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Paper short abstract

This paper examines J.League mega-events as cultural products that function as ritual spaces in which social structures are performed and well-being is negotiated. Drawing on ethnographic data, it explores the relationship between growth, social development, and contemporary ritual life.

Paper long abstract

The notions of development and well-being are embedded in a discourse often dominated by economic logics centred on the idea of growth. Whether economic, financial, or urban, development is frequently considered legitimate only insofar as figures and indicators continue to rise. A similar logic can be observed when development is applied to the realm of sport, where ongoing financialisation has given rise to numerous projects aimed at “developing” peripheral and/or economically disadvantaged regions through sport-related initiatives. Over recent decades, anthropological theory has sought to disentangle development from its economy-centred semantics, proposing alternative understandings of growth that encompass sustainability, social development, and well-being (Brownell 2023; Escobar 1995). This shift has paved the way for new lines of inquiry that examine the extent to which economic development overlaps with (or diverges from) social development.

This paper analyses the entanglement between the J.League, established in Japan in 1993 marking the beginning of professional football in the country, and processes of socio-economic development in rural/peripheral areas. The J.League project emerged both as an attempt to transform Japan’s sports culture through investment in a globally popular sport and as a strategy to revitalise both urban and peripheral regions. Three decades after its foundation, the project can be considered relatively successful from both cultural and economic perspectives: it has improved and expanded football infrastructure and contributed to the widespread diffusion of football culture across the archipelago. However, while existing literature has addressed some of the socio-economic implications of the J.League (Horne 2002; 2004), the anthropological impact of its mega-events on supporters’ ritual practices, well-being, and forms of social development remains underexplored.

After outlining a theoretical framework that situates the concepts of ritual, well-being, and development within a contemporary socio-economic context, the paper draws on ethnographic case studies conducted among Japanese professional football supporters from different geographical areas, aiming to highlight variations in the ritual experience of mega-events and to examine how well-being is negotiated within a contemporary society shaped by capitalist value systems.