by Cecilia Luzi

As many posts on this blog have shown, rural Japan is diverse. The experiences of living in rural areas vary according to geographical, economic or demographic conditions. But local or prefectural authorities, the central government and individual citizens spread an image of an idealized rural life which is highly homogeneous. Images of idealized rural lifestyles are not something new, and in times of the Covid pandemic, digital media are becoming the perfect tool to circulate new images of rural lifestyles.

Migrants use social media to share information about their lives and their jobs, often on a daily base. The great creativity in terms of creating jobs and businesses always strikes me when I go through migrants’ profiles. Many are owners of small independent businesses such as cafes, shops, guesthouses and wellness-related enterprises. This plurality in urban-rural migrants’ entrepreneurship was already discovered by other authors who have studied urban-rural migration in Japan. Among young urbanites’ reasons for leaving the metropolis is their desire to live and work in a community with close social ties and enjoyable interactions with people from this community [1].

Migrant entrepreneurs become part of social networks which extend beyond work. They participate in local markets, buy ingredients from small local farms, organize events for the town and receive help from and exchange vegetables with their neighbors. At the same time, they post about their lives on social media and receive comments and likes from all over Japan, sometimes from the entire world. What these social media profiles seem to suggest, or at least what migrants want followers to see, is that living and working in rural areas today does not lead to isolation and disconnectedness. On the contrary: it can lead to close local connections while at the same time virtual interactions allow migrants to cultivate the bonds with those left behind and maintain their social networks even beyond the place they live in.

Municipal and prefectural authorities also use official websites and social media to promote the life in the countryside. They aim to appeal to urban dwellers in pursuit of newcomers to rural areas. Local authorities tend to emphasize that rural environments offer rich and new possibilities for interactions with locals. However, finding a job or starting a new business can be a daunting task for newcomers who cannot count on their social safety net. Therefore, municipalities and prefectures provide measures to support work and occupation for migrants. These are at the heart of their rural revitalization strategies.

Recently, I observed something interesting on Nagasaki Prefecture’s website for prospective migrants, Nagasaki ijū-nabi. To the many pages full of support schemes and facilities, the prefecture added a link to a new section advertising remote work around September 2021. On this new website, the prefecture promotes events about remote working facilities and provides a list of several local initiatives and start-ups that support connectivity and remote work. My impression is that Nagasaki aims to expand the opportunities and the use of telework in many professions of the tertiary sector in order to attract people who want to leave Tokyo during the pandemic [2].

The message on Nagasaki prefecture’s website is simple: the prefecture provides in-migrants with all that is necessary to stay fully digitally connected and to be able to work remotely after migration. This way, they can have a fulfilling professional life while enjoying Nagasaki’s rich natural and cultural environments. Moreover, they can maintain the connections with the metropolis, while living “a better life” in the countryside with people who share their lifestyle.

In conclusion, exploring how migrants and local authorities showcase rural life in the digital space can help us to understand multiple layers of connectedness between rural and urban areas. Nowadays in Japan, the possibility for connections and social networks appears to be key to realize a good life in the countryside. Real world interactions are what many migrants aim for, while digital connections are what they bring to rural areas. I would say that the access to digital networks enables the sustainment of existing social and professional networks and the creation of new ones. Digital networks and remote work make rural lives possible for many migrants. One fundamental aspect of new rural lifestyles in contemporary Japan is social connections, both physical and digital.

References

[1]
Klien, S. (2020). Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-Growth Society. Suny Press.

[2]
Ueda, M. (2020, 8 July). Urban exodus in cards as people find freedom in teleworking. The Asahi Shinbun. https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/13485555

[1]
Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, https:// apu.ac.jp/home/news/article/?storyid=3145 (last viewed on March 3^rd, 2022)

[2]
Official Journal of Arita Town, December 2019

by Lynn Ng

In April 2019, I made my first trip into Fukushima on a friend’s spontaneous invitation – a week-long trip I never imagined would turn into an MA, and now doctoral research project. On a late afternoon in end-April, I arrived at Odaka station and was greeted by the station master. “The winds sure are strong, right? Please take care,” he said as I handed him my ticket. Heeding his words, I cautiously pulled the doors open and stepped out of the station expecting “strong winds” but was met with nothing more than a mild breeze. With the station master’s strange warning stuck to my mind, I slowly made my way to the café where my friend would meet me.

