves. Opinions are divided on whether “de-peripheralization”—or a slowing-down of the process—can be achieved. Some cases relate success stories of communities that halted or slowed down demographic and economic decline on their own, although local autonomy is unlikely to remain sustainable if national subsidies dry out. Decentralized policy measures that operate within the boundaries of prefectures and not the country as a whole are more likely to achieve success. That said, we also observed cases that provide little hope for any trend reversal in the communities examined. In contrast, some contributions are highly critical of the dichotomous view built into the peripheralization concept, advocating a view that acknowledges a “de-polarized” Japanese territorial structure with increasingly blurred boundaries between the rural/peripheral and the urban/central. It is probably no coincidence that these authors reach their conclusions through ethnographic methods, focusing on the agency of individual human or non-human actors rather than statistics or political structures. The function of out-migrated children as intermediaries between the local periphery and regional centers or the heightened attention given to village activity rather than figures of residents provide ample justification for questioning the significance of demographic or economic variables derived from official statistics as principal indicators of peripherality. But once both are in decline, villages enter a state of dual peripherality, encircled by both the urban metropolises and the forest inhabited by wild animals. In conclusion, while some of our authors join in the mainstream of international peripherality research by painting a rather bleak picture of the conditions

Think global, act peripheral in Japan’s new ruralities  301

and prospects prevalent in Japanese rural communities, the majority of contributions arrive at more nuanced conclusions: They demonstrate either that there are ways to halt or slow down the process, that peripherality in itself lures migrants into the countryside, or that a passive and powerless “periphery” does not even exist in Japan, instead stressing the complexity of urban-rural interrelatedness. However, while we are aware that peripherality has been defined from the viewpoint of norms created in the urban centers, meaning that our view on rural conditions does not necessarily coincide with the self-perception and practices of “peripheral” actors, we are reluctant to dismiss the concept altogether. While a strictly dichotomous view of “peripheral vs. central” is no doubt an oversimplification that impedes us from recognizing changes in rural areas that are related neither to decline nor to revitalization, such as the transition from dairy farming to deer hunting, it is undeniable that certain rural communities are on the verge of disintegration, and they are becoming more numerous for reasons beyond the control of local communities and authorities. Rurality equals peripherality exactly when lack of resources, lack of people, lack of political power, and stigmatization occur simultaneously at a place or in regard to a certain type of region. Sometimes this can be a generalized hinterland, as in political discourses on the national level, but more often a peripheral status is associated with a certain locality. However, not least due to global forces, such extreme cases of the rural as periphery are rare to find in contemporary Japan, at least in the context of the case studies from our authors. Rather, according to our reading of most results presented in this volume, there are different degrees—or shades—of peripherality with regard to both place and subject matter. Alternatively, these might be labeled “ruralities”—a term we used in the title of this book, and they require to be labelled as new because forces beyond the conventional dichotomies of core/periphery, autonomy/heteronomy, or local/national are shaping life and living in the countryside in much more varied ways than previously, and they will continue to do so. Within the new ruralities, rural autonomy is modestly on the rise, but only within the framework of supportive measures crafted and enacted within national centers. Regional centers beyond metropolitan Tokyo appear to be of greater significance than in the past for coordinating and steering successful revitalization processes in their own periphery. The role of regional core cities halfway in between rural areas and the national center, as well as their socioeconomic and political power, are topics that, similar to environmental politics, deserve more attention in future research on Japan’s new ruralities.

References Kühn, Manfred. 2015. “Peripheralization: Theoretical concepts explaining socio-spatial inequalities.” European Planning Studies 23 (2), 367–378. Woods, Michael. 2007. “Engaging the global countryside: Globalization, hybridity and the reconstitution of rural place.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (4), 485–507.

INDEX

2020 Tokyo Olympics 73, 162 3.11 4, 65 – 79, 240, 196, 232, 239 – 240, 297 3D jobs 7 abalones 90; see also fishery Abe, Shinzō 73, 212; Abe administration 160 – 161; Abe Cabinet 108; local Abenomics 212, 216; Prime Minister’s Office 112 activists: anti-nuclear 199 – 203, 207 – 209; networks 207 – 209; see also social movement advertising 75, 299; see also branding aging 1 – 4, 14, 29, 48, 62, 69, 71, 83, 96, 124, 140 – 142, 151, 160, 177 – 178, 181, 198, 230, 233, 235 – 236, 252, 264, 268, 298 – 299; see also demographic change; elderly, population agriculture: Agricultural Land Law 11, 49, 166; Agricultural Land Use Promotion Act 50; common agricultural resources 49, 56, 61; cooperative 7, 116, 162, 166, 254, 259; economics 68; JA (Japan Agriculture) 33, 56, 168, 297; michi no eki 95; policy 8 – 9, 38, 124 – 137, 167; production 9 – 10, 16, 49 – 50, 52, 62; products 50, 159 – 160, 202, 208, 235; satoyama 9, 277 – 279, 283; self-sufficiency 34; tokutei nōgyō hōjin 52; transformation 49; workforce 263 agri-food sector 48 – 52, 59 – 62; global agri-food system 6, 84 Ainu 30, 32, 38 Akita 3, 108, 141

