Urban Migrants in Rural Japan
Urban Migrants in Rural Japan

Author: Susanne Klien

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 2020-02-01

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 1438478054

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Offers an in-depth ethnography of paradigm shifts in the lifestyles and values of youth in post-growth Japan. Urban Migrants in Rural Japan provides a fresh perspective on theoretical notions of rurality and emerging modes of working and living in post-growth Japan. By exploring narratives and trajectories of individuals who relocate from urban to rural areas and seek new modes of working and living, this multisited ethnography reveals the changing role of rurality, from postwar notions of a stagnant backwater to contemporary sites of experimentation. The individual cases presented in the book vividly illustrate changing lifestyles and perceptions of work. What emerges from Urban Migrants in Rural Japan is the emotionally fraught quest of many individuals for a personally fulfilling lifestyle and the conflicting neoliberal constraints many settlers face. In fact, flexibility often coincides with precarity and self-exploitation. Susanne Klien shows how mobility serves as a strategic mechanism for neophytes in rural Japan who hedge their bets; gain time; and seek assurance, inspiration, and courage to do (or further postpone doing) what they ultimately feel makes sense to them. “This book is a valuable contribution to knowledge about diversifying rural Japan and evokes reflection about the future of post-growth Japan. Klien’s study benefits from assiduous and long-term field research and insightful analysis. She excels at locating the specifics of the study in theoretical observations and concepts, thereby setting the work into a larger consideration of Japan’s paradigm shifts in lifestyle and values.” — Nancy Rosenberger, author of Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation

Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-century Japan
Farmers and Village Life in Twentieth-century Japan

Author: Ann Waswo

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 070071748X

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Rural Japan during the twentieth century has been portrayed as a vast reservoir of conservatism in much of the literature on Japan's modern development, and Japanese agriculture since the 1960s has been treated as an artificial creation sustained only by protectionism of the worst sort. This book presents a range of original, in-depth work, including work by Japanese scholars, that seeks to move beyond such stereotypes to reveal the diversity and complexities of rural life in Japan from 1900 to the present.

Sustainability in Contemporary Rural Japan
Sustainability in Contemporary Rural Japan

Author: Stephanie Assmann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-22

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1317577248

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Rural communities in Japan have suffered from significant depopulation and economic downturn in post-war years. Low birth rates, aging populations, agricultural decline and youth migration to large cities have been compounded by the triple disaster of 11 March 2011, which destroyed farming and fishing communities and left thousands of people homeless. This book identifies these challenges and acknowledges that an era of post-growth has arrived in Japan. Through exploring new forms of regional employment, community empowerment, and reverse migration, the authors address potential opportunities and benefits that may help to create and ensure the quality of life in depopulating areas and post-disaster scenarios. This book will be of interest not only to students of Japanese society, but also to those outside of Japan who are seeking new approaches for tackling depopulation challenges.

Rural Society in Japan
Rural Society in Japan

Author: Tadashi Fukutake

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Published: 1980

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13:

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Best known as a leader of the Indian takeover of Alcatraz Island in 1969, Adam Fortunate Eagle now offers a memoir of his years as a young student at Pipestone Indian Boarding School in Minnesota. He lives up to his reputation as a "contrary warrior" by disproving the popular view of Indian boarding schools as bleak and prisonlike. Fortunate Eagle attended Pipestone between 1935 and 1945, just as Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier's pluralist vision was reshaping the federal boarding school system to promote greater respect for Native cultures and traditions.

The Practice of Concern
The Practice of Concern

Author: John W. Traphagan

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13:

