Village values: Cultural adaptations to rural crisis

among upland communities in Japan.

Eric Cunningham
Paper two
Master of Arts, plan B
Department of Anthropology
University of Hawai‘i
Spring, 2007
Introduction

In Japan, the adaptive strategies of upland communities, which in the past allowed

for the sustainable use of natural resources, have been negatively impacted as they have

been drawn into larger national patterns of resource use. Forests that were important for

upland communities as sources of wild plants and animals, medicine, firewood, and green

fertilizer have been incorporated into larger socio-political realms and reinterpreted as

resources, first as timber and more recently as heritage resources for tourism. The socio-

cultural systems of upland communities also have been drawn into this larger national

strategy, causing the erosion of institutions, practices, and beliefs that had defined their

existence in the mountains of Japan. Unable to survive in changing natural environments

by employing traditional adaptive strategies, upland communities have attempted to

secure their livelihoods through a variety of measures: the promotion of heavy industry,

village-level production of specialty products, and most recently programs aimed at

drawing tourists. None of these strategies have been very effective however, and upland

villages continue to face the constant threat of extinction in Japan’s modernity.

Environmental studies in anthropology attempt to better understand natural

environments by focusing on the activities of humans. The essential and ubiquitous issue

is how humans relate to natural environments. I argue that humans relate to their natural

environments both physically with their bodies, but also culturally, imbuing natural

phenomena with meaning and value. Humans incorporate the natural world into socio-

cultural systems as they interact with and utilize natural phenomena (Bennett 1976,

Ingold 1993). The process by which humans convert nature into socio-natural

environments through the enactment of practices and customs is central to understanding

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upland regions in modern Japan as it allows us to analyze both the meaning and the

expression of a range of behaviors at a variety of scales, which means we can begin to

examine the processes by which local village-level landscapes 1 are transitioned into

larger national landscapes through time. After first exploring the historical development

of customary practices of resource use in upland communities, I will provide an

evaluation of adaptive strategies employed by modern day villages. Next, I will identify

what I am labeling ‘maladaptive forces’: processes that impact the ability of upland

communities to stem deterioration and work towards attaining desired ends. Finally, I

will offer an evaluation of the current state socio-natural environments of upland regions

before suggesting possible avenues towards revitalization.

Human Behavior, Adaptation and Complexity

Upland communities in Japan do not comprise autonomous cultural groups.

Rather, they are part of a larger socio-political entity, the Japanese state, which means

they share a language and a host of socio-cultural features with an entire national

citizenry. Yet, in the past upland communities were often isolated and self-sufficient,

with unique socio-cultural features. Therefore, the study of human-environment

interactions in Japan’s upland areas requires an approach that allows for human behavior

to be interpreted within the context of multiple levels of socio-political interaction—from

the local to the national. Also, because humans constantly interact with natural

phenomena and convert them into culturally meaningful objects, a concept of adaptation

in which human behavior is interpreted within a socio-natural context of causation is

useful in addressing landscape change in upland Japan (Bennett 1976, Bennett 1993).

1
Here I use Smith’s definition of landscape as, “land transformed by human activity or perception”
(2003:10)

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The transitioning nature into the cultural sphere also occurs at multiple levels, meaning

that at a single moment nature is culturally mediated in a variety of ways. Therefore,

important questions to ask are: What strategies have allowed upland communities to

survive into the present? What factors have impacted the ability of upland communities

to maintain a good quality of living? What is needed for upland communities to persist in

the future?

Upland Villages in Japan

Approximately two thirds of modern Japan’s land surface is forested. And much

of this land is mountainous (Knight 2000). Arable land is scarce and so rice farming has

traditionally occurred on the broad flood plains of coastal Japan. Japan’s upland areas

are comprised almost entirely of forested land and human settlement is largely limited to

small villages with populations of about 2000 people or less. Villages are known as

sanson 山村, which literally means ‘mountain village’. However, since WWII out-

migration has been a persistent problem for upland villages, which currently are

estimated to account for less than 5 percent of the national population, while

municipalities designated as ‘depopulated’ by the government account for approximately

half of the national land area (Knight 2003).

Up until the Second World War, forests played a vital role in upland communities

by providing a variety of natural products essential to daily life, such as: thatch for

roofing, bamboo, charcoal, firewood, wild plants, medicinal herbs, and game. In order to

ensure access to these resources, upland villages maintained common lands, a pattern that

had developed at least by the Edo Period (1603-1867 A.D.). Management of common

lands was achieved through the elaboration of formal regulations designating appropriate

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times and techniques for the gathering of natural resources. Community members who

were assigned the task of patrolling common lands enforced regulations. Punishments

for violations were social in character, with the extreme being murahachibu 村八分

(ostracism) (McKean 1982).