akiya see uninhabited houses Ama (Shimane) 17, 212 – 213, 217 – 226; “Plan to Promote Ama’s Independence” 219; Second Ama Town Comprehensive Development Plan 218 angling tourism see tourism animal-human relationships 27 anthropocentrism 289 anti-nuclear movement see social movement aquaculture 65 – 66, 69, 87, 92, 97; industry 71, 78; see also fishery architecture 188 – 189, 255 Ariake Sea 85 – 86, 91 artificial insemination (AI) 37 Asahi Shinbun 221 – 222 assemblage theory 5, 13, 29, 44, 96 autonomy: administrative 17; fiscal 234, 242 – 243; local 48, 104 – 105, 117, 119, 172, 212 – 219, 224, 295, 300 – 301; regional 15 – 16; rural 19, 127, 301; spatial 263 baby boomer generation 232, 236 Basic Law on Food, Agriculture and Rural Areas 33 Bauman, Zygmunt 197 bears 10, 277, 283, 289 Beck, Ulrich 44 Benesse Holdings 188 – 190 biodiversity 9, 83 biomass energy systems 104, 109, 112 – 113, 116; Biomass Nippon General Strategy 112; Biomass Town 112, 116; Promotion of the Regionally Autonomous Systemization of Biomass 113

Index  303

blue economies 83; blue growth 83, 97 boars 277, 279, 283, 285 – 288; boar repulsion robot 186 – 187 bovine health problems 37; Bovine Respiratory Disease Complex (BRDC) 37; see also multispecies health branding: brand image 187, 192 – 193, 299; local 79, 166, 224; local promotion 75; place 216, 221, 234; power 179; strategies 216 budget 119, 162 – 163, 165, 170, 218, 220; activity 288; deficit 144, 299 Budō no Oka 164, 170; see also wine industry Cabinet Office survey 126, 232 capitalism 4; see also neoliberalism carbon footprint 118 care: childcare 192, 220, 224; parental 267, 269 – 270; see also healthcare career planning 221 carpentry 205, 207 Cell Alive System (CAS) 220 center and periphery 178, 214, 259, 263, 295; central-local dependencies 231; central-local fiscal relations 160; central-local relations 170, 172; city-countryside distinction 12; dichotomy 212; divide 145; relations 234, 263, 265, 271; uneven development 4, 105 centralization 35, 140, 215; re-centralization 178; spatial centralization and peripheralization 104 central-state authority 105 chemical fertilizers 9, 278 Chichu Art Museum 188, 190 chihō shōmetsu see demographic change chihō sōsei see revitalization Chugoku Electric Power Cooperative 199 – 200 citizen participation 129, 133, 218; see also political engagement, political participation city-countryside distinction see center and periphery climate change 9, 83, 92, 96, 106, 298; climate crisis 298; climate protection 106; ocean warming 92; water temperature 199; see also environment; global, globalization collective action 135, 297 cooperatives: agricultural 7, 28, 33, 40, 56, 116, 162, 166, 168, 254, 259; electric power 199 – 200, 202; fishing 15, 66, 68, 74, 82 – 84, 87, 89, 91 – 95, 97, 199, 208; forestry 116; kumiai 59, 114 Communist Party 200

community: activities 58, 129, 200; asset-based community development 115; building 119, 235; Community Building Support Staff Program 181, 191, 193, 222, 231 – 242; education 268; empowerment 16, 118; jimoto 52; local communities 6, 51 – 52, 62, 67, 106, 108, 113, 118, 124, 128, 141, 143 – 144, 147, 155n4, 192, 198, 202, 216, 221, 301; local community associations 128; power engagement 105, 118 – 119; resilience 104; resource administration 84; size 125, 129 – 130, 132, 136, 193; see also settlements compensation payment 15, 74, 77, 79, 91, 93 conifer plantation see forest consumption 10 – 11, 74 – 75, 83, 96, 103, 110, 118, 161 – 162, 166, 215, 224, 240, 262 – 263, 267; consumer preferences 6, 78, 84, 299; domestic 75 contracted labor see labor cooperative mergers 83, 87, 91, 168 corporatization 48 – 63, 97, 297 – 298, 300; see also agriculture crops 10, 34, 38, 54 – 55, 61, 76, 206, 279, 281, 283 – 285, 288 – 289; cropland 33 – 35, 37 – 38; damage 54, 277, 280 – 281, 283, 285; monocrops 37 culture: capital 262 – 264, 272; commodities 252; local 180; material 247; products 216 dairy: farm 28 – 29, 250, 254; industry 14, 27, 40, 42 – 43; products 34, 296 Daisetsuzan 28, 35 data security 146, 149, 153 – 154 decentralization: energy system 103, 107, 113, 117 – 119; policy measures 171 – 172, 300; production and consumption 103 deers: accidents 38; deer problem (shika mondai) 36 – 44; game meat 40; hunting 27, 38 – 40, 42 – 43, 301 degrowth see economy DeLanda, Manuel 27, 29, 44 demographic change 142; chihō shōmetsu 1; demographic decline 2; demographic shrinkage 140, 151; demographic transition 251; depopulation 1 – 3, 8, 18, 62, 69, 83, 96, 124, 177 – 193, 276 – 290, 196, 216, 235 – 236, 268, 276 – 290, 298 – 299; kaso chiiki [depopulated areas] 1 – 3, 181, 185, 218; negative population growth 250, 252; population decline 2, 7, 14, 17, 142, 151, 189, 198, 218, 235, 276; population losses 1, 178; population shrinkage 141, 213, 217, 225

