{"id":2237,"date":"2025-01-09T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/?p=2237"},"modified":"2025-01-10T08:48:36","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T07:48:36","slug":"from-kankei-jinko-to-life-in-two-places-the-temporal-dimension-of-urban-rural-mobilities-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/2025\/01\/09\/from-kankei-jinko-to-life-in-two-places-the-temporal-dimension-of-urban-rural-mobilities-in-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"From kankei jink\u014d to life in two places: The temporal dimension of urban-rural mobilities in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Cornelia Reiher<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

After studying urban-rural migration in Japan over time, I realized that the mobilities of urbanites in the countryside and beyond are very dynamic. Over the years, I met people who moved to a rural town, stayed there for a few years and then moved to another rural area within Japan. There were also migrants who moved back to the city they came from, while others moved abroad. Still others have never confined themselves to one place of residence and lead a mobile life between two or more places. Even the Japanese government has recognized more mobile lifestyles and supports the promotion of kankei jink\u014d<\/em>. The term has been awkwardly translated into English as \u201crelationship population\u201d and refers to a group of highly mobile people who regularly spend time in the countryside (Dilley et al. 2024).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A life in nature attracts city dwellers who want to stay in the countryside temporarily\u2026<\/em>
Copyright \u00a9 Cornelia Reiher 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this article, I introduce Yuri, who first came to the countryside for a workation, returned several times and later moved to a rural town where she now lives part-time. I met Yuri in the fall of 2022 in a small town in Ky\u016bsh\u016b where she currently rents a room in a sharehouse. She is a photographer and web designer in her early thirties who lived in Kansai and spent her second workation<\/em> in Ky\u016bsh\u016b when we first met. Workation combines the words \u201cwork\u201d and \u201cvacation\u201d and means working remotely from a location of your choice rather than from home. When their work is done, workationers can explore their destination. In Japan, workation is closely linked to initiatives by local governments in rural Japan to attract people to visit, work and ideally settle in their communities (Matsushita 2022; Yoshida 2021). When the COVID-19 pandemic started, Yuri was able to work remotely and went on workations to different parts of Japan. In Okinawa, she met a girl who had been to Ky\u016bsh\u016b and had helped to renovate a sharehouse. Yuri visited the sharehouse\u2019s social media account and decided that she wanted to go there right away because the photos made her feel \u201cat home\u201d (atto h\u014dmu na kanji<\/em>). In 2022, she lived in the sharehouse, helped with renovations of another sharehouse and worked remotely. In January 2023, she relocated and moved into the sharehouse she had helped renovate, continued her remote work, and found work as a freelance photographer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2026 but can they stop the rural decline?<\/em>
Copyright \u00a9 Cornelia Reiher 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During our first meeting, we connected via social media. On social media, urban-rural migrants often use arrows between two place names to show where they have moved from and where to, but usually the arrow is pointing in only one direction. But some people like Yuri use arrows pointing in two directions to show that they are highly mobile individuals. In addition, many use the hashtag \u201cnikyoten seikatsu<\/em>\u201d (living in two places). Yuri\u2019s social media accounts document her travels all over Japan. She shows beautiful rural landscapes alternating with portraits of people and products. She describes her lifestyle as temporary migration (ichijiteki ij\u016b<\/em>) and enjoys her life between Kansai and Ky\u016bsh\u016b as much as traveling within Japan for several months per year. The sharehouse itself is a place where people often only stay temporarily and Yuri enjoys meeting new people. In the spring of 2023, I lived with Yuri in the sharehouse and found her well-integrated into the community of urban-rural migrants, but she had also become friends with her elderly neighbors. Within the few weeks I spent with her, she had jobs in Ky\u016bsh\u016b and went to Ky\u014dto, \u014csaka and Okinawa. Although she rents a room in the sharehouse, the small town is more of a temporary base for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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View from the sharehouse<\/em>
Copyright \u00a9 Cornelia Reiher 2023<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The reasons why people leave and move on are diverse, but for most of my research participants, the COVID-19 pandemic was a reason to choose a more mobile lifestyle. Yuri, for example, told me how free she felt when she was able to work remotely when the pandemic started in 2020 and her work style changed. Before the pandemic, she barely had time for anything other than her work because of the long commute. When she was able to work from home, she finally found the time to focus more on photography – a long-held wish. In addition, she was able to work all over Japan. Telecommuting offered the opportunity to work anywhere and made urban-rural migration and workation more attractive. Workation offered Yuri a new mobile lifestyle that would eventually lead her to move to Ky\u016bsh\u016b. Generally speaking, remote work and workation increased the number of short-term visitors and kankei jink\u014d<\/em> in the countryside (Dilley 2024; Matsushita 2022; Yoshida 2021), and some of these short-term visitors, like Yuri, decided to stay longer. Thus, changing work styles go hand in hand with mobilities and bring about change in rural Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dilley, Luke, Menelaos Gkartzios, Shogo Kudo, Tokumi Odagiri (2024), \u201cHybridising counterurbanisation: Lessons from Japan\u2019s kankeijink\u014d<\/em>,\u201d Habitat International<\/em> 143, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.habitatint.2023.102967.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matsushita, Keita (2022), \u201cHow the Japanese workcation embraces digital nomadic work style employees,\u201d World Leisure Journal <\/em>65 (2): 218\u2013235.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yoshida, Tatsuya (2021), \u201cHow Has Workcation Evolved in Japan?\u201d Annals of Business Administrative Science<\/em> 20: 19\u201332.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Cornelia Reiher After studying urban-rural migration in Japan over time, I realized that the mobilities of urbanites in the countryside and beyond are very dynamic. Over the years, I met people who moved to a rural town, stayed there … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7641,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2241,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2237\/revisions\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.fu-berlin.de\/urban-rural-migration-japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}