The forest environments of upland regions were shaped by consistent human

disturbance, while the management of forests as common lands limited practices that

might undermine the long-term productivity of an area. Controlled burning of

meadowlands occurred annually in the common lands of many villages, which served to

burn off unwanted vegetation, while providing a layer of ash to promote the growth of

desired vegetation (McKean 1982). Thus human intervention in forest environments

helped to create mosaic land patterns, which have been shown to promote species

diversity (Wayman, 2007, Natsuhara 1999). In addition, maintaining open forests helped

to cultivate wild edible foods that were highly valued, such as: matsutake mushrooms,

warabi 蕨 (fern shoots), fukinotou 蕗の薹 (sweet coltsfoot), and other sansai 山菜

(mountain vegetables). Finally, human presence in the forests surrounding upland

villages helped create a ‘buffer zone’ that kept wildlife pests away from village crops

(Knight 2003).

This past pattern of forest utilization does not fit within the political economy of

modern Japan. Rather, upland communities have experienced modernity as a degrading

force, which has forced them to the periphery and siphoned off valuable human, natural,

and economic resources. With the decline in traditional practices have come shifts in

adaptive strategies, which have in turn changed the structure of forest landscapes (Fig. 1).

As village populations shrink due to out-migration, the open common-use forests of the

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past fall victim to neglect and begin to grow,

unmanaged, towards succession. Upland fields and

meadowlands are increasingly left vacant, allowing

forests to move ever closer to village boundaries.

These changes in forest structure are generally

disagreeable in an aesthetic sense, creating a

sabishii or lonely place and even encroaching on

village graves (Knight 2003).

Fig. 1: An unmanaged bamboo forest on the
Origins of Modern Upland Landscapes edge of a rice paddy (photo by author)

The years leading up to WWII were particularly turbulent for upland regions in

Japan. As the nation steered the country towards industrialism, nationalism, and

eventually imperialism and war, upland

communities came to play a prominent role.

Rural ways of life became ideologically tied to

national discourses promoting the divinity of

the emperor and the good of the nation. The

prosperity of individual households became

rhetorically tied to the prosperity of the nation

itself (Wilson 2003:65). New taxes began to

reshuffle patterns of land use towards the

Fig. 3: Stripped slopes in Tochigi Prefecture
(Bennett 2002)
cultivation of cash crops that could be sold for

money. Also, village institutions of common land management started to break down as

the government began seizing lands to secure resources. Industrialization brought

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widespread deforestation as more wood began to be used in the construction of railroads

and factories. Because bare slopes (Fig. 3) were unable to absorb precipitation, flooding

became rampant. Finally, in the 1930’s village communities suffered crippling poverty

when cash crops quickly lost value and Japan plummeted into a depression (Nishida

2003). The timeline in figure 4 gives a sense of the turbulent years preceding Japan’s

entrance into the Second World War.

Fig. A timeline of events that impacted upland communities from

the Meiji Restoration (1868) to WWII (timeline by author)

The post-war years were significant in the restructuring of upland environments in

Japan. Human-environment relations in the Japanese countryside had been dramatically

changing since the late 19th century, but with Japan’s defeat in WWII came a new push

towards modernization that was to transform rural lands into commodities and village

communities into labor pools. Post-war land reforms held both resonances and ruptures

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with past land-use practices; these were not only economical, but socio-cultural as well.

Continuities included the emphasis of traditional hierarchical social structures based on

concepts of the ie 家 (household) and mura 村 (village) in terms of land management

(Bennett 1993, Toshitaka 1968). This resonance with the past, however, was tempered

by the employment of highly educated land commissioners, who applied economic

rationale and statistical models to make management decisions based on the greater good

of the public (Iwamoto 2003). New employment opportunities began flooding into rural

areas, in the form of civil projects for road building, flood-control, and afforestation.

These new jobs became more and more attractive as foreign imports of agricultural

products and timber reduced the need for traditional forms of livelihood. In addition,

starting in the 1950’s the value of farm and forestlands, particularly those located near

cities and areas prime for the development of leisure facilities, began to skyrocket.

This combination of forces driving Japan’s modernization began to shape the

pattern of land-use that is common across Japan today. Many villagers opted to quit

farming and forestry, sell their land, and move to the cities. Though mountainous areas

have not been developed to the extent that lowland areas have, due to their isolation and

difficult geography, farming and forestry practices have still declined considerably,

leaving upland communities with few alternatives for subsistence.