304 Index

den’en kaiki see revitalization dependence 1, 4, 18, 72, 78, 105 – 106, 117, 178, 214, 225, 257, 300; dependency theory 4 depolarization 18, 247 – 260 depression 37, 271 de-ruralization 53 diplomatic friction 77 direct payments 10, 132, 300 direct sales 84, 89, 93 – 96 disaster: natural 65, 118, 298 – 299; prevention 115, 127, 132, 135; studies 66 disposal policy 74 – 75; see also waste diversification 76, 79, 82 – 97; of individual life choices 204 diving 180 documentary film 199, 203, 209 dogs 285 – 287 ecological systems 252 Eco-Model City 112, 115 economy: bubble 160; decline 3, 154, 172, 213 – 214, 216 – 217, 299 – 300; declining economies 230; declining profitability 82; degrowth 1 – 3, 83, 96; development 50; divide 204; Economic Census of Japan 185; efficiency 49, 51 – 52, 60 – 61, 107, 140; gap 91; global economy 250; growth 11, 14, 83, 105, 160, 198, 215, 232, 297; marginalization 86, 143; polarization 140, 263; rural 113, 117; shattā dōri 235 ecosystems 9, 96, 180 ecotourism see tourism education 17, 36, 83, 177, 181 – 182, 186 – 187, 191 – 192, 197, 208, 214 – 215, 218, 220, 222 – 225, 234, 237, 239, 259, 268; reform 220 – 226 elderly: households 3, 262; inhabitants 186; intergenerational contact 284; people 18, 93, 141, 144–145, 149, 151, 235, 271; population 151, 251, 264, 270; villagers 280, 284 electricity retail market 117 Embree, John F. 249, 265 emotional support 271; see also psychological support employment: non-regular 209; opportunities 10, 17, 192, 218, 224, 241 – 242; patterns 297; self-employed workers 209; see also job insecurity; labor empowerment 16, 118, 212; see also autonomy energy: capacity 109; equity 103; mix 103 – 104, 108 – 110; policy 103, 105,

107, 109, 119; security 103, 107; self-sufficiency 103, 108, 110, 118; technologies 109; transformation 15, 103 – 119; trilemma concept 103 – 104, 118; see also renewable energies (RE) enka see folk ballads entrepreneur 12, 16, 52, 60 – 62, 96, 164 – 165, 171, 235, 247 – 248, 260; cross-sectoral entrepreneurship 160 – 161; entrepreneurship 118, 160 – 161; rural entrepreneurs 10 environment: activity 276 – 290; awareness 232; consequences 9; degradation 83 – 84, 92; environmental and communal needs 11; Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 108; factors 125; issues 199 – 200, 202; movement 197; pollution 9; protection 115; sustainability goals 103; see also climate change; tourism ethnography 29, 249; ethnographic research 27, 29; fieldwork 28, 37, 68, 82, 213, 231, 268, 271, 277 EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) 92 exclusion see marginalization experiential movements see social movements export 6, 65 – 66, 72, 73, 77 – 78, 95, 116, 162; dependency 66 family: family-run companies 70; family-run farms 48 – 51; ie 263, 271; fishing businesses 83, 87, 92, 97 farming: abandoned farmland 166; abandoned fields 279; community structures 37; corporations 52, 298; farmland development projects 127 – 128, 132, 136; farmland development support 132 – 133; farmers’ markets 6; farmer-settlers 32; industrial 27, 37; Long-Term Farmland Development Plan 128; part-time farmers 56, 297; tondenhei 30 Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme 108 – 110, 113, 116 – 117 fertility 140; declining birthrates 230; see also demographic change festivals 18, 169, 200, 216, 230, 236, 273 fieldwork see ethnography finance 73, 143, 149, 219, 237; crisis 7; local 230; fiscal resources 1, 3; resources 127, 144 – 145, 154, 155n4; support 56, 116, 145, 155n4, 165, 221, 233, 237, 241, 270 – 271; see also national funding firearm 40; see also gun license

Index  305

fishery 68, 86 – 87, 89, 91 – 92, 94, 217; coastal 69, 82 – 97, 299; coastal fishing communities 82; deep-sea 69; economy 66 – 67; Emergency Measures to Strengthen the Competitiveness of the Fishery Sector 92; fish peddling business 88; fisheries cooperative association JF 74; Fisheries Law 79; Fishery Census 68, 70, 71 – 72, 86 – 87, 89, 94; fishing right zone 76; fishing rights 74, 76, 79, 84, 89, 97; foreign species 92; grounds 82, 84, 87, 199, 254, 277; marine products 65, 70, 72, 78, 79n1, 202; methods 87, 90; part-time fishing 86; pelagic fishing 69; policy 69; quotas 79; recreational fishing/ angling 87; Special Zones for Fisheries 79; territorial fishery cooperatives 84 fish prices 82, 86, 89, 93 fluidization 17, 196, 203, 210; fluidity 196 – 210 folk ballads 84 food: chains 6, 296 – 297; industrialization 27 – 45; local specialty 87, 171; security 9, 68, 78; self-sufficiency 10; specialty 248; supply 6, 28; wagyū 220 forest: animals 277, 279 – 282, 284 – 285, 287 – 289; conifer plantation 278, 289; forestry 31 – 33, 49, 74, 112 – 113, 115 – 116, 125, 186, 193, 220, 233, 277 – 278; forestry cooperative 116; industry 185 – 186; jōmonsugi 185; sugi 8, 278; yamazukuri 278 Foucault, Michel 27, 30, 43, 85 fruit trees 279 – 280, 284, 288, 290n2 fuel 34, 40, 77, 82, 85 – 86, 91, 94, 103, 109, 113, 116 – 117, 208; fossil 103, 117, 278 Fujimi (Nagano) 283 – 284, 288, 290n1 Fukui Medical Net 142, 149 – 155 furusato see settlements Future City 112 game meat see deer gap society see inequality gender hierarchies 257; see also women Genkai Sea 84 – 92 genkai shūraku see settlements geographical distance 143, 149 geothermal energy 104, 109, 116 glass ceiling 257; see also gender hierarchies; women global: city 5; commodity chains 83 – 84, 92; commodity markets 40; competition 4, 29, 50, 92; countryside 5 – 7, 10 – 11, 14, 18 – 19, 30, 40, 43, 49, 52, 66, 82 – 97, 161,

