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Paper short abstract

Through fieldwork conducted in Ogata, a state-planned reclaimed village, this paper demonstrates how both visible and invisible local actors uphold community life. Utilizing ANT, it examines how residents interpret and implement state and digital policies to facilitate endogenous revitalization.

Paper long abstract

Ogata in Akita prefecture occupies a distinctive position in Japan’s regional development history. Created in the 1960s as part of the “kensetsu kokka” project of postwar nation-building, the village was constructed on reclaimed land and envisioned as a model agricultural community. Today, however, this planned settlement faces the structural challenges shared by many rural regions in Japan: demographic decline, aging, economic dependence on agriculture, and the uncertain promises of digitalization initiatives such as the Digital Garden City Nation policy.

Drawing on anthropological fieldwork and in-depth interviews with residents, this paper analyzes Ogata through the lens of Actor-Network theory. Rather than understanding rural revitalization as the result of centralized policy, the study examines the interaction of diverse local actors and infrastructures. The analysis distinguishes between visible actors (community leaders, organizers, and cooperative entrepreneurs), invisible actors (institutional structures, infrastructures, care practices, subsidy systems, and social expectations), and partially visible actors who shift between these roles depending on the context.

A central finding concerns the paradoxical presence of the state. Although the village is a product of strong state planning, residents rarely describe the state as an active partner. Instead, the state is experienced as a diffuse framework embedded in rules, infrastructures, and administrative routines. Residents thus function as translators who selectively reinterpret external programs, including digital initiatives, in accordance with local rhythms, relationships, and community ethics.

The paper argues that Ogata mura should not be seen either as a nostalgic “furusato” or as a declining peripheral settlement. Rather, it represents an evolving social experiment in which modernization continues to be negotiated from within. Sustainable revitalization depends less on renewed top-down projects and more on strengthening endogenous networks of cooperation, care, and everyday practice that quietly sustain community life. This case contributes to broader debates on regional restructuring, governance, and resilience in shrinking Japan.