At the quiet café, with all due social awkwardness, I’d blurted out “the winds sure are strong, huh?” to the café owner. The owner looked up, glanced in the direction of the station, and commented that, yes, the winds were indeed strong. A silent minute passed before he began a lengthy explanation of why the winds were strong: The lands beyond the station (towards the coast) used to be farmlands protected by windbreaks – the rows of trees that shelter the farms from coastal winds. After 3/11, the trees felled and unobstructed coastal winds now blow freely into the town.

As an environmental biologist, my first instinct then was to question this exaggerated range of windbreaks. Still, I held my tongue. Instead, I asked how he knew this information, and what it was like growing up in this area before the triple disaster. To my surprise, he was from urban Tokyo and had never been to Fukushima until 2016. And thus, my curiosities were piqued – what was an urbanite such as him doing in rural post-disaster Fukushima?

Later in the week, the café owner introduced me to his friend who offered to give me a tour around town. She drove me past rolling hills of sunflowers and canola, with wind turbines turning far in the background. She told me about the town’s plan to develop into Japan’s canola-town, since canola plants are sturdy and grow quickly, and thus can very efficiently absorb contaminants in the soil. I’d silently scoffed at her comment, not because of canola’s capabilities in decontaminating the soils, but because Japan’s canola-town is a crown already claimed by the town [1] in Hokkaido in which I lived for three years. In that brief moment, standing amongst the canola flowers in Odaka, I had felt immensely protective of the place I had called home.

Again, I kept my mouth shut. I instead redirected the conversation to anecdotes of the countryside. We joked about hazardous elderly drivers before she admitted that she missed having movie theaters nearby. I would from here on learn that she came here from metropolitan Nagoya. And from here, my curiosities spiraled out of control – What were urbanites such as her and the café owner doing in rural post-disaster Fukushima? Were there more of them? Are they an isolated bubble of I-turners? How integrated were they into the larger population? What else do they do here? Do they participate in the region’s revitalization programs? Out of all of Japan’s regions, why Fukushima?

Over the months after this trip, I developed these first questions into a full MA project. With every return trip I made to Fukushima, I met more I- and U-turners (or in Fukushima’s terms, F-turners [2]) and learned more narratives. I would learn that the complexity of Fukushima’s nuclear exclusion zones extends far beyond population movements and Becquerel-Sieverts, and traverses into domains of hope and belonging. Now as a doctoral candidate at GEAS in Berlin, I approach the phenomenon of urban-rural migration into Fukushima with the same curiosity, and cannot wait to dive in even deeper than before.

References

[1]
Takikawa has been home to Japan’s largest canola fields for seven straight years.Takikawa City (2021). Nanohana ni tsuite [About Canola]. Available at: https://www.city.takikawa.hokkaido.jp/230keizai/03kankourenkei/10menu/nanohana.html

[2]
“F-Turn” is Fukushima Prefecture’s project at promoting U-I-J turns into Fukushima. Fukushima Prefecture (2022). F-tān [F-Turn]. Available at: https://www.f-turn.jp/

by Cornelia Reiher

A few weeks ago, I went to a rural place in Germany’s north for a holiday. In this area, the internet connection is still very bad and since I was looking for some peace it appeared to be the perfect place to spend some time enjoying the silence. I wanted to experience the simple rural life by taking long walks without meeting anyone, sitting in front of a wood-burning fireplace, waking up to the sound of the birds and ignoring my phone, emails and social media for a few days.

