2017 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Moratorium migration in contemporary post-growth Japan: Lifestyle volunteers between insecurity and fulfilment
Project/Area Number |
16K03212
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Research Institution | Hokkaido University |
Principal Investigator |
KLIEN SUSANNE 北海道大学, メディア・コミュニケーション研究院, 准教授 (20725048)
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Project Period (FY) |
2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
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Keywords | Urban-rural migration / moratorium / lifestyle / work life balance / ethnography / volunteering / alternative lifestyles |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
As scheduled, ethnographic fieldwork has been conducted in Kamiyama Town, Tokushima Prefectures in spring 2017, in Ishinomaki and Kesennuma in Miyagi Prefecture and Rikuzen Takata, Iwate Prefecture in summer 2017 (follow-up), and in Higashikawa Town, Hokkaido in autumn 2017. These ethnographic investigations yielded abundant empirical data from individual and group interviews with lifestyle migrants between 20 and 40 about the key issues of this research project. Analysis of the empirical data reveals that the majority of migrants struggle to realize their aspirations of a more meaningful life and narratives contain both references to orthodox values as well as post-growth change.
Plans for further research Fieldwork for this project has been successfully completed. The principal investigator intends to visit the National Diet Library to access further research material necessary for this project. Work on the above-mentioned book manuscript to be submitted to a US academic press is to be continued. Furthermore, the investigator has been invited and accepted for international panels on sustainability and emerging lifestyles for the World Social Science Forum in Fukuoka and the British Association of Japanese Studies in Sheffield, UK, both in September 2018.
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Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
The research project has gone according to planning as the investigator drew on contacts from previous fieldwork (even if some of the sites were explored for the first time). Abundant data could be obtained from individual and group interviews as well as participant observation and material compilation. The principal investigator has presented her research and received valuable feedback at international conferences. The PI successfully submitted and organized a panel about lifestyle migration with colleagues from the US and Japan to the anthropology section of the European Association of Japanese Studies in Lisbon, Portugal in September 2017. She was also invited for a talk on her research project to Oxford Brookes University in March 2018. Furthermore, the PI has secured a book contract for a manuscript entitled "Urban migrants in the Japanese countryside: Creative depopulation, alternative lifestyles and moratorium migration in post-growth Japan" with State University of New York (SUNY) press.
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Strategy for Future Research Activity |
Fieldwork for this project has been successfully completed. The principal investigator intends to visit the National Diet Library to access further research material necessary for this project. Work on the above-mentioned book manuscript to be submitted to a US academic press is to be continued. Furthermore, the investigator has been invited and accepted for international panels on sustainability and emerging lifestyles for the World Social Science Forum in Fukuoka and the British Association of Japanese Studies in Sheffield, UK, both in September 2018.
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Research Products
(5 results)