Japans 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 health-care, 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.
Japans 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 Ltzeler 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 Antonys 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 Antonys College
Japans 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 Kji
Japans New Ruralities
Coping with Decline in the Periphery
Edited by Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Ltzeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Nissan-Institute-Routledge-Japanese-Studies/book-series/SE0022
Japans New Ruralities
Coping with Decline in the Periphery
Edited by Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Ltzeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann
First published 2020
by Routledge
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2020 selection and editorial matter, Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Ltzeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Wolfram Manzenreiter, Ralph Ltzeler and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann 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.
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Contents
Ralph Ltzeler, Wolfram Manzenreiter and Sebastian Polak-Rottmann
PART I
Transformations in the primary sector
Paul Hansen
Kiyohiko Sakamoto and Haruhiko Iba
Johannes Wilhelm
Sonja Ganseforth
PART II
Political innovations in rural Japan
Thomas Feldhoff and Daniel Kremers
Shinya Ueno, Toshiki suga and Wolfram Manzenreiter
Susanne Brucksch
Hanno Jentzsch
PART III
New residents in the countryside
Carolin Funck
Shunsuke Takeda
Ludgera Lewerich
Cornelia Reiher
PART IV
Conceptual interventions for a new understanding of rural Japan
John W. Traphagan
Tolga zen
John Knight
Sebastian Polak-Rottmann, Ralph Ltzeler and Wolfram Manzenreiter
Guide
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 Universitt 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).