However, a terrible storm raged over Germany and in addition to the bad internet connection, there was a power outage, leaving us with no other heating than the fireplace and without light and hot water. Although I found this romantic at first, I was soon longing for hot coffee, a warm shower and a warm meal and bedroom. Everywhere in the area, electricity went off and only one person in the small hamlet owned a gas oven where he made coffee and then visited every house to share it with his neighbors. We also borrowed candles from our hosts and we got quite inventive in warming ready-made soup on our fireplace and even managed to boil water (it took 15 minutes!) for coffee and the eggs we received from our hosts who raise chickens. Electricity and warm water were finally back after two days and I have never enjoyed a hot shower more in my entire life.

This experience made me think about the comforts of rural lifestyles. Many urban-to-rural migrants want to live a simple life close to nature, but how simple is too simple? What do people need for a good life in the countryside in terms of comfort and convenience? In online interviews I conducted recently I asked urban-rural migrants in Kyūshū if they miss anything in their country life. The majority was satisfied with their current lives and mentioned that the town they live in offers more amenities than they would have thought. The answers, however, differed depending on where research participants had lived before and on their previous lifestyles.

One respondent, for example, missed shopping malls shortly after moving to the rural town he now lives in, because he had spent much of his free time in such places. He however said that he soon realized that there are many other things he could do. His new leisure activities include hiking and taking walks around his neighborhood to discover new places like shrines. One woman told me that she liked to go to the movies when she lived in Tokyo and missed a movie theater in her new place of residence. However, she is busy with farming now and only occasionally visits the small galleries in town and sometimes attends a live concert in the newly built music hall. Other newcomers stressed that they prefer the availability of delicious food, clean water, nature and onsen over the amenities of the urban consumer society. In fact, in many cases, getting away from a consumption-oriented urban lifestyle was the main reason why they relocated to the countryside in the first place.

Almost everyone I talked to emphasized that they don’t need to spend much money in their everyday lives. Often, gasoline is the highest cost. Depending on a car to get around was one of the things most of my research participants were actually critical of. One reason was the high cost, the other was the lack of physical activity. While in Tokyo they had to walk to the train station or when they went shopping. In the countryside, however, they drive everywhere by car. Another problem mentioned by many research participants was the sometimes spotty and slow internet connection that also somewhat ridicules new government concepts like “workation”. This concept combines “work” and “vacation” and aims to increase telework from rural areas in order to create a kankei jinkō – that is people who develop bonds to rural communities and will eventually move to the countryside permanently in the future (Japan Times 2019).

In summary, people who move to rural areas look for a simple life in the countryside amidst beautiful nature. They often decide to leave the convenience of their former urban lifestyle behind, but this does not mean that they can do without a stable internet (and by no means without electricity). For many ijūsha this is a matter of necessity to continue their jobs and to connect with their friends and families within and beyond Japan.

References

Japan Times (2019), Japan’s local governments launch ‘workation’ alliance to boost regional revitalization and work-style reform, https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/18/business/japan-local-governments-workation-alliance-revitalization-work-style-reform/, accessed December 4, 2019.

by Wendy Wuyts

I am a feminist. I strongly realized this when I lived and did research in Japan and particularly during an onsite training from April 2018 to February 2019. The onsite research training (ORT) was organized by professors from Nagoya University and aimed at teaching students the skills of clinical environmental studies. Together with three other PhD students I was assigned to conduct case studies in Higashi-Shirakawa and Shirakawa-chō in Gifu prefecture. These two towns were introduced to us as suffering from extreme population decline. When we enrolled in ORT in 2018, the professors had already conducted this training for several years in the Ise Bay Bioregion in Japan (Kato et al. 2014). The ‘Onsite research training (ORT)’ is transdisciplinary and stimulates a co-learning and co-designing process. We were encouraged to present both a diagnosis of local problems and then a treatment based on information gathered through interviews and discussions with local experts to understand their tacit knowledge and to combine it with academic knowledge.