171, 198, 210, 247, 295 – 299; cultural flows 256; forces 5 – 6, 11, 124, 295 – 296, 298, 301; globalization 5 – 8, 12 – 13, 19, 43, 52, 62, 79, 82, 105, 161, 196, 198, 204, 249, 259, 295 – 298; market 14 – 15, 28, 48, 52, 62, 68; market principles 48, 52; politics 34; trade 6, 8 – 9, 96, 297; trends 17, 49, 62, 172, 298; warming 9, 103, 110, 298 – 299; see also climate change; food glocalization 43 governance 15, 53, 59, 104, 106, 117 – 119, 170; global climate 106; multi-level 106, 118 government: initiatives 15, 162; programs 77, 114, 231, 242 – 243, 251; support 10, 113, 185 Great Heisei Mergers see municipality greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 103; see also climate change green tourism see tourism gun license 40; see also firearm hamlet see settlements happiness 11, 213, 223; see also quality of life; well-being health: danger 38; insurance 144 – 145, 152, 299; issues 36 – 42; promotion 232, 241; records 148 – 149, 152 – 153; see also tourism healthcare: costs 140; expenditures 140, 144; infrastructure 143; long-term care insurance (LTCI) 143; spending 141, 145, 149, 151; support 269 – 270 heteronomy 12, 104, 117, 119, 213 – 214, 217, 301 heterotopia 30, 85 hiking trails 185 Hokkaido 14, 27 – 44, 71 – 73, 78, 115 – 116, 133, 143 – 144, 218, 233, 254, 259, 296 Hometown Revitalization Project see revitalization hot spring resort 163 household types 264 – 265 hoya see sea squirt human activity 18, 277 – 278, 281, 283, 287, 289 – 290; human inactivity 287, 289 human exploitation 83, 278; see also wildlife human resistance 277 human resources 142, 145, 154 hunting: commercial hunting 27; hunters 29 – 30, 38 – 42, 44; hunting season 39 – 40 hybridity 66, 198, 247 – 260, 295 – 296, 301; hybridization 15, 43, 48 – 63, 247, 249, 255 – 256, 260; identities 249; material 249; networks 298; space 5, 18, 66, 247, 249

306 Index

identity 12, 43, 249, 84, 118, 200, 209, 216, 247, 255 – 259, 272, 300; local 16, 168, 171; regional 268, 298 ie see family Iida City (Nagano) 115, 142, 148 – 150, 153, 155n1, 155n2, 155n4, 286 ikigai 271 immune systems 37 import ban 15, 65 – 66, 68, 72 – 73, 75, 77 – 78, 297; import restrictions 65, 77 inaka 29, 234, 251 income: additional 14, 116, 180; diversification 89 – 90; loss 85, 92, 299; primary 70; source 10, 50, 53, 263 – 264, 273 industrialization 27 – 29, 34, 36, 39, 42 – 43, 54 – 55, 57; industrial projects 84; industrial sector 66 inequality 10 – 11, 86, 106, 140 – 141, 143, 172n1, 177, 263, 276; economic 234; gap society 105; rural-urban 276; social 11, 140 – 141, 143, 177, 263; social gap 10; socioeconomic gap 160; temporal 248 information access 262 information and communication technologies (ICT) 141 – 147, 149 – 150, 152, 154, 155n4, 221, 225 infrastructure: downsizing 4, 94; improvements 162; projects 124, 215; public 110 in-migrants see migration Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) see sustainability institutional care 143; see also healthcare intergenerational contact see elderly, population international residents 187 international trade 6, 33, 249, 297 internet 17, 147, 149, 187, 192, 201, 208, 250, 266; usage 262 internship program 221, 225 irrigation systems 48 – 49, 59, 61, 298; drainage and irrigation work 132; irrigation equipment 128; Japanese Institute of Irrigation and Drainage 128 islands: Border Island Law 221, 225; Miyajima 182 – 183; Ogijima 190; Ōsakikamijima 185, 190 – 192; Ōsakishimojima 190 – 191; Remote Island Promotion Law 181; shima ryūgaku 221; Tanegashima 180, 183;Yoron Island 180; Zamami Island 180 ism-Link network 142, 148 – 155 I-turn see migration Iwaishima (Yamaguchi) 17, 196 – 210, 298

