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Praise for the Book
“A very engaging and thoughtful work that will be of great interest to Japan scholars and to any social scientists with a concern for conditions of life in contemporary rural regions in many of the advanced industrial societies. This is a book about entrepreneurship, depopulation, and the nature of the contemporary rural. Each of these is of broad and comparative significance. The Japanese countryside doesn’t look like the countryside of the sentimental imagination; it is a complex hybrid formation, much as we find in Europe and North America, giving the case a wide salience. Depopulation is a shorthand for several related trends of much consequence: population decline, yes, but rapid aging of the population and significant marriage delay, declining births, and solo living. This too is a feature of the rest of the ‘developed’ world, but Japan’s trends are among the most advanced and there is much to learn from a judicious account such as this book. This is an impressive book, which should gain an enthusiastic and appreciative readership.”
—Professor William Kelly, Yale University
“Traphagan’s book should be required reading not just for Japan specialists but also for students, cultural anthropologists, gerontologists, demographers, and anybody in general interested in the topics indicated in its title. The richness of his ethnographic descriptions conveys many tasty morsels of insight into Japanese culture reflected within life in Kanegasaki, Iwate Prefecture—pertaining to pop culture, fashion, gender relations, food, religion, economics, and population loss—that are relevant to any locale. A very welcome practical and theoretical introduction to ‘cosmopolitan rurality’ in the context of Japan that is applicable globally today!”
—Professor Christopher Thompson, Ohio University