During a well-planned three-day visit to the two villages, the professors (mostly male) would present local stories. Our task was to document everything in order to make a diagnosis and to select a problem we would focus on in the next six months.  We met local government officials, visited farmers (pork, green tea, vegetables), tea factories, taxi drivers and other inhabitants of the villages who talked about their problems and ideas. We met long-term residents and newcomers. Interestingly, most of them were Japanese men. We listened to 30 men, and only two women. In addition, women, including female professors, were put in serving roles. The feminist inside me roared.

After these three days, I remarked to the professors that we heard quite biased stories of these villages and asked for more female voices during our next visit. The professors did not understand the need for interviewing women at first, but my experiences in Japan and exchange with feminist students at Nagoya University made me realize the importance of gender analysis in rural or any other place(s) as different gender roles result in different everyday experiences and knowledge about the place people inhabit (West & Zimmerman, 1987). We were later introduced to more women in the field. Their stories and literature on gender in Japanese rural villages and towns provided even more evidence that gender is an important factor when it comes to, for example, community participation.

For our project, we decided to analyze the acceptance of newcomers in the two towns. Rather than attracting newcomers, making them stay, was a challenge in both places. We wanted to find out if this was related to their social acceptance. In October, we designed a questionnaire in order to compare and analyze the acceptance of I-turners, U-turners and people that married locals. We created questionnaires and with the help of the local governments, sent out questionnaires to 800 people (625 in Shirakawa-chō and 175 in Higashi-Shirakawa). The response rate was 40% or more (330/800).

We asked two questions that were inspired by literature on gender relations and previous conversations with men and women in the months before. One question was about community spaces where newcomers and long-term residents can meet. The other was about community events where they could get in touch. We were interested in, if for example, men would answer differently than women. Our analysis found that women more often answered that they think that not enough community spaces are available, while more men said there are not enough community events for newcomers that would foster communication with local residents. These differences are due to the gendered accessibility of community events and community spaces. Thus, our research shows how important a gender perspective is regarding the acceptance of newcomers in rural Japan. By the way: In the following year, the ORT organizers included more “female stories” in the three-day introduction to their onsite research training.

Wendy Wuyts, originally from Belgium, received her PhD in environmental science from the Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University. She currently works as researcher in the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her research interests include (social impacts of) circularity, sustainable transitions and territorial ecology. Results of this study are not published (yet), but the author still has all the data, the report and posters for seminars, reflections and other notes. You can contact her (wendy.wuyts@ntnu.no) if you want to learn more.

References:

Kato, Hirokazu, Hiroyuki Shimizu, Noriyuki Kawamura, Yasuhiro Hirano, Takashi Tashiro, Hiromi Yamashita, Keisuke Tomita, Mitsuyuki Tomiyoshi, & Kazu Hagihara. (2014), A Prospect Toward Establishment of Basic and Clinical Environmental Studies by ORT (On-Site Research Training) in Shimizu, H. and Murayama, A. eds., 2014. Basic and clinical environmental approaches in landscape planning. Springer Science & Business Media. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/978-4-431-54415-9.pdf, Accessed 10 April 2019.

West, C., Zimmermann, D.H. (1987). ‘Doing Gender’, Gender & Society 1 (2): 125-151.

by Maritchu Durand

For a few years now and increasingly since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, urbanites’ interest in moving to the countryside and renovating vacant houses has been growing in Japan. Prefectures attempt to attract younger people who seek a place to live outside the metropoles while keeping a close connection to urban spaces. But for more remote prefectures with high numbers of abandoned houses, it is hard to compete with prefectures that are much closer to urban centers like Tokyo or Osaka. Isseki nichō – to kill two birds with one stone –is what towns and prefectures in remote areas try to do when promoting the reuse of akiya, the vacant houses of rural Japan, to attract young migrants. Oita prefecture, for example, organizes workshops on different aspects of DIY (Do It Yourself) renovation of akiya and features stories about recently renovated houses and their inhabitants in short videos on its migration and relocation website.