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The Practice of Concern: Ritual, Well-Being, and Aging in Rural Japan explores ideas and practices related to religious ritual and health among older people in northern Japan. Drawing on more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork, Traphagan considers various forms of ritual performance and contextualizes these in terms of private and public spheres of activity. An important theme of the book is that for Japanese the expression of concern about family, friends, the community, and the nation is a central symbolic element in religious ritual practice. The book has important implications for research into religion and health, because it suggests that, in order to carry out successful cross-cultural research, it is necessary to move beyond conceptualizations of religion -- largely centering on concepts of belief, faith, forgiveness -- that have shaped much of the work in this area to date, because, as consideration of the Japanese context shows, the theological language of Western religions is not necessarily adequate to the task of understanding how health and religion are tied together in other cultures. Traphagan argues that there is a need to focus on how religious rituals are markers that symbolically convey information about embodied experience and how these markers express and are expressions of concerns about health and well-being. The Practice of Concern provides a detailed examination of Japanese religious practices both within the home and in the community, as well as a thorough discussion of Japanese concepts of health, well-being, and aging. In addition to those who are interested in medical anthropology, this book will be useful to gerontologists who are concerned with cross-cultural studies in aging. Because of the rich ethnographic detail presented, the book also provides an excellent introduction to Japanese religious and ritual practice and Japanese culture and society more broadly. This book is part of the Ethnographic Studies in Medical Anthropology Series, edited by Pamela J. Stewart and Andrew Strathern, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh. "[T]he book's basic argument is indeed innovative... well worth reading." -- Pacific Affairs "John Traphagan demonstrates why cross-cultural studies are critically necessary if we are to understand the range of meanings and experiences of age and aging in a pluralistic world." -- Journal of Japanese Studies "Gerontologists will find the book illuminating in its treatment of aging in cultural context in Japan as well as the meaning and significance of ritual and religion in this society. The key concepts of aging--ritual--health/wellness are intertwined; Traphagan does an excellent job of explaining the linkages as well as the cultural factors responsible for maintaining these links." -- Journal of Intergenerational Relationship "In addressing the full spectrum of topics concerning older adults' health and well-being along with the vast array of Japanese religious rituals, The Practice of Concern is uniquely ambitious in scope. At the same time, it is a thoughtful, ethnographically grounded account of rural life in Japan that produces useful insights for anyone with an interest in the cross-cultural study of aging and religion." -- Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging

Ryokan
Ryokan

Author: Chris McMorran

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 2023-01-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780824892272

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Amid the decline of many of Japan’s rural communities, the hot springs village resort of Kurokawa Onsen is a rare, bright spot. Its two dozen traditional inns, or ryokan, draw nearly a million tourists a year eager to admire its landscape, experience its hospitality, and soak in its hot springs. As a result, these ryokan have enticed village youth to return home to take over successful family businesses and revive the community. Chris McMorran spent nearly two decades researching ryokan in Kurokawa, including a full year of welcoming guests, carrying luggage, scrubbing baths, cleaning rooms, washing dishes, and talking with co-workers and owners about their jobs, relationships, concerns, and aspirations. He presents the realities of ryokan work—celebrated, messy, ignored, exploitative, and liberating—and introduces the people who keep the inns running by making guests feel at home. McMorran explores how Kurokawa’s ryokan mobilize hospitality to create a rural escape from the globalized dimensions of everyday life in urban Japan. Ryokan do this by fusing a romanticized notion of the countryside with an enduring notion of the hospitable woman embodied by nakai, the hired female staff who welcome guests, serve meals, and clean rooms. These women are the face of the ryokan. But hospitality often hides a harsh reality. McMorran found numerous nakai in their 50s, 60s, and 70s who escaped violent or unhappy marriages by finding employment in ryokan. Yet, despite years of experience, nakai remain socially and economically vulnerable. Through this intimate and inventive ethnography of a year in a ryokan, McMorran highlights the importance of both the generational work of ryokan owners and the daily work of their employees, while emphasizing the gulf between them. With its focus on small, family-owned businesses and a mobile, vulnerable workforce, Ryokan makes an invaluable contribution to scholarship on the Japanese workplace. It also will interest students and scholars in geography, mobility studies, and women’s studies and anyone who has ever stayed at a ryokan and is curious about the work that takes place behind the scenes.

Japan’s New Ruralities
Japan’s New Ruralities

Author: Wolfram Manzenreiter

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-02-07

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1000032981

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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 fi eldwork-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 fi eld, 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.

