Japan's new ruralities : coping with decline in the periphery

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.

1. Introduction: Japan's new ruralities Part 1:Transformations in the primary sector 2. From agribusiness to deer hunter: "Placing" food industrialization and multispecies health in Tokachi, Hokkaido 3. Corporatization as hybridization in rural Japan: The case of Iwasaka in Shiga Prefecture 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 5. Reclaiming the global countryside? Decline and diversification in Saga Genkai coastal fisheries Part 2: Political innovations in rural Japan 6. Local renewables: Japan's energy transformation and its potential for the remaking of rural communities 7. Empowering rural cooperation: Effects of agricultural policy intervention on rural social capital 8. Sustaining healthcare in Japan's regions: The introduction of telehealth networks 9. Regional revitalization as a contested arena: Promoting wine tourism in Yamanashi Part 3: New residents in the countryside 10. Has the island lure reached Japan? Remote islands between tourism boom, new residents and fatal depopulation 11. Fluidity in rural Japan: How lifestyle migration and social movements contribute to the preservation of traditional ways of life on Iwaishima 12. Nai mono wa nai-Challenging and subverting rural peripheralization? Decline and revival in a remote island town 13. Embracing the periphery: Urbanites' motivations for relocating to rural Japan Part 4: Conceptual interventions for a new understanding of rural Japan 14. Reinventing rurality: Hybridity and socio-spatial depolarization in northern Japan 15. Rereading the changing Japanese rural peripheries: New approaches and actors for the future 16. Environmental activity gaps and how to fill them: Rural depopulation and wildlife encroachment in Japan 17. Epilogue: Think global, act peripheral in Japan's new ruralities