PLACE-MAKING UNDER JAPAN’S NEOLIBERAL REGIME: ETHICS, LOCALITY, AND COMMUNITY IN RURAL HOKKAIDO BY CHENG-HENG CHANG DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2015 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Zsuzsa Gille, Chair Associate Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Assistant Professor Markus S. Schulz Associate Professor Kristen Schultz Lee, University at Buffalo, SUNY ABSTRACT How should people live in rural Japan today? And how can they live together in declining communities? As counter-urbanization and the trend of rural revitalization have become a major scene of cultural politics in contemporary Japan, these fundamental questions become more and more important. To respond to the puzzle, it is necessary to re-conceptualize community for the sake of capturing the changing nature of rural society and delineating the current configuration of rural communities. Rather than viewing the countryside as a construct of urban consumerism, the active role and subjective meaning of local advocates of rural revitalization require systematic study. Only with a better understanding of rural community can researchers make a fair evaluation of the practices of place-making in Japan today. To answer the questions, I conducted a yearlong fieldwork on a rural revitalization project called the BVP in a rural town of Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan. A local non-profit organization, the ODC, sponsors this project, which aims to recruit retired urbanites to settle in their depopulated town to practice pesticide-free farming. During my residency in Hokkaido, I did participant observation in the activities and events of the BVP, and followed the daily practices of the major participants. In addition to that, I also did archival research and in-depth interviews to collect necessary data. Through the long-term fieldwork, I found that the implementation of the BVP has created a new form of communal life, which I term, a “rhizomatous community.” Urbanite newcomers settle down in different corners of the township via the assistance of the ODC, and work with native residents on the same ground. The ODC members mobilize available resources to realize the BVP, including people, extra income and food, and public assets. In so doing, the BVP grows into a discursive community that does not physically exist but that is substantially constituted by ii face-to-face contact, seasonal events, gift exchange, and various interactions with nature. In this respect, the BVP can be imagined as an assembled network that is composed of heterogeneous actors and things. The BVP as a rhizomatous community is embedded in the specific context of a regional society and its natural environment. The study contributes to community studies by challenging the understandings of community in classical and contemporary theories. A rhizomatous community is neither an interpersonal network existing in a socio-geographic vacuum, nor a traditional or newly invented neighborhood situated in a spatially bounded place. Rather, it is a heterogeneous assemblage discursively constituted through the process of producing locality. It is liberated from while remaining associated with traditional bonds such as family, kinship, and neighborhood. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to the people who shared their lives and experiences with me in Oshamambe, Japan, the majority of whose names I will not list in order to protect their privacy. This particular project would not have been possible without the help and continuous engagement of Yamauchi Keiji, who introduced me to the fictional community, “Bochibochi Village.” The modest supporter of Bochibochi Village, who I call Sayo, passed away in two years after I left the field. I hope my writing does some justice to her kindness and generosity. I will always remember and value the afternoons I spent with Shira, Koba, and others at Shaman. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Zsuzsa Gille, the advisor and the chair of my dissertation committee. My experience of participating in her seminars and lectures help me build my own scholarship. I am greatly indebted to her sharp comments and great patience to guide me through the maze of dissertation writing. I also thank her for keeping faith in me and for all her support over the years. I would like to thank the other members of my committee as well: Professor Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi, Professor Markus Schulz, and Professor Kristen Schultz Lee. I thank Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi for being nice and supportive to me whenever I went to him. I am grateful to Markus Schulz for his timely encouragement and substantial introduction to academic resources. Without their guidance, I would not be able to complete this dissertation. I am also thankful to Professor Kristen Schultz Lee from University at Buffalo, State University of New York for being willing to join my committee and giving all the advices on Japanese studies. My thanks also go to the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign that funded my doctoral study. I thank the constant assistance and encouragement of Shari Day of the department. Among the fellow students, I am especially fortunate to know iv Ryuta Komaki, Adrian Cruz, Kazuyo Kubo, Jeong Won Choi, and James Welker, who were not only excellent colleagues to make intellectual conversations but also the best partners to hang out with. I am grateful to Professor Andrew Pickering, for teaching me the richness of science and technology studies. I thank Professor Tim Liao for teaching me the nuts and bolts of academic writing. I also owe a special debt to Professor Sho Konishi, who introduced the world of global history and Hokkaido studies to me, which has been one of the key sources of inspiration for me. The Master Program of Social Sciences (MAPSS) at University of Chicago was the beginning of my postgraduate study in the United States. I was very fortunate to reunite with my old friends Li-Chung Cheng and Ke-Chin Hsia at the university, who were critical to my intellectual life in Hyde Park. My research was made possible by the excellent language training I received at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies (IUC) in Yokohama, Japan. Particular thanks to Sato Ari, whose patient explanation and tailor-made instruction were immensely helpful in the developing stage of my Japanese research. My field research was funded by fellowships from Ministry of Education, Taiwan and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, whose generosity I gratefully acknowledge. Grants from the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica and The Global Center of Excellence (GCOE) for "Reconstruction of the Intimate and Public Spheres in 21st Century Asia" at Kyoto University supported the writing of this dissertation. I am grateful to Professor Scott North at School of Human Sciences of Osaka University, who was willing to host me for doing my field research in Hokkaido. I am also thankful to the Institute of Sociology, Academia Sinica in Taiwan, which funded my dissertation writing. v Several research fellows of the Institute gave me invaluable comments and encouragement. I especially thank Dr. Gwo-Shyong Shieh for pushing me to think further and more deeply than I would have done by myself, and Dr. Chin-Chun Yi who kindly introduced me to important academic circles related to my study. I thank Professor Ochiai Emiko and Professor Matsuda Motoji for kindly inviting me to visit the GCOE at Kyoto University as a short-term research fellow. I owe special debt to the GCOE research fellows, Dr. Kawabata Kohei and Dr. Inomata Yusuke. Finally, I would like to thank my family, who make my life much more meaningful. I am deeply grateful to my parents, Chia-Po Chang and Tsai-Jen Huang, who always support me in varied forms. I thank my sister for encouraging me while taking care of the elderly in the family. I value my every day with P and Hsi. Special thanks go to my wife, Yi-Ping Shih, who has been an inspiring partner and a faithful supporter of my academic dream since we met each other. vi Table of Contents CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO THE NEOLIBERALIZATION OF PLACE-MAKING IN CONTEMPORARY JAPAN: THE COMMODIFICATION OF LOCALITIES SINCE THE 1980S ............................................... 46 CHAPTER THREE A PLACE NAMED OSHAMAMBE: FIELDWORK SETTINGS .................................................................................................................. 102 CHAPTER FOUR FROM CONSTRUCTING IDENTITY TO BRANDING: MAKING A NEOLIBERAL LOCALITY ............................................................................................ 151 CHAPTER FIVE THE FORMATION OF “RHIZOMATOUS” COMMUNITY: RECIPROCITY, VOLUNTARISM, AND INDIVIDUALITY .......................................................... 188 CHAPTER SIX THE ETHICAL FRICTION IN THE COMMUNITY: NEOLIBERAL REALITY AND ROOTED SUBJECTIVITY ........................................................... 247 CHAPTER SEVEN CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................................................... 281 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................