Between Organized Life Course, Slow Life and Innovation? Achieving Sustainability in Contemporary Japan

Session Submission Type: Organized Panel

Abstract

The theme of the panel is the ongoing shift of values in contemporary Japan from a society focused on economic growth, organized lifecourse and status to social capital, shrinkage and diversified lifestyles. Presenters will examine attempts by stakeholders in various contexts in modern and contemporary Japan to approach issues such as depopulation, economic downturn, aging populations, gender inequality and increasing social precarity (Allison 2013) to the end of creating a more sustainable society, i.e. a society that “meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” as defined in the Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987:8). Scholars from the disciplines of sociology, anthropology, history and Japanese studies present case studies that show how women in agriculture, apparel makers in fast fashion, corporate workers on the move and entrepreneurs and lifestyle migrants in rural Japan envisage and implement environmental, economic and social sustainability. We will discuss emerging forms of regional employment, community empowerment, sustainable production and consumption and work-life balance. Redefining previous conceptions of ‘sustainability’ (Komiyama, Takeuchi 2006, Komiyama 2014) by focusing on the individual level of ‘well-being’ of selected actors, panelists will examine the challenges and benefits of new conceptualizations of post-material lifestyles and values that tend to be concerned with temporary ‘small-scale happiness’ (Furuichi 2011). Panelists will also explore historical aspects of contemporary attempts and analyze the challenges that stakeholders face in implementing their respective visions of greater sustainability in an increasingly stratified society.

Area of Study

• Japan

Session Organizer

• Susanne Klien, Hokkaido University

Chair

• Adrian Favell, University of Leeds

Individual Presentations

• The Life-Changing Magic of Transfers? Kondo Marie, Personnel Moves, and Worker Well-Being - Blaine P. Connor, University of Pittsburgh

• Sustaining Everyday Life: Mothers’ Life Reform and Sustainability Efforts in Post-WWII Rural Japan - Noriko Yamaguchi, School of the Art Institute Chicago

• Constraint and Opportunity: Entrepreneurs and Return Migration in Rural Japan - John W. Traphagan, University of Texas at Austin

• Reinventing Ishinomaki, reinventing Japan? Evolving creative networks, alternative lifestyles and the search for quality in life in post-growth Japan - Susanne Klien, Hokkaido University

Discussant

• Adrian Favell, University of Leeds