TITLE:
Community Creation by Residents and Tourists via Takachiho kagura in Japanese Rural Area
AUTHORS:
Shiro Horiuchi
KEYWORDS:
Community Boundary; Local Culture; Outsiders
JOURNAL NAME:
Sociology Mind,
Vol.2 No.3,
July
13,
2012
ABSTRACT: Rural communities are disappearing in Japan due to aging, depopulation, and changes in lifestyles. Recently, outsiders such as immigrants, volunteers, and tourists cooperate with residents to revive and maintain rural communities. This paper uses my fieldwork in the rural areas of Takachiho, where the Japanese traditional dance kagura is well-known, to consider the possibility that residents and tourists cooperatively create shared communities. Actually, an increasing number of tourists visit Takachiho to see kagura. Consequently, some dancers miss “classical” kagura, which involved almost exclusively local residents in intimate interactions. Nonetheless, many dancers welcome the influx of tourists and its stimulation of community festivals. Some tourists are attracted to kagura at community festivals, and some dancers and tourists have tried to forge bridges between their groups to create a shared community. The existence of kagura becomes an important common symbol that connects members of local communities.