Each story is centered around an interview with people who renovated a house and introduces the renovation works they accomplished themselves in their new homes. Each of the renovation projects represents a different ‘level’ of experience: beginner, intermediate and expert. The video about the ‘beginner level’ introduces a young couple who moved from southern Kyushu to a small mountainous community where they renovated a more than 100-year-old house from floor to ceiling. They threw down walls to create a wide and open central space and furnished it with antiques. While the young man declares that with an akiya, one starts with a disadvantage, it becomes a precious advantage in many aspects later on. It gives them the freedom to design it the way they want. In addition, it becomes a unique way to connect with the local population by asking them for advice on renovation. The migrants also discover skills they did not know they had prior the start of this adventure. In the future, the young couple wants to turn their new home into a guesthouse.

The lively and energetic family featured in the second video represents the ‘intermediate level’ of renovation and shares a similar experience of connecting with locals through their renovation experience. The couple moved from Tokyo and renovated a 50-year-old house in a traditional shopping street. The more they asked locals for advice, the more they discovered how much the community was willing to help them fulfill their dream to open a share-house with a multi-use room on the ground floor they rent out for events and pop-up stores. In addition, they could rely on a broad network of friends and connections, both nationwide and international, that came to help with the renovation. The couple could therefore manage to take care of their three children while conducting all the renovation work themselves.

The video on the ‘expert level’ tells a renovation story of a U-turner who transformed an old house into an Italian restaurant. It unravels a successful mixture of boldness, determination, and community ties. Within forty days, the 30-year-old man managed to completely renovate and modernize a 70-year-old building into a modern restaurant. He realized that once he started making things himself that he will also be able to renovate again and maintain the house in the long run, thereby making the restaurant sustainable and economically viable.

All interviewees talk about an innovative and “DIY” spirit that is growing in Oita. According to them, more and more people decide to take matters into their own hands and, with the help of the local community and their friends and acquaintances from all over Japan, they manage to realize their own renovation projects. Their renovation experiences include stories of entrepreneurship, strong community ties, self-realization and perseverance to realize one’s own dream.

In addition to the videos, Oita prefectures also offers workshops about DIY renovation. The workshops target especially young women and their families who wish to move to Oita and renovate a house. As experienced senpai, the people who appear in the videos, also participate in the workshops and talk about all the possibilities renovation projects offer to potential migrants. The workshops offer a comprehensive overview of what a DIY renovation implies from finding a house to living a fun life while renovating an akiya. Offering workshops on renovation featuring true life stories while creating a network of young innovators and an active community surrounding the reuse and repurposing of older houses might be an advantage for more remote areas like Oita. It remains to be seen if these events will motivate more young people to move to Kyushu and transform a vacant house into their dream home.  

by Bobby Okinaka

My name is Bobby Okinaka. I am 52. I am an American, but a long-time resident of Japan. In April, 2021, I moved with my wife and young son from Tokyo to the middle of Shikoku Island. This place is called Niyodogawa-cho. It is a region of many steep mountains and clear blue rivers. The town is actually a number of smaller towns joined together to reduce administrative costs known as the gappei system. Today, its population is 4,968. The main industries are logging and tea. At one point, its peak was 26,000. There was a copper mine that has since closed. And on the sides of the mountains that got the most sun, they grew the paper mulberry plants for washi paper. Today, there is only one paper maker left.

How did I end up in Niyodogawa-cho? A few years earlier, a friend of mine from university moved here from California to open a craft beer brewery. Located deep in the mountains, it’s safe to say his beer has the most naturally pure water in Japan. Since the birth of my child, I had been looking for an opportunity to live in the countryside. I think it’s a good life for little children and it would be better for our health as well. When I visited my friend, I was introduced to some people from the town office and they let it be known that I could apply for the Regional Revitalization Corp (Chiiki Okoshi Kyorokutai). So I went back to Tokyo, packed everything up, and we started our new life in the countryside.

