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Paper short abstract

This paper examines the movement of technical intern trainees working in agriculture in upland Japan. It shows how they keep moving, and make themselves indispensable, despite being constrained in an isolated community, whilst also highlighting the limits of these creative mobile practices.

Paper long abstract

Agricultural practice in Japan has shifted dramatically over the past 30 years, with an ageing rural population, liberalisation of agricultural markets, and the removal of subsidies that propped up a proliferation of part-time, small-scale Japanese farmers. The sector has now come to rely heavily on foreign labour, particularly in the form of ‘technical intern trainees’ who ‘learn on the job’ in various short-staffed industries. In practice, this means local farmers being responsible for young farmhands often from South-East Asian countries, who find themselves in isolated rural communities, often without a means of getting around beyond foot, bicycles, and lifts from their employer.

This paper looks at the everyday mobilities of technical intern trainees working as farmhands in one upland village in Nagano prefecture Japan, and the techniques they use to ‘keep moving’ despite the limitations that are placed upon them. First, it will look at the ways that rhythmic mobility is maintained during the working day for trainees without being able to drive, despite the consolidation of farmland and expansion of activities that make constant movement vital to manage large areas. This includes utlising different means of moving between and within fields as part of work, and to other vital locations such as shops and supermarkets, with and without the help of their employers. Secondly, it will look at how, as young individuals, trainees maintain movement beyond their everyday work, both locally and across the country, finding ways of maintaining networks with other trainees, for example through sporting activities.

Based on an analysis of this movement, the paper will argue that technical intern trainees are highly mobile despite the constraints placed upon them, that this mobility works at multiple scales both within and beyond the confines of their working landscape, and that to maintain this mobility – a means of ‘keeping going’ that makes them indispensable to their employers whilst also allowing them to have social lives – requires a high degree of creativity. However, the contingent and limited way in which interns move, in contrast to their employers, impacts their ability to plan for futures beyond the farm.