Iwasaka (Shiga) 48 – 63, 298; Iwasaka Association for the Preservation of the Home Village 59; Iwasaka Farming Improvement Association 56, 59 Iwate 1, 70 – 72, 247 JA (Japan Agriculture) see agriculture Japanese Heritage Site 191 Japanese Institute of Irrigation and Drainage see irrigation systems Japaneseness 43, 296 Japan for Sustainability (JFS) see sustainability jichikai see neighborhood association jimoto see community job insecurity 232; see also employment joint stock companies 34, 50 jōmonsugi see forest Kagawa 143 – 144, 183, 188, 190, 277, 282 Kaminoseki (Yamaguchi) 198 – 199, 201 – 202, 208; Kaminoseki Chamber of Commerce 199; Kaminoseki Genpatsu ni Hantai-suru Tōmin no Kai see social movement Kanmai festival 200, 207 kaso chiiki see demographic change Katsunuma Grape Festival see wine industry Kelly, William W. 29, 42, 125, 160, 250 – 251, 254 Kii Peninsula 277 – 278, 281 Kōchi 115 – 116, 141, 143, 233 Kōfu Basin (Yamanashi) 159, 161 – 171 Koizumi administration 50, 160 Korean laborers see labor Kōshū 159, 162 – 172; Kōshū wine 162, 167, 171; see also wine industry Kühn, Manfred 27, 43, 84, 104, 105, 124, 140 – 142, 147, 160, 177, 178 – 179, 191, 213 – 215, 224 – 225, 234, 242, 248, 263, 267, 272 – 273, 276, 290, 295 Kumamoto Metropolitan Area Tashutsushi Survey 267 kumiai see cooperatives Kure (Hiroshima) 191 Kyōtō Region Wine Resort see wine industry Kyushu 9, 18, 82, 128, 177, 180 – 181, 185, 215, 231, 235, 238 – 239, 241 labor: contracted 36; gap 286; Korean laborers 31; market 196, 232; migration 7, 296; shortage 16, 54, 141, 145; union 198, 200, 209;Vietnamese workers 36, 77, 79; see also employment

Index  307

land-improvement projects 54 land prices 189 landslides 9, 38 Law for the Enhancement of Agricultural Business Foundations (LEABF) 50, 52, 55 Law for the Promotion of Mediation and Control of Farmlands 58, 59 LDP 33 legal systems 28 leisure 7, 180, 182, 184, 187, 204 – 205, 223 – 224, 255; activities 40, 180; time 205 life expectancy 3, 140 lifestyle: changes 134; choices 295, 298; migration 17, 196 – 210, 213, 297 livestock 32, 38, 113; predators 32 living costs 206, 241 local initiatives 111, 114 – 115, 159 – 160, 163 – 164, 170 – 171, 295, 298 local needs 116, 243 local participation see citizen participation local potentials 116 local products see production local resources see resources long-term care insurance (LTCI) see healthcare Manchuria 31 manufacturing 2, 53 – 54, 116, 205, 235 March 11 see 3.11 marginalization 29, 44, 83, 86, 91, 97, 105, 140 – 141, 143, 276; exclusion 8, 105, 140, 178; marginalized regions 83 – 84, 96; political 29, 83, 140, 276 marine tourism see tourism maritime pollution 92; see also climate change market: cooperative 89, 93 – 94; nakagai 93; shortages 66 marketing 15, 50, 79, 84, 93 – 96, 160 – 161, 168 – 169, 171, 221, 239, 297; initiatives 297; see also branding marketization 51, 59, 61, 96 marriage 7, 90, 249, 258; intermarriages 249; international 7 mastitis 37 Masuda, Hiroya 1, 4 Matanle, Peter 15, 29, 83, 104, 160, 212 – 213, 215 – 216, 218 Matsuyama (Ehime) 177 material culture see culture media 4, 16, 159, 193, 214, 222 – 225, 237, 250, 264, 273; new 179, 187 medicine: medical specialists 141, 143, 145, 148, 150; medical training 143; see also healthcare; telehealth

Meiji Period 30, 70 metropolitanization 250 michi no eki see agriculture middle class 17, 196 – 198, 203, 209, 249 – 250, 257; consciousness 250 migration: domestic 196; economic migrants 36; foreign labor 7, 296; in-migrants 17, 185 – 187, 189 – 191, 196, 213 – 214, 221 – 225, 231, 234 – 235, 238 – 240, 242, 263, 267; I-turn 196 – 197, 213; longterm migrants 296; losses 3; out-migrants 3, 267 – 269, 271 – 273; out-migrated descendants 267 – 273; retirement 189, 232; return 196, 218, 254, 268, 282; U-turn 196 milk 28, 33 – 37, 40, 254, 259; milking system technology 34; rotary parlor milking system 34 Ministry for Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) 140, 143 – 145, 147 – 149 Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) 33, 49, 51 – 52, 57, 59 – 63, 74, 93, 112, 114, 116, 125, 127 – 128, 220 Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) 107, 114 Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) 237 Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication (MIC) 222, 231, 262 Ministry of Justice (MOJ) 7 Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) 74, 95, 144, 146, 231 – 232, 235, 237 minshuku see tourism Mitarai 191 Mitsubishi Mining Refinery 188 Miyajima see island mobility 12, 36, 79, 179, 221, 263; physical 269; social 268; see also transportation modernity 31, 247, 257; liquid 197 – 198 monkeys 277, 279 – 289; monkey dogs 286; Monkey-Persimmon Battle Project 283 multispecies health 27 – 45 municipality 17 – 18, 27, 38 – 40, 42, 53, 95, 114 – 116, 128, 144, 146, 168, 170, 181 – 182, 188, 192, 216, 218, 221, 234 – 235, 237 – 238, 240, 277, 299; Great Heisei Mergers 220; municipal merger 16, 91, 94, 168, 171, 177, 179, 188, 220, 237 mura see settlements museums 189 – 190, 235 Nagasaki 3, 85, 87, 143, 145, 183 nakagai see market