Modern Upland Landscapes

The historical shifts in the political economy of Japan outlined above, including

land reforms, the development of market economies, and industrial modernization, have

over time incorporated socio-natural landscapes into broader realms of interaction. In

response to these transformations, upland communities have had to shift adaptive

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behaviors, which have promoted structural changes in natural landscapes. Land

conversion has in turn reinforced the emergence of new social institutions and modes of

land-use. By first exploring some of the adaptive strategies of modern upland

communities, I will attempt to link their emergence to broader socio-political forces.

This will allow me to next evaluate the effectiveness of these adaptive strategies, while

illuminating some of the maladaptive forces limiting their success. Finally, I will be able

to look to the future and offer some thoughts on alternative strategies for promoting

healthy upland communities in Japan.

The traditional adaptive strategies that developed in Japan’s upland areas involved

consistent human intervention in forestlands. The patterned landscape that such

intervention created over time has been labeled satoyama 里山 in recent times. Though

the term has a long history, it was revived in the 1960’s by Japanese forest ecologist

Tsunahide Shidei. Takeuchi, et al. define the term as, “a natural environment that is

being managed and, therefore, its basic element can be represented as secondary nature”

(Takeuchi et al. 2003:2). Satoyama are anthropogenic environments in which natural

diversity is said to be improved through the intervention of humans (Takeuchi et al.

2003). Though the satoyama model has come to embody certain nostalgia and there is

still debate concerning its temporal and spatial extent, I intend to use it as an ideal model

for understanding the ecological impacts of socio-cultural shifts in land management

practices that have occurred as upland areas have been further transitioned into the larger

socio-natural environment of the Japanese state.

The satoyama model (Fig. 5) suggests that in the past the maintenance of open

land around village homes, gardens, and fields was an important function of human

8
interventions into local forests. Open forest lands promoted the growth of valued wild

foods and created areas suitable for the gathering. Forest floors free from thick

undergrowth also allowed for ease in collecting leaf litter for use as green fertilizer. In

addition, human presence in

forestlands helped to

maintain a buffer around

villages that served to limit

wildlife pestilence. In

addition, because forests have

traditionally been perceived Fig. 5: The Satoyama model (Takeuchi et al. 2003:11, after Yamamoto 2001)

as the realm of spirits and other supernatural beings (Ivy 1995, Swanson 1981), the open

quality of forestlands continually ‘disturbed’ by humans were considered less frightening

and more aesthetically pleasing to many villagers, as they are today (Knight 2000).

The satoyama model emphasizes the importance of human-shaped forests as

intermediate regions between villages and climax forests and suggests that such areas

promoted biological diversity by maintaining a wide range of habitat types (Fukamachi,

Oku, and Nakashizuka 2001). However, upland regions in modern Japan are

transitioning more and more away from the satoyama model, due to the loss of human

labor and the abandonment of fields and forests. As an environment composed of natural

elements and modified by socio-culturally structured human activities, changes in

satoyama landscapes have both social and natural consequences. Threats from the forest

have come in imagined and realistic forms. As I’ve emphasized already, wildlife

pestilence has become a persistent problem for upland foresters and farmers who suffer

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increasingly severe economic losses. Incursions by wildlife, however, also impact

villagers’ sense of security and threaten cultural conceptions of village well-being. The

encroachment of forests disturbs culturally defined boundaries, threatening family graves

and homes and contributing to anxieties about the future of villages (Knight 2003). In the

face of changing landscapes, upland communities are responding to the new realities of

their socio-natural environments and employing new adaptive strategies. Essential to an

understanding the current state of crisis confronting Japan’s upland regions is an

examination of modern adaptive strategies and a critical exploration of why they succeed

or fail.

Modern Adaptive Strategies

Part-time farming and forestry

One of the strongest forces impelling change in upland regions has been the

linking of village communities, their practices and landscapes, to national and

international market economies. For upland communities, entrance into market

economies has meant a move away from subsistence activities, with farmers and foresters

becoming laborers producing commodities, rather than producers of materials to meet

their own daily necessities. The strategy of commodity production is risky when, at the

behest of market forces, labor is heavily invested in particular cash crops, weakening the

adaptive qualities of a strategy based on diversified risk (multiple subsistence techniques),

as was common in pre-modern Japan. This was exemplified in the early 20th century in

Nagano prefecture when rapid drops in the value of silkworm cocoons at the beginning of

Japan’s Great Depression, leaving devastated many families that had converted primary

cropland to mulberry cultivation in order to tap a lucrative silk market (Wilson 2003).