My role is to do activities that enrich the town is some manner. They asked me to teach English at the local schools and support various town activities, but for the most part it’s up to me to find my mission and ideally, a way to make a living, so that I will continue to live here after my three year stint is up. Initially I thought about working with tourism. I thought it would be nice to open a guest house. The major attraction in this area is the tranquil color of the river water they call, “Niyodo Blue.” We are only an hour from Kochi City, so it is easy for visitors to come here and play in the river. I am also interested in sustainability. So I started composting. In the spring I am looking forward to experimenting with growing vegetables with microbes. I hope to start a community composting program. I learn everything about composting and gardening from YouTube.

The internet has changed country living. 30 years ago, I lived in another rural area of Japan as a member of the JET Program. Back then I felt very isolated. Today, I feel like life in the countryside is not much different from the city. I can buy everything I need online. I can get my favorite American television shows. I can communicate easily with family and friends. Of course there are some inconveniences, especially the lack of restaurants, sporting events, museums and live concerts. But I can exchange that for riverside barbecues, gardening and camping. And instead of seeing stars on a stage, I can see real stars in the night sky.

Together with one of my coworkers, we started an oral history program. We interview people from the community and record their life stories. Our goal is to create an exhibition about a small town in Japan. We will combine their voices with an examination of rural problems and the regional revitalization strategy. We will also imagine the future through the lens of sustainability. About sustainability, I believe the solution for many global problems can be found in the countryside, albeit on a small scale. Farmers can change their practices to build healthy soil. It will increase water holding capacity and end the use of chemical fertilizers that wash into the oceans. Healthy soil means that more carbon can be sequestered into the earth. Healthy soil means that the fruits and vegetable are rich in nutrients and full of flavor. Also, the countryside has the promising potential to be an energy solution. They have the space for renewable energy production. The costs are getting cheaper, the technology is proven. If the rural regions make clean electricity to meet the demands of power-hungry cities, they will never be short of funds again. With all our mountains and rivers, this place is an ideal condition for micro hydropower.

I hope to show our exhibition in cities around Japan to challenge the common perceptions of the countryside. People say the countryside is dying; I say it is full of opportunity and this is a way to show them. In addition, using my connections in North America, I hope to bring the exhibition to Los Angeles and Toronto. We may be a small town, but I think our story is worth sharing, much like this website. After the exhibition, rather than start a guesthouse, I have a big idea to convert a vacant schoolhouse into a campus for university students. They can come to the countryside and do remote learning. The added value will be that we can provide daily English lessons. There will be an organic farm for students to grow the food they will eat. The students can volunteer in the community as farm help, coach sports to the local kids or help the seniors. In exchange the seniors can pass along their knowledge such as traditional dance, woodworking and cooking. The facility will be powered by a micro hydropower turbine and solar panels. Hopefully, this idea can become a reality. After the global pandemic, please come and visit Niyodogawa-cho and let’s have a craft beer by the river!

Bobby Okinaka is a member of the Chiiki Okoshi Kyoryokutai Program in Niyodogawa-cho, Kochi Prefecture. He is on a three-year mission to help revitalize the Japanese countryside. You can find him on Instagram at slowinjapan. For tourism information about our area, please visit: https://niyodoblue.jp/en/ Domo!

by Ngo Tu Thanh (Frank Tu)

Social Media (Social Networking Service or SNS in Japanese) like Instagram, Youtube, Twitter or Facebook have become an important part of our everyday life. SNS are even mentioned in policy documents about rural revitalization and urban-rural migration in Japan. For our project on urban-rural migration and rural revitalization in four prefectures in Kyushu I have analyzed the Comprehensive Strategy for Communities, People and Work in Fukuoka and Nagasaki prefecture. SNS appeared as one strategy to disseminate information (jōhō hasshin) about the prefectures, tourism, local products and support for in-migrants among many other things.

Both Fukuoka and Nagasaki prefectures highlight the use of SNS as an important strategy to attract tourists or in-migrants. For instance, the plan of Nagasaki prefecture states that Nagasaki will publish footage of young people working in Nagasaki on Twitter and Instagram to attract young people to move to the prefecture. It will also disseminate information about migration on Facebook and LINE that appeals to Nagasaki natives who have moved to other places, particularly during times when they return home like Obon and New Year’s to inspire them to think about return migration (U-turn). SNS are also considered an important tool to showcase the charm of Nagasaki’s fisheries on YouTube, to promote local products and to attract foreign tourists from China, Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand [1].