Inaka
Inaka

Author: Various Authors

Publisher:

Published: 2020-08-13

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9781788692205

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Inaka: Portraits of Life in Rural Japan is an affectionate but unsentimental immersion into the Japanese countryside ("inaka"). In eighteen chapters we undertake an epic journey the length of Japan, from subtropical Okinawa, through the Japanese heartland, all the way to the wilds of Hokkaido. We visit gorgeous islands, walk an ancient Buddhist pilgrimage route, share a snow-lover's delight in the depths of record snowfall, solve the mystery of an abandoned Shinto shrine, and travel in the footsteps of a seventeenth-century haiku master. But above everything, Inaka answers the question of what it's like to be a foreigner living in rural Japan, whether as a newly arrived English teacher in a small town or as someone who never left and decades later is integrated into the community. Although this anthology shows the beauty of rural Japan with its seasonal kaleidoscope of colors, foods, and traditions, its friendly farmers and fishermen sharing old customs and local histories, Inaka doesn't avoid detailing the downsides of rural life - the hypothermia-inducing housing, inconvenient superstitions, demographic decline, and unlikely noises. The combination of brilliant, experienced writers and up-and-coming talent makes Inaka a delight to read, and a must for anyone interested in life away from the crowded Japanese cities. Readers who know Japan well will find much to enjoy, and those new to the country dreaming of a trip or extended stay will be both encouraged and better prepared to map out their own adventures.

Farm and Rural Community Management in Less Favored Areas
Farm and Rural Community Management in Less Favored Areas

Author: Nobuyoshi Yasunaga

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-09-15

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 9811573522

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This is the first book to focus on farm and rural community management in less favored areas of Japan. It provides an economic framework for, and empirical findings on, rural community management in terms of the distribution of rural resources, efficiency of farmland conservation, community development through agribusinesses, and utilization of human resources for the sustainability of rural society. The topics addressed include organic farming, the added value of locally processed foods, broad-based community agreement under a direct payment policy, forms of community vitalization, new farmers, farm diversification, redistribution of local resources among farmers by establishing farm organizations, community business, community hubs formed by multiple communities, and stakeholders who have migrated from urban to rural areas.The book is divided into four parts. Part I examines the relationship between regional agriculture and the conservation of farmland, including in hilly and mountainous areas. Part II deals with the improvement of farm resource management, particularly the redistribution of agricultural resources within multiple communities. In turn, Part III focuses on agribusinesses, especially the production of locally processed foods and community business. Lastly, Part IV addresses the sustainability of rural society, and discusses rural community development through community hubs, community-based rural tourism, and immigrated stakeholders. In each part, the peculiarities and commonalities of rural communities are explored by comparing the results of these studies with domestic and international studies.This book is highly recommended to readers who are concerned with the development of agriculture and community, resource conservation in less favored areas, and the theoretical and empirical aspects of agricultural and resource economics, as well as to those who wish to better understand rural communities in Japan.

Collective Decision Making in Rural Japan
Collective Decision Making in Rural Japan

Author: Robert C. Marshall

Publisher: U of M Center For Japanese Studies

Published: 1984-01-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 0939512173

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This study is a result of three continuous years of fieldwork in a hamlet in rural Japan. The data presented and analyzed here consist of records from participant observation, formal and informal interviews, casual conversation and formal questionnaires, and public and private documents. The subject of this research is group decision making, and the results of this process are, after all, a matter of public record. The major conclusions of this study are outlined in their simplest and most straightforward form. A hamlet is fundamentally a nexus for the organization of productive exchange among member households, the form of exchange through which two or more parties actively combine their resources to produce something of value not available, or as cheaply available, to any of them separately. Defection from productive exchange agreements by hamlet members is reduced by making access to future valuable transactions and corporate property contingent upon the integrity of each current exchange transaction. This method of combining a common interest in production with contingent access to productive resources is termed mutual investment and is the major source of consensus in hamlet decision making. When only cooperate resources are at issue, decisions regularly result in unanimity. When a course of action can be implemented only if hamlet members relinquish control over individually held resources, a division will emerge among the membership. Whether or not a formal vote is taken, the distribution of differing opinion will be known through more informal means of communication. In all cases of division, by the time the course of action to be implemented is formally announced, the minority in opposition will be extremely small. The question then must be resolved whether those in the minority will participate in the implementation or resign as hamlet members. This book is written with two rather disparate audiences in mind: readers interested primarily in exchange and decision-making phenomenon, on the one hand, and readers interested primarily in the unity of experience represented by the Japanese sensibility, on the other.