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 Left with few alternatives, since WWII most families have come to rely less and

less on farming for subsistence (Waswo 1988), thus freeing them to explore alternative

subsistence strategies outside the realms of farming and forestry. At the same time,

steady rises in the importation of agricultural and wood products to Japan have kept

domestic prices low enough that farming and forestry activities have become untenable.

There has emerged in Japan’s rural areas therefore, an increase in part-time farming and

forestry activities. Based on statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and

Fisheries of Japan we can see that from 1906 to 1995 the percentage of full time farmers

nationwide has dropped from 71% to

Fig. 6: Decline in Forestry Workers, 1955-95
12.4% (quoted in Jussaume Jr. 2003). (adapted from Iwai 2002)

A similar pattern of decline can be

seen among forestry workers (Fig. 6).

Part-time farming and forestry

can be viewed in part as a behavioral

response to milieu factors that have

recast Japan’s upland areas in the light of modern economics, so that the value of land

and labor—nature and humans—are now conceived in largely monetary terms. Upland

areas have taken on a quasi-urban character, with part-time forestry and farming being

supplemented with employment typical of urban areas (Knight 2000). Strategies of part-

time farming nullify historical systems of land-use maintained through cultural traditions

and practices that shaped the historical development of natural environments in upland

areas through the work of human bodies.

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Tourism and urban connections

Declines in the ‘value’ of traditional agricultural and forestry practices in upland

Japan have also lead to the emergence of tourism as an adaptive strategy. Tourism in

forest areas has gained in popularity in recent years as the Japanese economy has

continued to grow. At first glance, tourism appears to be a viable alternative for upland

areas. First and foremost, tourism provides much needed income. Also, drawing on

larger global discourses concerning eco-tourism, many in Japan argue the strategy is

‘green’, with little impact on local environments. Finally, rural tourism is tied to larger

national discourses surrounding notions of furusato 故郷 (hometown) and an innate

Japanese love of nature (Kalland 2002, Moon 1997),

which focus on the benefits of spending time in shizen

自然 (nature). However, a closer examination reveals

several areas of concern with tourism as an adaptive

strategy for upland regions.

The marketing or ‘recommoditization’ of upland

areas is potentially detrimental in that it conceptually

reconfigures landscapes to fit within an external

Fig. 7: Chairlifts loaded with rice (photo
by Mainichi Daily News)
strategy of adaptation, one that draws its context from

the national level. Understood as socio-natural systems, this means that local

environments are opened to the impacts of an entirely new set of processes originating

somewhere beyond the local-level. Upland areas in Nagano prefecture, for example,

have had to cope with the impacts of increased numbers of visitors who come to enjoy a

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variety of outdoor sports, with the heaviest impacts coming from ski resort development

(Fig. 7). Development projects meant to attract tourists may generate some income for

impoverished areas; however, there is no guarantee on the sustainability of such

approaches as their effectiveness depends on outside factors, including urban economic

and market trends.

The strategy of converting lands for the development of tourism is based on

conceptions of upland areas that have emerged as they have become integrated with

larger national and international systems of values. These values are often clothed in

environmental discourses, yet can be ecologically damaging, in that they tend to

emphasize a particular aspect of a natural landscape and then offer it to the public.

Ascribing value based on external trends doesn’t make sense ecologically, because

complex landscapes begin to be shaped by decision-making concerned with preserving

single elements (Moon 1997). Rural tourism campaigns often pay attention only to the

needs and desires of urban tourists (see for example Thompson 2004), rather than

focusing on the integrity of a natural landscape. Therefore, the shaping of upland areas

according to external values disrupts socio-natural environments by undermining the

ability of local residents to make decisions based on information rooted in a temporal

breadth of interactions with the natural environment. For example, Knight has shown

how modern day ‘monkey parks’ in Japan, by provisioning Japanese macaques (Macaca

fuscata) in order to keep them out of the forest and within the sight of tourists, have

reconfigured troop feeding habits so that little time is spent foraging in forest habitats.

This has been detrimental, not only for the macaques themselves, who depend

13
physiologically on time spent procuring food, but also for local farmers who suffer the

economic damage and cultural ambivalence of monkey pestilence (Knight 2006).

A promising development of increased rural tourism in Japan is the increased

level of interest among urban populations concerning upland areas, farming, and forestry.

