Paper short abstract:

This paper scrutinizes the persistence of romanticized representation of rural Japan in public policies dealing with rural population crisis. Following ethnographic data, I demonstrate how the discourse is reproduced in public institutions, and resonates with the Crafts Movement in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Post-war Japan is renowned for its rapid post-war recovery and miraculous economic achievements. But as much as it has been about growth, it has also been about relative 'de-growth' and widening disparities among different regions. In particular, stark rural depopulation has been a grave concern shared in national level. In response, the recent state government has been supporting local governments to enact a 'self-help' resolution; to revitalise regional economy using locally embedded resources. In this course, many local governments in rural areas have been investing in rediscovering the market value of local traditions or crafts works with public grants. However, such optimistic prospects reflected in making ideal representation of rural Japan has to be seen more critically. The enchanted symbolic value of rurality makes invisible the actual problems that people in rural areas are facing everyday.

In this paper, I will critically examine the persistence of romanticized representation of rural Japan in public policies aimed alleviating depopulation in Japan's countryside. Tracing ethnographic context based on a year fieldwork in Tamba Sasayama, Japan, I demonstrate how such discourse is (re)produced in public institutional settings. Also, showing how the current tendency resonates with the Crafts Movement (Mingei Undō) in 1920s and post-war Japan, I will describe how rural romanticization recurs in history. One should look at how all these projects are carved out by different agents with various expectations invested in them.