Factors shaping social cohesion among local and immigrant residents in a Japanese remote island community

Keywords: modern coastal communities, notion of the community, relationship between locals and outsiders, qualitative and quantitative analysis [Objective and Method] Rural communities are facing aging problem in Japan, which... [ view full abstract ]

Keywords: modern coastal communities, notion of the community, relationship between locals and outsiders, qualitative and quantitative analysis

[Objective and Method] Rural communities are facing aging problem in Japan, which also causes the decline of primary industry including fishery. To overcome such challenges, it is urged to reconstruct the rural communities by promoting the immigration of population. However, it is not well understood how locals and newcomers can successfully re-build their community together. This work, therefore aims to explore the factors for building social cohesion among locals and immigrants in modern rural communities. To meet this objective, we capture and visualize the notion of a community, focusing on how it is constructed and perceived by the local residents. Data was collected in Shiraho village, Okinawa, Japan, through the structured free-answer questionnaire designed with the concept of time axis.

[Results and Discussion] Combination of qualitative and quantitative text content analysis revealed that the notion of community consists of four elements: ‘livelihood’, ‘culture’, ‘self-governance’, and ‘social cohesion’. From this result, we discuss the importance of practice which can contribute to the development of ‘livelihood’ and ‘culture’ of the community, for building the social cohesion between locals and immigrants. We also suggest the growing importance of ‘culture’ element which can function as a glue among residents while the ‘livelihood’ element is decreasing its importance by the diversification of occupational choice.

[Conclusion]

As a consequence for our case study, we propose a new view of modern rural community, where the both locals and immigrants are sharing the ideal notion of community but struggling toward it in their present lives. We still need to deepen the understanding how to achieve public goods management among local and immigrant population, in order to conserve ecological/social/cultural diversity in modern rural communities.