However, this too has largely been clouded by notions of ‘traditional’ communities and

pure nature. Still, both rural and urban residents have built on this mutual interest to

establish new meaningful relationships. In some areas, for example, volunteer forest

associations have grown up around privately owned plantations for which owners are

unable to provide needed labor. Urban residents with a desire to spend time in a natural

forest setting are able to spend weekends working as a forester (Matsushita and Hirata

2002). On the one hand, these relationships have been beneficial for upland areas,

helping to bring much needed labor to maintain forests that would otherwise be

abandoned. On the other hand, such strategies tend to bolster Japan’s urban-focused

political economy by addressing the concerns of upland areas only as far as they relate to

the needs of urban residents. In an extreme

example, rather than have children go to the

trouble of traveling to the countryside,

organizers of an event in Roppongi in the

center of Tokyo constructed a rice paddy atop

a shopping mall so that urban children could

Fig. 8: Children in Tokyo harvest rice from a recreated
paddy (photo by Mainichi Daily News)
experience rice harvesting (Fig.7). The

exhibit came complete with ‘rural’ women wearing ‘rural’ clothing. The merits of these

types of relationships are difficult to judge. Although increased awareness of rural areas

14
is desirable, when they are part of larger national discourses, which draw on notions of

the rural as an embodiment of the nation itself and as a tourist product, the needs of rural

communities are not given full attention.

Recruitment and settlement

The migration of young adults from upland areas to Japan’s metropolises over the

last couple of decades has left upland communities with lopsided populations comprised

mostly of elderly individuals. Because many city-dwelling ‘villagers’ return annually or

semi-annually to visit graves and see family members, family homes and lands are often

not sold and eventually fall into disrepair and become overgrown, (Knight 1997a). In the

face of massive depopulation, village governments began to implement programs

directed at attracting younger people interested in settling and farming in upland areas

(Knight 1997a).

At first glance, this new trend seems like a possible solution (or at least partial

solution) to sever depopulation and landscape degradation affecting upland areas, yet

conflicts have arisen from encounters between villagers (those whose families have a

temporal longevity in a certain area) and settlers from urban areas (Knight 1997a).

Though these conflicts tend to be expressed in terms of differences in land-use behaviors

(i.e. the use of herbicides), they hint at deeper disparities between values and beliefs that

draw their meaning from separate socio-cultural contexts. A brief evaluation of these

disparities provides a greater appreciation of the socio-cultural elements of land-use

systems that have developed over time in Japan, while providing an opportunity for

critical analysis of aspects of these systems that might be labeled ‘maladaptive’.

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 A common theme that emerges in discussions of the differences between

established villagers and newer settlers is that of conservativism versus radicalism. What

we might call ‘radical farming’ consists of several elements: 1) a concern for the

environment that draws on environmentalist themes; 2) an adherence to organic

agricultural practices; 3) an interest in social movements for justice and equity; and 4) an

interest in traditional practices and nativist sentiments (Moen 2002a, Moen 2002b). None

of these elements per se are opposed to those attitudes and behaviors exhibited by many

villager in upland areas, however they are based in philosophical writings that have

developed at a national level and represent, therefore, a philosophical system and

adaptive strategy that has little relation to the local landscapes to which they are being

applied. It is this disjunction that is at the heart of much conflict between radical farmers

and traditional upland villagers (Knight 1997a).

As the natural landscapes of upland areas in Japan are transitioned into

increasingly larger social spheres, the causal processes that work to structure these

landscapes also proliferate. Balée has argued that humans and their landscapes can be

understood and studied as total phenomena and that different socio-political and

economic systems affect natural landscapes in qualitatively different ways (Balée 1998).

I have argued that through time, the local socio-natural environments of upland Japan

were progressively incorporated into larger socio-political and economic systems. If

Balée’s notion of ‘total phenomena’ is correct, this incorporation has included not only

natural landscapes, but associated human communities as well. However, when we

examine conflicts between upland human communities and the larger nation, it is clear

that these local communities were never fully incorporated. They maintain a sense of

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local cultural values, which inform ideas about the proper ways of interacting with local

environments. The incorporation of the socio-natural landscapes and human

communities of Japan’s upland regions has not been a simple, uncontested process, but

one that continues to be full of contradictions as well as continuities. What is important

in terms of the state of crisis in upland regions today is the ability to analyze processes of

incorporation in order to identify the maladaptive forces driving degradation. If the goal

is to ensure healthy human communities and natural environments, then it is reasonable

that an analysis of maladaptive forces should be made from the perspective of the local

landscape. It is to such an analysis that I turn next.