308 Index

nanotechnology 77 Naoshima 185, 188 – 190, 192 national development plans 216 national funding 212; see also finance nature 7, 9, 84, 115, 181, 184 – 185, 187, 189, 203 – 204, 230 – 231, 233 – 236, 241 – 242, 297; commodification of nature 96; natural resources 11, 106 – 107, 178, 213, 241; nature-human relationship 10 neighborhood association 200, 206, 236, 238 neoliberalism 4, 19, 48 – 49, 51, 53, 59 – 60, 62 – 63, 125; capitalism 4; ideology 50 – 51; narrative 233; neoliberalization 48, 59 – 60, 62; politics 12; principles 297; processes 297; reforms 8, 14, 51 neo-rurality 247, 249 – 252, 260 Nishimeya (Aomori) 286 – 287 non-profit organization (NPO) 83, 87, 89, 91, 95, 233 nori see seaweed northern Japan 14, 65, 247 – 260 nostalgia 184 – 185, 197, 215, 231, 234; idealization 84; images 178 nuclear family households 264 – 265; see also family nuclear power 103, 108, 111; Genkai Nuclear Power Plant 91; plants 4, 17, 65, 71, 78, 84, 196, 199 – 202, 205, 207, 210; see also social movement nursing 141, 145 – 146, 148, 151 – 152 OBs (Old Boys) 40 ocean warming see climate change Odagiri, Tokumi 1 – 2, 172n2, 196, 231 – 234, 241 OECD 106, 126, 140 offshoring 2, 4 Ogijima see islands Oki Islands 17, 217, 221 Ōno, Akira 2, 264 onsen see hot spring resort Organization for Mediation and Control of Farmlands (OMCF) 58 Ōsakikamijima see islands Ōsakishimojima see islands Oshika Peninsula (Miyagi) 67 – 68, 71 – 72, 78 otherness 33, 296 outdoor activity 277, 285 out-migrants see migration overproduction 73 paddies see rice cultivation pathology 143, 145 patriarchy 257

peripherality 14 – 15, 18, 85, 97, 104 – 107, 118, 248, 252, 299 – 301 peripheralization 3 – 6, 13 – 14, 16 – 19, 82, 84, 104, 106, 117, 119, 124 – 125, 136, 140 – 144, 147 – 148, 151, 154, 159, 162, 171 – 172, 177 – 179, 192 – 193, 210, 212 – 225, 234, 248, 263, 273, 276, 282, 289 – 290, 295 – 296, 298 – 300; de-peripheralization 213 – 215, 224, 231, 234 – 235, 242 – 243, 300 peripheral regions 4, 105, 215, 218, 230, 298 persimmons 279 – 280, 283 – 284 pesticides 9 pharmaceutical industry (food supplements) 77 photovoltaic (PV) power generation capacity 104, 108 – 109, 111, 114 – 116, 119; photovoltaic systems 108 physical mobility 269; see also transportation policy: agricultural 8 – 9, 38, 124 – 137, 167; deregulation 50; effectiveness ratio 131 – 132; government 15, 104, 108, 125, 128, 135 – 137, 178; implementation 295; interventions 83, 124 – 137; measures 50, 58, 162, 167, 295, 300; national 56, 60, 83, 259, 298; national policy-making 117; national revitalization 94; national spatial planning 4; protectionist 34; public 125 – 128; reconstruction 68; rural development 234; social 264 political engagement 12; political activity 105; political participation 126, 172 political marginalization see marginalization political power 107, 177, 214, 263, 301; global power relations 5, 7; national power relations 3, 5, 298; power elite 107; power hierarchies 296; powerlessness 4, 12, 105, 140; power shift 84, 117 politics: local 12, 161; national 300 Population Census 2, 68, 155n2, 178, 181 – 182, 185, 191 population decline see demographic change population distribution see demographic change population growth see demographic change population losses see demographic change population shrinkage see demographic change post-disaster reconstruction 66 poverty 4, 30, 140, 178, 299; rural 11 primary industries 15, 31, 65, 198, 205; primary sector 14, 53 – 54, 83, 94, 114, 300; see also farming privacy: lack of 10, 206 – 207; patients’ 141, 146, 154; patients’ autonomy 141, 154

