Qualitative Research on Succession of Festivals and Folk performing Arts in Marginal Villages: Focusing on Relations and Mediators between Inhabitants, Out-Migrants, and Lifestyle Migrants
My project sheds light on the maintenance and succession of festivals and folk performing arts in depopulating communities through cooperation among local residents, out-migrants, and in-migrants, the potentials therefor, and the restructuring of organizations for succession. I focus on the mutual hesitation and friction arising in such case. Examples include the discomfort that residents and out-migrants feel at the participation of in-migrants in their festivals, the confusion felt by in-migrants at the gaze and customs of residents, and the role of individuals and organizations that mediate between the two groups. I also analyze how the festivals and folk performing arts are sustained as these problems are addressed (or left unresolved). Studying these kinds of processes in the communal activity in small communities is an exploration not simply of the festivals and arts themselves, but also of the potential for communities to be sustained through the interrelationship of residents, out-migrants, and in-migrants. Depopulation and ageing in rural areas, the roles played by in-migrants, and the viability of communities are problems that exist around the world as a whole as well as in Japan. This is why I aim to take into account community studies by rural sociologists overseas and studies in the field of lifestyle migration on rural communities and the roles of in-migrants within them, as well as to communicate my findings to audiences beyond Japan.
