Deconstructing the Rural-Urban Divide in Post-growth Japan : Emerging Paradigm Shifts

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has enforced widespread changes that were already in the making well before 2019. Novel lifestyles and modes of working have been on the increase and rural areas that were previously seen as stagnant backwaters have been perceived as sites of experimentation. Hence, more young individuals have recently been interested in rural moves, and the line between short-term visit, tourism and !ifestyle migration is more and more blurred. Hopes for a better work-life-balance coexist with self-exploitation, degrowth and competition all feature in rural communities. I will explore new forms of locality, tourism and entrepreneurship presented in my recent book Urban Migrants in Rural Japan: Between Agency and Anomie in a Post-Growth Society (SUNY Press 2020) and rethink conventional paradigms with regard to mobility, work and leisure in late-capitalist neoliberal regimes. What future awaits rural areas and its communities?