Maladaptive Forces

Essential to past adaptive strategies common in upland communities was the use

of common lands regulated by village level socio-cultural systems to protect against

exploitation that might compromise the ability to use such lands in the future. From the

end of the 19th century, conventions of common usage began to destabilize as socio-

natural landscapes were sucked into the eddying whirlpools of the emerging Japanese

state. This historical event set into motion forces that contributed to the emergence of

new social institutions and patterns of resource use that have continued to be maladaptive

for upland communities to this day. Therefore, understanding the character of these

maladaptive forces and the manner in which they shape natural landscapes provides a

framework for making meaningful statements concerning future social agendas for

revitalizing upland communities.

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Urban Migration

The migration of village residents to Japan’s metropolitan areas has been

devastating for the wellbeing of upland communities. Since WWII, population decreases

among upland villages have been severe, with many areas losing more than half of their

residents (Knight 2003:21). The individual motivations for migrating to urban areas are

numerous and involve a variety of nuanced socio-cultural and economic factors. It is

beyond the scope of this paper to delve into any of these in a comprehensive way, so it

will suffice to conceive of migration as a behavioral choice, which on a large scale has

resulted in widespread depopulation of upland regions. Depopulation has been

detrimental to upland communities due to losses in labor needed to maintain the integrity

of natural environments that have been shaped through human activity for hundreds of

years. Landscape manifestations of depopulation (i.e. overgrown forests, dilapidated

homes, and weed-filled paddies), in turn, influence future behavioral choices made by

village residents (for example, whether to leave the village or not). This has created a

downward spiral of degradation, from which upland communities have been unable to

escape.

Rural depopulation has been most severe in the post-war period, but its origins

can be traced back to the turn of the century and the Meiji government’s push towards

modernization. In the opening decades of the 20th century, the socio-natural

environments of upland regions were transformed physically, socially, and culturally to

become part of the new Japanese nation. In this transformation, upland regions that had

been largely autonomous and self-sufficient became peripheries of Japan’s megalopolises,

unable to sustain themselves in the modern economy. In other words, the social-natural

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environments and adaptive strategies of upland regions were drawn into a national system

with differing sets of needs and desires; thus, the value ascribed to both humans and

nature shifted to match this new reality.

In the Meiji Period (1868-1912) as forest land was placed under government

control and rights of usufruct severely restricted (Toshitaka 1968), a system of

relationships based on cooperation, obligation, and debt that had guided village level

interactions, both with the natural environment and between individuals, began to be

unraveled. The consolidation of traditional villages (from 79,000 to 14,000 by the 1880’s)

caused wariness and stress as established local systems of social relationships were

considerably expanded. At the same time, villagers also found themselves suddenly a

part of a national system, with an entirely new set of obligations, such as mandatory

elementary education and military conscription (Waswo 1988).

Later, in the 1920’s, government sanctioned seikatsu-kaisen-undō 生活改善運動

(life style improvement activities) encouraged upland communities to rationally use their

meager economic resources by limiting traditional practices, such as weddings, that

might use up an entire year’s worth of income (Partner 2001). These limitations on

resource use and social activities compromised the integrity of upland socio-natural

environments. While local systems of resource use and social relations were reworked or

abandoned entirely, new relationships with the emerging nation were created, with new

opportunities in Japan’s growing cities. Since the Meiji Period, upland communities have

continued to struggle to find a viable space within the national landscape. Economic

breakdown has forced most villagers to migrate to metropolitan areas, leaving aging

19
residents with little social support to carry on the farming and forestry traditions that had

sustained upland communities for so long.

Popular Conceptions of Upland Areas

As upland areas have been further drawn into the national landscape of Japan, an

ambivalent discourse surrounding their place in modernity has developed within the

larger society. Differing conceptions of upland areas are often contradictory in their

moral tone, while at the same time drawing on common themes. On the one hand, the

rural in Japan is constructed negatively as backwards, full of ‘bumpkins’ (imo 芋 ,

meaning potatoes), or increasingly populated by the elderly (an issue that raises a whole

other set of cultural ambivalences surrounding the aged, see Traphagan 2000). In other

words, rural areas are viewed as being unrefined and culturally apart from the modern

Japan of Tokyo and Osaka. A seemingly opposing conception draws on similar themes,

but paints a picture of the rural as pure, and as holding some link to Japan’s traditional

past.

Upland areas in Japan are negatively impacted by popular conceptions of the rural

in two ways. The first is that upland communities themselves are easily blamed for the

degradation they suffer. Little or no attention is paid to historical processes that have

lead to degradation or the continuing detrimental effects of national policies. Rather, it is

suggested that upland communities are too traditional and conservative, or simply not

sophisticated enough, to sustain themselves in modern Japan. For example, Prime

Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking of funding for rural development, recently stated to

parliament that, “It’s necessary to fundamentally change the predisposition to waste

money” (Anonymous 2007). He was referring to rampant misuses of government funds

20
by local authorities on projects meant to revitalize village economies (i.e. to make them

viable in the larger national economy). Misconceptions about the ability of rural people

to use funds wisely have been around since the ‘lifestyle improvement’ campaigns of the

1920’s, discussed above.

