ABSTRACT
This book inquires what is meant when we say "local" and what "local" means in the Japanese context.
Through the window of locality, it enhances an understanding of broader political and socio-economic shifts in Japan. This includes demographic change, electoral and administrative reform, rural decline and revitalization, welfare reform, as well as the growing metabolic rift in energy and food production. Chapters throughout this edited volume discuss the different and often contested ways in which locality in Japan has been reconstituted, from historical and contemporary instances of administrative restructuring, to more subtle social processes of making – and unmaking – local places. Contributions from multiple disciplinary perspectives are included to investigate the tensions between overlapping and often incongruent dimensions of locality. Framed by a theoretical discussion of socio-spatial thinking, such issues surrounding the construction and renegotiation of local places are not only relevant for Japan specialists, but also connected with topical scholarly debates further afield.
Accordingly, Rethinking Locality in Japan will appeal to students and scholars from Japanese studies and human geography to anthropology, history, sociology and political science.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part Section I|66 pages
(Re)lating localities as lived spaces in Japan
chapter 3|15 pages
Localized Yet Deterritorialized Lives in Rural Japan
part Section II|49 pages
Local social worlds at risk
chapter 7|15 pages
Mapping The Local Economy Of Care
part Section III|71 pages
Localities under contestation
chapter 9|16 pages
Defending The Local
chapter 10|15 pages
Local Governance of Public Transport Services
chapter 11|19 pages
Territorialized Yet Fluid Locality
part Section IV|54 pages
Local—national dynamics
chapter 13|15 pages
Furusato Nōzei Tax
chapter 14|20 pages
Uprooting the Political Landscape
part Section 5|17 pages
Coda