Similarly, the Comprehensive Strategy of Fukuoka prefecture entails a strategy called “Disseminate information effectively” which states that Fukuoka prefecture aims to further enhance the recognition of the prefecture’s name, and thereby to attract visitors from Southeast Asia, Australia, and Western countries. In order to do so, Fukuoka’s plan suggest to make use of various digital means of communication, such as popular tourism websites or SNS to disseminate information that appeals to tourists [2].

The use of SNS for rural revitalization was also a recurrent topic in my interviews with three Chiikiryoku Sōzō Advisor for the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. That said, all the three advisors were skeptical of this strategy. For instance, one of them was an advisor in his early forties whose expertise lies in the fields of videography, copywriting and marketing. He has been creating promotional videos to help municipalities showcase their strengths to attract visitors and newcomers. He points out that although many videos have been posted on YouTube, no one watches them. Thus, he prefers advertising his promotional videos on specialized websites or making DVD copies and to distribute them to students who are doing job-hunting. Moreover, he is skeptical about how municipalities evaluate the effectiveness of such promotional efforts. In particular, he wonders whether the number of views could really reflect the success of a video, if, despite having many views, it does not really attract newcomers (interview in October 2021).

The other two advisors who are much older than the advisor mentioned above shared this critical view of SNS. One repeatedly mentioned that efforts to publish footage or photos on Instagram and Facebook do not create any substantive impacts on rural revitalization while the other stated that although there are people who disseminate information on Facebook, such information is just “words” not “actions” and does not necessarily lead to real impacts on rural revitalization (interviews in September and October 2021 respectively).

The ubiquity of SNS in everyday life renders social media an inevitable topic in today’s discourse on regional revitalization. Nevertheless, given their rather recent integration into rural revitalization policies and strategies, it will take time to adequately evaluate the impact of SNS on rural Japan and its revitalization. I will follow up this question as I proceed with my PhD project.

References:
[1]
Nagasaki Prefecture (2020). Dai ni ki Nagasaki Ken Machi, Hito, Shigoto Sōsei Sōgō Senryaku (Reiwa 2 nendo kaitei ban). Available at: https://www.pref.nagasaki.jp/shared/uploads/2021/04/1617856105.pdf

[2]
Fukuoka Prefecture (2020). Dai ni ki Fukuoka Ken jinkō bijon, Chihō Sōsei Sōgō Senryaku. Available at: https://www.pref.fukuoka.lg.jp/uploaded/attachment/109804.pdf

by Hanno Jentzsch

Urban-rural migration in Japan is receiving increasing attention, and so is the question of how to define and to delineate urban and rural spaces. As the answer to this question is ultimately a matter of perspective, I would like to briefly reflect on the contrast between the ethnographic and the political-administrative lens on “rural” Japan.

Facing ongoing socio-economic decline in large parts of non-metropolitan Japan, the central government is actively trying to get young urbanites to move (or move back) to rural areas. One of the most prominent initiatives in this context is the chiiki okoshi kyōryokutai (COKT) scheme, which provides successful applicants between 20 and 45 years with a steady income for up to three years to set up a project (a café, a farm, or any other activity to “revitalize” the area) and hopefully a new life in the countryside. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 5,500 persons were active under the COKT program in 2020, and the ministry hopes to increase their number to 8,000.[1] COKT members are often (although not exclusively) featured in ethnographic accounts of urban-rural migration. Susanne Klien frames her interviewees as “lifestyle migrants”, who seek to escape the pressures of a demanding, but increasingly unstable system of “lifelong” regular employment in metropolitan Japan. Rural areas, in contrast, appear as to some extent malleable spaces of experimentation and opportunity for young urbanites seeking “self-realization”. Klien and others have thus captured urban-rural lifestyle migration as a process that is producing new, hybrid, and fluid forms of rurality, in which idealized notions of rural Japan intersect and not rarely clash with urban aspirations, “post-growth” values, and local norms and practices, for example regarding agriculture.[2]