A second negative impact is that upland

villages are attempting to embody the popular

conceptions that have developed around them in

order to create more visibility within the

national economy. In other words, villages

Fig 9: The author with a “traditional” pilgrim in

attempt to become the community that has been
Wakayama’s Kumano region (photo by author)
imagined in the larger society. For example, in

the Kumano region of the Kii Peninsula in Wakayama prefecture, with the help of giant

buses tourists can retrace the paths of ancient pilgrim routes and even have a chance to

carouse with pilgrims dressed in traditional costumes (Knight 2000) (Fig. 9). Similarly,

the town of Tōno in Japan’s northern Tohoku region, made famous for its tales recorded

by the Japanese folklorist Yanagita Kunio2, has began using its ethnological fame, in an

attempt to transform itself into the traditional town that Yanagita encountered at the turn

of the century and that has since become a national symbol (Ivy 1995).

The popular conception of upland communities as storehouses of traditional

Japanese culture serves to mask the realities of the crises facing these communities today.

This parallax is particularly detrimental to upland areas because the realities of their

historical relationships with forest environments is widely unrecognized. Thus, a

2
Yanagita Kunio (1875-1962) is known widely as the father of Japanese ethnology. His book, Tōno
monogatari 遠野物語 (Tales of Tōno) was published in 1910.

21
standard environmental discourse that sees forests as being characteristic of healthy

natural environments plays into Japanese notions of nature and desires for environmental

responsibility, while ignoring the roles humans have played in upland forest ecologies.

Forest Abandonment

The clear-cutting and replanting of trees has

been a part of the adaptive strategy of elites in Japan

since the Edo Period (1603-1867) when the

Tokugawa government began regulating forests that

were considered key timber reserves. Over time

upland communities have been incorporated into

this pattern of resource use in a variety of ways, Fig. 10: A “bald mountain” with a farm house in the
foreground (Bennett 2002, #238)

forcing them to constantly adjust to the resulting

changes in forest structure. During the early 20th century, Japan’s imperial government

consumed an enormous amount of wood to support its war efforts, leaving a trail of

hageyama 禿 山 , or “bald mountains”, across the archipelago (Fig. 10). Today,

approximately two thirds of Japan is forested, with 40% of this having been planted (90%

after the Second World War) meaning that a large portion of forestland is sill first

generation (Fujiwara 2002).

This forest situation would be desirable, were it not occurring along with massive

urban migration and rural economic stagnation. As a result of post-war land reforms, the

majority of forestlands (67%) are still privately owned, with the average holding being

relatively small (about 3.7 hectares) (Akao 2002). Owners themselves often live away

from villages, but tend to hold onto lands that have been handed down and possibly

22
contain a family home or graves (Knight 1997a). The

abandonment and subsequent expansion of forests have

become destructive forces in upland communities, further

limiting socio-cultural patterns of interaction with the

local environment and negatively impacting the social,

economic, cultural, and ecological well being of upland

Fig. 11: The results of forest
regions. The expansion of unmanaged forestland adds to abandonment (photo by author)

perceptions, common among upland villagers, of being trapped with the forest closing in

on them (Fig. 11) (Bailey 1991, Knight 1997b).

Old Values and New Strategies

A viable future for Japan’s upland areas requires more than simply working to

recreate the past. This is not to say, however, that information concerning past human

practices cannot be used as an analytical tool for understanding the present, and also as a

source of inspiration. In this paper I’ve attempted to situate the present crises confronting

upland communities in Japan within longer temporal sequences of socio-political

development whereby natural environments have been progressively transitioned into

larger systems of human interaction. My intention in doing this is to trace the historical

trajectories of causative processes that have resulted in degradation to upland

environments, in order to open new dialogues concerning alternative futures. Up to this

point, much discussion has centered on the economic aspects of decline among upland

communities. Discursively, this tends to relegate upland communities to the periphery of

modern Japan, where they are powerless against the expansion, both ideologically and

physically, of the nation’s sprawling megalopolises. Framing the state of crisis among

23
upland communities in economic terms contributes little to an understanding of what is

driving social disintegration and landscape degradation in these areas. By taking into

account the historical development of national institutions of resource use that conflict

with local adaptive strategies, we can begin to tease out the causes of decline and start

thinking about the practicalities of ensuring a future for mountain villages in modern

Japan.