Index  309

production: local products 159, 178, 212, 218 – 221, 224 – 225, 234; production-consumption behaviors 263, 267; strategies 297; structures 262, 264; targets 66; value 10, 69 productivity 12, 51, 54, 215 Promotion of the Regionally Autonomous Systemization of Biomass Energy see biomass energy systems property investments 7 protest activities see social movement psychological support 145 – 147, 154 public infrastructure see infrastructure public policy see policy public-private partnerships 7, 215, 221, 224 public support 60, 118; programs 91 Putnam, Robert 124 – 126, 135 qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) 125, 129, 132 qualitative field research 159 qualitative interviews 155, 213, 231 qualitative surveys 134 quality of life 106, 141, 154, 196, 224, 232, 241; indicators (health, safety, subjective wellbeing) 3; Quality-of-Life Policy Bureau of the Cabinet Office of Japan 125 – 126; see also happiness; well-being radiation 65, 78, 196, 239; contamination 73 radiology 143, 145 raw materials 77, 166 recreational fishing/angling see fishery redevelopment 124 regional redistribution 215 renewable energies (RE) 15, 103 – 119, 181; facilities 108 – 109; projects 103, 106, 114, 118; Renewables 2016 Global Status Report 103; resources 104; see also energy resorts 7, 162 – 165, 167, 170 – 172, 180, 184, 215; boom 160; Resort Law 215 resources: local 11, 16 – 17, 105, 159, 161, 171, 212, 216, 219, 224; management 84, 126; problems 82, 89, 92 retirement 7, 187, 189, 232 – 233, 268; see also migration revitalization: activities 133, 209, 231, 233; chihō sōsei 159, 212, 223; den’en kaiki 178 – 179; Hometown Revitalization Project 216; projects 15, 112, 222, 225, 230, 238, 264; see also policy rice cultivation 6; paddies 49; paddy agriculture 14, 48; rice sector 48; wetpaddy rice farming 165

Rural Community Cooperation Survey 128 rural depopulation see demographic change Rural Development Bureau 127 – 128 ruralities 1 – 19, 295 – 301 rural land reform 49 Saga Genkai 82 – 97 sand industry 92 Sassen, Saskia 5 satoyama see agriculture scarecrow robot 286 – 287 school: high school 191, 217, 220 – 225; Shimashoku no Terakoya (Temple School for Island Food) cooking school 222 sea squirt 15, 65 – 79, 297; see also fishery sea tenure 84 seafood 7, 15, 87, 92 – 93, 96, 206, 208, 220; business 84; products 84, 95, 220; see also fishery seaweed 65, 70 – 71, 85 – 86, 89, 199, 205 – 206, 208; nori 70, 85; wakame 70 – 71, 205 Second World War 30, 49, 51, 54, 69, 71, 79, 198, 202, 249, 259 self-employed workers see employment service industries 205; service sector 53 – 54, 235 Seto Inland Sea 177, 180, 183, 188, 199 Setouchi International Art Festival 188 settlements: furusato 84, 178, 231, 234; furusato boom 215 – 216; furusato nōzei 89; furusato-zukuri 216; genkai shūraku 2 – 3, 264; hamlet 2 – 3, 15, 53 – 54, 56, 58, 60 – 61, 90, 217, 268; human settlement 277, 290; jun genkai shūraku 2; mura 109, 271; mura okoshi 216; settler colonial projects 29; settler colony 30; shūraku 3; see also community shattū dūri see economy, decline Shiga 48 – 63 Shimane 141, 143, 197, 212, 217, 221 – 222, 233 shima ryūgaku see islands Shionoyama Wine Fest see wine industry Shirakami mountain forests 10 Shōwa Period 69 shrimp 87 – 90, 95, 97n3; see also fishery sixth sector 94 – 95 social capital 16, 124 – 137, 225; cooperative rural 127, 129, 131 – 136; reciprocal rural 127, 129, 131 – 136; theory 124 – 125 Social Development Goals Future City 112; see also sustainability social gap see inequality social infrastructure 192

310 Index

social integration 196, 200 social interaction 17, 134; face-to-face interaction 125, 134, 147, 266, 270; personal interaction 147, 270 Socialist Party 200 social media 187, 237; social networking services (SNS) 179, 199 social movement 196 – 210; anti-nuclear movement 200, 202 – 203, 209; antinuclear-power groups 200; experiential movements 203; Kaminoseki Genpatsu ni Hantai-suru Tōmin no Kai 199; protest movement 12, 198; protest networks 299 social relations 37, 124, 134, 146, 197, 234, 248, 262 – 264, 272; discriminatory 105; human network 192; human relations 197, 297; social networks 17, 126, 134, 197, 209 – 210, 242, 272; see also social capital social welfare 57 – 58, 60 – 61, 214, 234 socio-economic gap see inequality solar power market 108, 115 South Korea 65 – 66, 72 – 73, 74, 75, 77 – 78, 79n2, 144, 297; see also import ban Special Arrangement Plan for Farmland Use 52 Special Zones for Fisheries see fishery stakeholders 9, 58, 66, 68, 106, 113 – 115, 142, 146 – 148, 163 – 165, 170 – 172 stigmatization 4, 214, 218, 224, 301; discursive 4 – 5 Strategic Energy Plan 103, 107 – 109; Strategic Energy Plan for Natural Resources and Energy 107 structural reforms 50, 104, 117, 214 student population 36, 220 – 222, 224 – 225, 283 – 284 subsidies 55, 59, 214; cross-subsidization 144; government 119, 124, 160, 199, 219; national 11, 17, 34, 218, 220 – 221, 224 – 225, 237, 297, 300; programs 92, 233, 298 successors 9, 56, 209; lack of 61 – 62, 82, 86, 91, 166 sugi see forest suicide 37 sustainability 82 – 83, 115, 118 – 119, 213, 232; communities 126, 268; development goals 83, 103, 112; exploitation 69; growth 83; Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP) 104, 108, 113 – 115; Japan for Sustainability (JFS) 108; local sustainable development 115 – 116; rural 265, 273; social 124, 252, 264

