Redefining rural life: Discussing sustainability in Japan’s countryside in ... (S. Polak-Rottmann) скачать в хорошем качестве

Redefining rural life: Discussing sustainability in Japan’s countryside in ... (S. Polak-Rottmann)

VSJF Annual Conference 2024 'Sustainability in Japan' Programme and Details https://dij.tokyo/vsjf2024 Redefining rural life: Discussing sustainability in Japan's countryside in times of population decline Sebastian Polak-Rottmann (German Institute for Japanese Studies, DIJ Tokyo) Discourses on sustainability frequently address questions on a broad scale – national, supra-national or even global – in order to evaluate sustainable ways of production, living, consumption or distribution. This talk, however, sheds light on areas and communities of a smaller scale that are associated with declining production and consumption. Rural Japan faces a dilemma in terms of sustainability. Due to a continuous decline in population and a growing share of older people among the remaining residents, many areas struggle to sustain their population and standard of living. Revitalisation measures often include attracting more tourists to the region which is not necessarily linked to ideas of sustainability. On the other hand, frequently occurring natural hazards and a strong national discourse on the SDGs might lead to higher awareness towards sustainability. Against this backdrop, how can we understand rural sustainability in Japan? In this talk, I take a closer look at the lived experiences of local people and how their practices contribute to sustainability. Based on fieldwork in three rural areas in Japan, I discuss three aspects of sustainability in rural areas in Japan, covering sustainable production, resilience and sustainable lifestyles. Despite a challenging economic and demographic outlook in these regions, I was able to detect several local approaches that include both innovative and older community practices. I demonstrate how a diverse set of local actors create small places of social exchange that promote ideas of sustainability. While the approaches differ in content, locality and structure, they resemble in creating awareness for the importance of local natural resources and in offering ways to use them sustainably. Although still small in size, these approaches illustrate “rural” ways of dealing with discourses on sustainability and create alternative perspectives to the narratives of decline and growth in rural Japan. Sebastian Polak-Rottmann is senior research fellow at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo. He focuses on the resilience of local communities in three areas in rural Japan. Specifically, he analyses “places of resilience” that local residents design to enable social exchange in declining areas. He received his PhD in 2022 (Vienna) on the well-being and political participation in the Aso region in Southern Japan. His recent publications include Wie politische Partizipation Freude bereiten kann: Sechs Dimensionen des subjektiven Wohlbefindens politisch handelnder Personen im ländlichen Japan. (Iudicium, 2024) and Reflections from three projects involving students as researchers during the COVID-19 Pandemic (together with Antonia Miserka; Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna, 2023). Cite as: Polak-Rottmann, Sebastian. 2024. “Redefining rural life: Discussing sustainability in Japan’s countryside in times of population decline”. Sustainability in Japan. Lecture series, ed. by Conrad, Harald, Barbara Holthus, Axel Klein. YouTube    • Redefining rural life: Discussing sus...  . Connect with the DIJ Tokyo YouTube:    / dijtokyo   Website: https://www.dijtokyo.org Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/dijtokyo.org LinkedIn:   / dijtokyo   Newsletter: https://dij.tokyo/newsletter