Essential to the revitalization of upland communities is the involvement of young

people and the fostering of relationships with aging farmers and foresters who can

transfer a body of ecological knowledge that will otherwise be lost. However, the

continued decline of upland areas, combined with dominant cultural conceptions that

devalue these areas, encourage youth to look beyond their villages in search of prosperity.

In my own experience teaching at a junior high school in Nagano, Japan, environmental

education was cursory and peripheral to other subjects; ultimately students were

encouraged to strive for an educational path leading to universities and jobs in the cities.

Students who enrolled in agricultural high schools were viewed as having not made the

grade and many I knew ended up leaving high school early to take local manufacturing or

other skilled jobs. Anecdotally at least, it seems that for students farming and forestry are

not viewed as being particularly relevant to their lives. Education that encourages an

appreciation of local environments needs to be an essential part of efforts at for

revitalizing villages.

Decline in rural areas is also driven by the cultural privileging of economic value

above all others (i.e. ecological, environmental, scenic, cultural and spiritual values)

when it comes to mountain communities. Over time, upland villages have been

24
transitioned into a national political economy based on capitalism, which at times they

help to reaffirm through new strategies of adaptation, including: tourism, part-time

farming, and urban-type employment strategies. For example, enormous amounts of

money have been spent pursuing tourist projects that attempt to transform upland

landscapes into attractions based on popular conceptions of rural Japan. Some endeavors

have enjoyed minor success, but more often upland communities are left only with ill-

planned infrastructural projects and enormous amounts of debt.

In Japan, there are many competing perceptions regarding the value of upland

areas. Though attempts can be made to integrate different perceptions, I argue that a

historical perspective impels us to privilege the cultural values ascribed to upland

environments by the communities that daily interact with—and indeed are part of—those

environments. A task for anthropologists, therefore, is to help upland communities

define and articulate what their values are and how these relate to the natural

environment. I agree with Kellert, who has argued that local input and participation are

needed for effective natural resource management (Kellert 2000) and propose that, in

consideration of historical evidence, community natural resource management and rural-

revitalization are mutually obtainable and logical goals. This becomes apparent when we

examine, as I have here, the consequences of the transition of local and regional socio-

natural environments into larger national systems of resource use. With forests, what

might be considered adaptive on a national scale often turns out to be maladaptive when

viewed from the local level. Therefore, future efforts to revitalize and sustain the natural

environments and human communities of Japan’s mountain areas should begin with

attempts to understand the needs and desires of local residents.

25
Conclusion

With Japan’s modernization, upland communities have begun to deteriorate,

causing a state of crisis. Mountain landscapes continue to change dramatically due to

loss of economic livelihood, population decline, and the abandonment of agricultural

fields and forestlands. Understanding modern environments requires that we account for

the role that humans have played in shaping the world around them, which means we

must consider culture and society. Humans encounter, comprehend, and utilize the

natural world through culture and society, creating socio-natural environments.

Motivations for human behavior, therefore, can never be traced exclusively to the socio-

cultural or natural realms, but can be conceived, rather, as arising from a unified field of

socio-natural phenomena. Human behaviors, in turn, constantly modify the socio-natural

environments within which they occur. Environmental modification takes place at a

variety of spatial and temporal extents, which differ across populations according to

cultural beliefs, socio-political complexity, technological sophistication, and economic

level. Human behavior and environmental modification are motivated by the desire to

fulfill socially, culturally, and biologically defined wants and needs. At the same time,

human abilities to fulfill wants and needs are limited by social, cultural, and biological

constraints. Therefore, it is crucial for us to examine the socio-cultural mediation of

peoples’ use of natural environments in order to understand why certain systems work

better than others and how this changes across space, over time, and through levels of

social organization.

26
 The maladaptive forces we see impacting upland environments in Japan today—

urban migration; popular (mis)conceptions; and forest abandonment—have arisen as

mountain communities and landscapes have been increasingly incorporated into the

national socio-political system. I’ve described three novel adaptive strategies

encountered among upland villages in response to these forces—part-time

farming/forestry; tourism development; and the recruitment of settlers—and have argued

that none of have been particularly effective in stemming rural degradation. I contend

that the ineffectiveness of these strategies is due to their integration into the national

political economy of Japan, with its focus on economic growth. If upland communities

are to remain a part of the Japanese landscape into the future, there must be recognition

of the values they hold beyond the economic realm. Future projects directed at

revitalization would do well to consider these values in order to better enable local

residents to create viable communities that are ecologically sound.

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