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This paper examines how convivial, bottom-up craft initiatives in rural Japan—through cases in Gunma and Yamanashi—are contributing to reimagining the countryside as a hybrid space of creativity and collaboration beyond top-down, essentializing discourses of tradition and authenticity.

Paper long abstract

Craft production has long been tied to the rural, in Japan and beyond. In the Edo period, feudal domains sponsored craftspeople to strengthen and diversify their economies, and since then, professional craft production has remained closely connected to regional identity in Japan, developing through particular families with strict hierarchical and patriarchal systems shaped by secrecy and exclusion. While the Meiji Restoration brought craft to the center of Japanese national identity, modernization and the rise of industrial mass production also introduced a set of contradictions, altering traditional modes of craft-making. In the postwar era, rapid urbanization and rural outmigration prompted a series of policies designed to protect local crafts, now repurposed for tourism and regional place-making. However, many such policies selectively promote crafts tied to ideals of authenticity and uniqueness, reinforcing essentialized images of Japan that primarily benefit the center.

This paper examines recent craft initiatives in rural regions where craft production has long been present but not necessarily mobilized for regional or national identity projects. Rather than emphasizing hierarchy, seniority, and exclusion, these initiatives cultivate an ethos of sharing, openness, and collaboration, often between locals and outsiders—domestic in-migrants, returnees, and foreign artists. Through such practices, they contribute to reimagining the Japanese countryside not merely as a repository of tradition, often portrayed as anachronistic or static, but as a space of creativity and experimentation, shaped by change and adaptation. Blurring the boundaries between art, craft, and everyday life, and between making and playing, these bottom-up initiatives frequently emerge from serendipitous encounters, creative improvisation, and wayfaring, as residents and visitors seek alternative ways of being in rural regions marked by marginalization, internal colonization, and economic and environmental pressures. Through two case studies in Gunma and Yamanashi prefectures, we ask how such craft initiatives—shaped by conviviality through collective making and community participation—help reimagine rural regions as spaces of hybrid assemblages, both human and non-human.

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This paper examines how digital archives can move beyond traditional, growth-oriented preservation models to support craft revitalization and post-growth convivial futures in depopulating regions like Akita Prefecture (highest aging rate in Japan).

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how digital archives can move beyond traditional, growth-oriented preservation models to support craft revitalization and post-growth convivial futures in depopulating regions like Akita Prefecture (highest aging rate in Japan). Current digital archiving prioritizes "high culture," leaving vital folk crafts—such as Kawazura lacquerware—vulnerable and neglecting the "unheard voices" of underrepresented artisans. We introduce The Tohoku Digital Archives, The Voice of The Unheard, an interdisciplinary, participatory model designed to capture the material and cultural richness of craft while navigating internal community conflicts. Crucially, the archive captures multiple, divergent perspectives (e.g., gender, technique, or economic stress) from artisans side-by-side, moving away from monolithic cultural narratives and fostering empowerment. A primary challenge is the sensory gap: informants highlight that digital presentation (even with VR/AR technology) fails to convey the power derived from the physical reality of craft and ritual—the smell of materials, the heat of the workshop, or the texture of a finished object. This sensory deficit underscores the archive's limits in representing authenticity. To achieve genuine revitalization, the project integrates a sustainable educational model where youth use the archives to research crafts from three different perspectives. This strategy counters the region’s dominant "nothing (nani-mo-nai)" deficit narrative by fostering local pride, identity, and well-being—a critical non-economic objective in a prefecture facing serious social challenges. By focusing on youth engagement and identity rather than purely market-driven outcomes, this research demonstrates how collaborative digital archiving can mobilize craft to reimagine a more resilient, post-growth future for rural Akita.

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The paper explores how newcomer artisans in rural Japan navigate local craft traditions, community expectations, and support systems, showing how they contribute to revitalization through creative work, social ties, and cultural exchange.

Paper long abstract

Many rural areas in Japan have long crafts traditions, which local governments have sought to harness in their revitalization strategies for decades. However, as rural communities in Japan face socioeconomic and demographic challenges, resulting in a shortage of successors in traditional industries and the gradual erosion of skills, local governments have increasingly turned to inviting artisans to settle in their towns. They offer them workshop spaces, financial support, and opportunities to engage with rural life, but questions remain about the long-term sustainability of these initiatives. This paper examines the experiences of newcomer artisans who have relocated to rural Japan through municipal programs and independently. Focusing on communities in Kyushu, it investigates how artisans negotiate their position within existing craft traditions, respond to local expectations, and develop (or struggle to develop) a sense of belonging. Drawing on qualitative fieldwork, the study analyzes how artisans perceive their own contributions to rural revitalization and how they evaluate the infrastructural, economic, and social support they receive. By comparing different community contexts, the presentation highlights the diverse ways artisans engage with rural life: some revitalize dormant craft sectors, others introduce new creative practices, and many contribute to community-making through workshops, markets, and everyday interactions. At the same time, tensions can arise around cultural authority, authenticity, and the balance between innovation and tradition. The analysis contributes to broader debates on the role of crafts—both traditional and contemporary—in sustaining rural futures. It argues that newcomer artisans can support revitalization not only through economic activities but also by fostering social networks, cultural exchange, and new forms of rural identity. However, their long-term impact depends on stable support structures, inclusive community dynamics, and realistic expectations about what crafts can achieve in the face of structural rural decline.

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This paper offers a comparative study of Seto and Tokoname’s ceramic industries, examining how central stakeholders navigate resource inequality, differing sales channels, and revitalization pressures as they experience changing social and economic conditions in Japan’s craft sector.

Paper long abstract

Craft has long played a crucial role in shaping regional identity, livelihoods, and local economies across Japan, and the ceramic centers of Seto and Tokoname offer two revealing sites through which to examine these dynamics. Historically grounded in place-based ecologies, apprenticeship relations, and specialized production systems, both regions were also integrated into broader national agendas that reframed craft as cultural heritage and as a basis for accelerating industrial development. Today, however, these sanchi navigate profound demographic and socioeconomic pressures.

This paper presents a comparative study of Seto and Tokoname through the analytical lens of Strategic Action Fields theory, with particular attention to the evolving relationship between incumbents and challengers within each field. SAF theory offers a framework for examining how long-established actors (incumbents) – such as long-standing traditional potters, wholesalers, and industry associations – and emerging actors (challengers) – including younger artisans, in-migrants, and tourism-oriented entrepreneurs – navigate structural constraints and unequal access to resources. The study explores how disparities in resource acquisition, unequal access to sales channels, and the (un-)availability of local support mechanisms shape strategic behavior and reshape field configurations.

Situating Seto and Tokoname within debates on rural revitalization and post-growth futures, the study examines how narratives of authenticity, locality, and heritage are mobilized to generate new social and cultural value. Such narratives – linked to craftsmanship, slow production, and regionally embedded skills – are used both to attract visitors and to articulate alternative visions of community amid demographic decline. As these discourses intersect, they reshape the strategic action fields of Seto and Tokoname by shifting resources, alliances, and cultural frames. This reconfiguration opens space for collaboration while heightening tensions between innovation and preservation, revealing how incumbents and challengers navigate competing pressures of revitalization and the maintenance of established norms.

Through this comparative and theory-informed approach, the paper illuminates how stakeholders in both sanchi interpret shifting conditions and attempt to renegotiate their positions within their respective ceramic fields. In doing so, it contributes to a deeper understanding of how traditional industries adapt to maintain social, economic, and cultural relevance amid ongoing transformations across the craft sector in Japan.