This book explores the decline of rural and peripheral areas in Japan, which results from an aging population, outmigration of the younger generations, and the economic decline of the primary sector. Based on extensive original research, the book examines in detail the case of the Noto peninsula. Allowing the locals to tell their stories, describe their problems, and come up with possible solutions, the book demonstrates the serious impact of rural decline on their daily life and work and highlights the struggle to sustain rural living in the globalized age. It argues that some recent innovations in global media, economy, technology, and ideology offer scope for reversing the decline, as some central government initiatives do, but that these are not always noticed, appreciated, and made use of by local people. The book also discusses the nature of the links between the peripheries and the centres – regional, national, and global – and how these often take the form of "internal colonialism."

This book discusses the place of creative village policy in the revitalisation of rural Japan, highlighting how rural Japan is moving from a state of regional extinction to regional rejuvenation. Using the case study of Tamba Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, where collective initiatives by local government and the role of the local traditional potters are invested in fostering an aura of creativity in the region, the book examines the complex social relations and the intertwining values of different actors to illustrate how a growing outlook on creativity, rurality, and rural creativity requires a renewed perspective on and of rural Japan. Based on extensive field research, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Japanese studies, rural studies, and anthropology.

This volume is the first book-length collection on Japanese literary and popular cultural responses to the coronavirus pandemic in English. Disrupting the narrative of COVID-19 as a catastrophe without precedent, this book contextualizes the COVID-19 global public health crisis and pandemic-induced social and political turbulence in a post-industrial society that has withstood multiple major destructions and disasters. From published fiction by major authors to anonymous accounts on social media, from network TV shows to contents by Virtual YouTubers (VTubers), in both "high" and "low" culturescapes, timely representations of coronavirus and individual and social livings under its impact emerge. These narratives, either personal or top-down, all endeavor to fathom this unexpected disruption of modern linear progress. Exploring the paradoxes underlying the "new normal" of Japanese society of the present day, the book collectively demonstrates how the narratives of coronavirus are not "neo-" but "re-": returning to the past, revealing existing problems and reclaiming memories lost and lessons forgotten. This edited volume will be of interest to researchers and students in the fields of Japanese culture and society, Japanese literature, and pandemic studies.

This Handbook on Food Tourism provides an overview of the past, present and future of research traditions, perspectives, and concerns about the food tourism phenomenon. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, it contributes to the historical and anthropological understanding of the nexus between food, society and tourism that underpins the divergent business and marketing efforts in tourism today.

This volume considers world-making as the intersection of the fan pilgrimage experience and the responses of destinations. It critically examines the emerging field of popular culture tourism and its close connection with fan studies and placemaking. The chapters illustrate how different destinations capitalise on expressive cultural practices to attract fan tourists, the processes involved in their tourismification, and the outcomes for both visitors and local communities. The book establishes a common ground for the comprehensive and critical study of popular culture tourism development and fandom. It integrates theory and practice and provides evidence-based recommendations for popular culture destinations. It is a useful resource for researchers in tourism management, fandom, pop culture and media studies, as well as for those working in the tourism industry.

This book is an exploration of media scandals in contemporary Japanese society. In shedding new light on the study of scandal in Japan, the book offers a novel view of scandal as a specific mediatized ritual which follows moral disturbances throughout Japanese history. Media and society are analyzed largely in terms of social performances, while the focus is on how Japanese transgressors talk and act when explaining their scandals to the public. A detailed analysis of three case studies is provided: the drug scandal of the popular Japanese celebrity Sakai Noriko; the donation scandal centering the heavyweight politician Ozawa Ichirō; and the Olympus accounting fraud revealed by the British CEO Michael Woodford. This book will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, anthropology, communication and media studies.

In contrast to most studies of migration, which assume that migrants arrive from less developed countries to the industrialised world, where they suffer from discrimination, poor living conditions and downward social mobility, this book examines a different sort of diaspora – descendants of Japanese migrants or "Nikkei" – in Bolivia, who, after a history of organised migration, have achieved middle-class status in a developing country, while enjoying much symbolic capital among the majority population. Based on extensive original research, the book considers the everyday lives of Nikkei and their identity, discusses how despite their relative success they remain not fully integrated into Bolivia's imperfect pluricultural society and explores how they think about, and relate to, Japan.