Paper short abstract:

This paper scrutinizes the recent trend in rural revitalization policy that stress economic potential of local traditional craftsmanship. I demonstrate how such policy creates hope for a better future in rural provincial areas of Japan from the perspective of local craftsmen.

Paper long abstract:

Post-war Japan is renowned for its miraculously rapid economic recovery and societal development. However, social problems such as regional disparity and rural depopulation have also emerged in this process. In response to these challenges, the state government has proposed various regional development policies that support creating an attractive and ideal representation of the countryside using the local tradition of craftsmanship. In this course, many local municipalities have adopted tourism industry that can attract external capital to the region with endogenous resources, and local traditional craft works have been actively re-discovered and invented. The past-oriented tradition that are deemed to be preserved and protected have been re-imagined as progressive and creative capital. However, such attempt to enhance symbolic value of craftsmanship masks the actual problems that craftsmen face on a daily basis.

In this paper, I will critically examine the persistent belief in the "panacea" of craftsmanship in public policies that are aimed at revitalizing the local economy in Japan's countryside (Kirchberg and Kagan, 2013). Based on rural revitalization policy of Tamba Sasayama, Japan, I will look at how the local tradition of Tamba pottery is being invested as an alternative cultural/economic capital of the region. Then, I will demonstrate how such discourse of romanticized craftsmanship is perceived and performed by the actual craftsmen by tracing the actual process of producing Tamba pottery.