Taishō Period 30, 31 Takeshita, Noboru 216 Taketa (Ōita) 18, 231 – 232, 235 – 243, 298 Tanegashima see islands tashutsushi see migration tax 9, 52, 57, 60 – 61, 170, 192, 214, 221, 225, 238; hometown tax money 89, 95 – 96; local distribution tax 215; revenues 141, 144, 149, 152, 155n4, 188, 218 technology 34 – 35, 37, 40, 61, 104, 117, 141, 145, 148, 154 – 155, 191, 220, 225, 285; advancements 50, 53; challenges 110; energy transformation 113 telehealth 15 – 16, 140 – 155, 299; telematics technologies 142; telemedicine 141 – 145; teleradiology 143, 145; see also healthcare territorialization 29, 44 timber production 278; see also wood Tōhoku 3 – 4, 15, 18, 65 – 66, 68, 70, 73, 238, 247, 250 – 252, 255, 257, 296 – 297 Tokachi (Hokkaido) 27 – 44 Tokuno, Sadao 3, 18, 263; Tokuno’s Settlement Analysis Method (TSAM) 18, 265 – 274 tokutei nūgyū hūjin see agriculture Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) 66, 74, 77, 79, 117, 119 Tokyo Gas 117, 119 tourism: angling 89, 91; art 17, 179, 188 – 190, 192; ecotour guides 185 – 187; ecotourism 17, 178, 185 – 188, 193, 286; green 12, 178; health 236; marine 218; minshuku 84, 86 – 87, 89; national and international travel 257, 259; tourism boom 162, 177 – 193; touristic sites 169 – 170, 235; tourists 7 – 8, 17, 87, 89 – 90, 93, 96, 162 – 165, 167 – 180, 186 – 187, 189 – 193, 205, 207, 210, 214, 216, 237, 241, 296; wine 159 town-planning group 219 tradition: communities 17, 125, 198, 209 – 210, 297, 300; crafts and arts 237; festivals 200; lifestyles 200, 206, 230 – 231 Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) 92 transportation 106, 163 – 164, 178, 198, 221; assistance 270; industry 205; infrastructure 252, 269 – 270; road network 110 – 111; see also mobility Trinity Reforms 15, 83, 218 – 219 trust 52, 58, 60, 125 – 127, 129, 133, 135, 146 – 147

Index  311

uninhabited houses 9, 192 university 36, 75, 144, 185, 222 – 223, 225, 286 urban areas 11, 17, 125, 178, 183, 199, 209, 231 – 233, 248, 263, 271, 299 urbanization 282; counter-urbanization 7, 16, 179; planetary urbanization 83 urban-rural divide 12, 141, 148, 273; urban-rural interrelatedness 301; urbanrural migration 17, 196, 213, 222 – 224, 230 – 235, 238, 241; see also center and periphery U-turn see migration Vietnamese workers see labor village solidarity 288 Village Supporter Programs 222 volunteers 12, 19, 75, 169, 213 – 214, 223, 238, 282 – 284, 286, 288; volunteer activities 126, 190; volunteer work 233, 239 wagyū see food waste: disposal 205; food waste disposal 287; foreign 92; incineration 113; industrial waste deposits 180; wastewater 199 water supply 205 water temperature see climate change well-being 213, 271; see also happiness; quality of life whaling 92; International Whaling Commission 77 – 78; see also fishery wild animals 54, 277, 279, 281, 282, 287, 288, 289, 297, 300 wildlife 10, 28, 32; countermeasures 288; encroachment 276 – 290 wine industry 159, 162, 164 – 167, 169 – 171; Katsunuma Grape Festival 169; Katsunuma Winery Association 164, 168 – 170; Kyōtō Region Wine Resort 159, 161 – 164, 167, 170 – 172; local wine-making tradition 162; Shionoyama

Wine Fest 169; wine-tasting tour 163, 165; see also tourism wolves 14, 32, 37 – 38; Japan Wolf Association 288 women: business 257 – 258; economic dependence 257; employment 70, 90; young 40, 42, 180, 248; see also gender hierarchies; glass ceiling wood 8, 277; pellets 115 – 116; woody biomass 111, 113, 116 Woods, Michael 5 – 7, 8, 9 – 12, 27, 30, 40, 43, 49, 51 – 53, 66, 79, 82, 83, 84, 96 – 97, 104 – 105, 161, 171, 198, 210, 247, 295 – 296 working-age population 214, 218, 232; see also demographic change World Energy Council 103; see also energy World Heritage Sites 10, 17; World Cultural Heritage 183; World Natural Heritage 10, 185, 187 world-system theory 4 World Trade Organization (WTO) 9, 66, 77, 79n2 Yakushima (Kagoshima) 10, 183, 185 – 188, 193 Yamanashi 16, 115, 159 – 172 Yamato (Kumamoto) 267 – 268, 272 yamazukuri see forest Yoron Island see islands young people 86, 134, 197 – 198, 201, 204, 207, 212, 222 – 223, 225, 232 – 233, 236, 248; young labor force 297 Yōbari (Hokkaido) 217 – 218 Yutaka 191 Zamami Island see islands zero energy buildings (ZEB) 116; see also renewable energies(RE) Zomia (shatter zone) 43 – 44