Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the motivations of a group of residents in South Osaka, who have established a local 'mutual aid' system of volunteer services. Their feeling of hopelessness and impotence is contrasted with their strong sense of responsibility and their notable achievements.

Paper long abstract:

Long-lasting economic downturn and a rapid process of population aging, along with concomitant processes such as increasing atomization, appear to be responsible for widespread feelings of hopelessness in the contemporary Japanese society. Older people in particular suffer from increasing social isolation, to the extent that Japan has been described as a 'society without ties' (muen shakai). Dissatisfied with changes in their immediate surroundings, some local community residents aspire to create networks of support by engaging in a range of small-scale projects that help people to imagine alternative institutions, resembling what Erik Olin Wright has referred to as 'real utopias'. Building on Ernst Bloch's idea of 'ontologies of the not-yet', this paper explores the motivations of one such group of residents in South Osaka, who have drawn on the ideas of social activist Tsutomu Hotta to establish a local 'mutual aid' system of volunteer services. Narratives of hopelessness and an oft-reported feeling of inability to make a significant difference in the wider social world contrast markedly with peoples' sense of responsibility for others and for their own local environment and achievement in establishing an effective new network of support. This paradox foregrounds the role of motivation and virtue in considerations of hope in this contemporary urban context.