State University of New York Press Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-growth Society

Urban Migrants in Rural Japan provides a fresh perspective on theoretical notions of rurality and emerging modes of working and living in post-growth Japan. By exploring narratives and trajectories of individuals who relocate from urban to rural areas and seek new modes of working and living, this multisited ethnography reveals the changing role of rurality, from postwar notions of a stagnant backwater to contemporary sites of experimentation. The individual cases presented in the book vividly illustrate changing lifestyles and perceptions of work. What emerges from Urban Migrants in Rural Japan is the emotionally fraught quest of many individuals for a personally fulfilling lifestyle and the conflicting neoliberal constraints many settlers face. In fact, flexibility often coincides with precarity and self-exploitation. Susanne Klien shows how mobility serves as a strategic mechanism for neophytes in rural Japan who hedge their bets; gain time; and seek assurance, inspiration, and courage to do (or further postpone doing) what they ultimately feel makes sense to them. Review "Klien carefully anchors her discussion in the literature on migration (especially lifestyle migration), resulting in a book that is both empirically and conceptually valuable ... Excellent as an update on Japanese society, but also as a useful reflection on the complexity and unpredictability of contemporary migration overall." -- CHOICE "This book is a valuable contribution to knowledge about diversifying rural Japan and evokes reflection about the future of post-growth Japan. Klien's study benefits from assiduous and long-term field research and insightful analysis. She excels at locating the specifics of the study in theoretical observations and concepts, thereby setting the work into a larger consideration of Japan's paradigm shifts in lifestyle and values." -- Nancy Rosenberger, author of Gambling with Virtue: Japanese Women and the Search for Self in a Changing Nation About the Author Susanne Klien is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at Hokkaido University, Japan. She is the author of Rethinking Japan's Identity and International Role: Tradition and Change in Japan's Foreign Policy.