Paper short abstract:

Our study in explicit and implicit goals of collective resource management draws on longitudinal fieldwork in Kyushu. We argue that a community's institutional set of social norms underlying commonal work is designed to maintain the social fabric in ordinary times and under conditions of stress.

Paper long abstract:

Japan received much attention in early commons research as a prime example of sustainable use systems of natural resources (i.e. McKean 1984). While decades of structural change have rendered these collectively managed resources as economically irrelevant, they continue to exist as a focal point of community awareness in many rural communities and occassionally are tied into locally organized revitalization strategies. We argue that this kind of ‘paradox of the commons’ must be understood as a response to the demographic and economic downward spiral challenging the sustainability of rural life in Japan. Our study draws on several years of fieldwork among communities in southwestern Japan that have been hit hard by economic decline and demographic change as well as natural disasters. We participated in community activities and closely followed the implementation of a publicly funded project for the revitalization of mountainous regions. In this paper, we analyze explicit and implicit objectives of collective resource management. Adding a praxeological lens to the study of commons and sustainability enables us to argue that the institutional set of practice rules underlying ‘commonal work’ (kuyaku) is an inbuilt mechanism helping communities to maintain their social fabric in ordinary times as well as under conditions of severe stress. Nonetheless we have to shed a critical light on sustainability as a goal of rural development.