The hybridization and fluidity emphasized in ethnographic accounts of urban-rural migration form an interesting contrast to the sharp boundaries drawn by government programs such as the COKT. Through this lens, rural areas are strictly delineated first and foremost by their eligibility for various development and revitalization programs, on top of which the COKT program constitutes an attempt to structure migration flows from metropolitan centers to “target” rural areas. To get an idea what this means in practice, let us zoom into Shimo-Ina district in southern Nagano, where I did field research on civil society-state relations in 2017 and 2018. It is a beautiful area with tall mountains and deep, green valleys – a paradise for mountain bikers, but remote and rapidly aging. The tiny village of Ōshika currently seeks a COKT member to help develop the local (biking) tourism industry. In the words of a former colleague, who moved to the neighboring city of Iida for a similar task a few years ago, it is a dream job for anybody who seeks to turn a hobby into a meaningful occupation. It comes with free housing, reasonable working hours, and a monthly salary of 225,000 Yen. However, not all young bike enthusiasts can apply. Applicants must currently reside in one of the three “metropolitan areas” shutoken, chukyoken, and kinkiken, including the prefectures Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama, Gifu, Aichi, Osaka, Kyoto, Nara, Mie, and Hyōgo. Applicants from other prefectures must currently reside in an urban area (toshi chiiki). Residents of non-urban areas are excluded.

What “non-urban” means is defined by a total of seven laws to support disadvantaged areas, most importantly the Kaso law, under which officially designated “rapidly depopulating areas” (kaso chiiki) – i.e., areas that display above-average population decline and below-average fiscal strength – are eligible for a wide array of redistributive measures. The list is completed by programs with similar purposes, such as the “Okinawa Special Promotion Law” or the “Peninsula Promotion Law”. The Kaso law alone currently applies to 820 of Japan’s 1718 municipalities – more than 60% of Japan’s total area, but only about 8% of the population.[3]

The state’s objective to define a clearly delineated set of “sending” and “receiving” (or rather:  deserving?) rural areas to structure migration flows is clear. The consequences, however, can be quite odd. For example, while a person residing in the depopulating village of Toyone in the rural north of the “metropolitan” Aichi Prefecture is eligible for the job in Ōshika Village, a person residing in central Iida – the largest city in southern Nagano with about 100.000 inhabitants – cannot apply, since Iida is officially designated as a “partly depopulating” municipality under the law. Such a person could, of course (and likely will at some point), move to Tokyo for a regular job anytime. In any case, sharp boundaries drawn through political programs and/or administrative divisions are obviously limited to delineate rural and urban spaces in Japan (and elsewhere). They are, however, still crucial to understand rural-urban migration, and rural “revitalization” in general, as a political project that is fundamentally about who (and which area) gets what kind of support in the ongoing redistribution of resources and people across Japan’s increasingly unequal socio-spatial landscape.

Hanno Jentzsch is Assistant Professor at the Department of East Asian Studies/Japanese Studies, University of Vienna. He works on the politics of revitalization, administrative restructuring, agricultural reform, and social welfare in (mostly) rural Japan. He is the author of “Harvesting State Support” (University of Toronto Press) and co-edited the volume “Rethinking Locality in Japan” (Routledge, with Sonja Ganseforth).

References

[1]
https://www.soumu.go.jp/main_sosiki/jichi_gyousei/c-gyousei/02gyosei08_03000066.html

[2]
See e.g., Klien, Susanne. 2020. Urban Migrants in Rural Japan. Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-Growth Society. Albany: State University of New York Press; Reiher, Cornelia. 2020. ‘Embracing the Periphery: Urbanites’ Motivations for Relocating to Rural Japan’. In Japan’s New Ruralities, ed. Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Lützeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann. Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge: 230–244.

[3]
http://www.kaso-net.or.jp/