Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosyste ...

In terms of typical definitions today, a key element of entrepreneurial activity involves the starting of a business within an environment of risk, with risk usually being conceptualized in terms of the potential loss of economic capital. When it comes to individuals, the emphasis on risk-taking has been one of the primary factors used in differentiating entrepreneurs from managers and small-business owners more generally, particularly in psychological research. Entrepreneurs sometimes are viewed as forming a subset of managers and small-business owners who tend to have a high achievement orientation, propensity toward risk-taking, and a proclivity for innovation as compared to others in these general occupational categories.⁷

The small-business owners I will describe throughout this book reflect elements of an achievement orientation, willingness to take risks, and an attraction to innovative behavior, but it is important to recognize that these tendencies do not necessarily manifest themselves in terms of risk related to economic loss or gain. While to some extent the potential loss of economic capital characterizes the entrepreneurs I will discuss here, I think it is important to keep in mind that much more is going on when we consider entrepreneurial activity in rural Japan (or anywhere else). In each of the cases in this book, the decision to start a small business in a social, geographic, and economic space perceived as rural involved the potential for not only economic loss but also personal risk in terms of giving up a career, losing relationships established in other parts of Japan, and (in the case of one individual) long-term separation from one’s family. Each of these represent situations in which individuals risked loss in the form of social and symbolic capital, while there was also potential for gain in these forms of capital. From an anthropological perspective, I think it worthwhile to take a broader view of entrepreneurial activity and think of capital in the form of symbolic and social capital as being components of risk-taking and innovative activities. Entrepreneurs in the postindustrial age are often people who risk their economic and social livelihoods (and even physical and emotional conditions) to pursue the acquisition of knowledge and skills that allow them to build alternatives