Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan by John W. Traphagan

Reviewed by: Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan by John W. Traphagan Kimiko Tanaka (bio) Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan . By John W. Traphagan. Cambria Press, 2020. xii, 280 pages. $109.99, cloth; $49.99, paper; $39.99, E-book. Japanese rural towns are often perceived through the nostalgic lens of inaka, rural/rustic regions where people enjoy fresh organic products from local farms, clean air and fresh water from nearby mountains, and a slow and simple lifestyle. Such nostalgic imagery is a driving factor behind the I-turn, or migration of those working in the cities to rural areas. However, when people actually spend more time living in rural towns in Japan, the effects of advanced technology and globalization are felt in every aspect of their lives. Younger generations as well as older adults in rural areas of Japan today can purchase almost anything online, and many rural residents can access a one-stop shopping mall by car to purchase wide varieties of electronics and clothes. One of the many great contributions of John W. Traphagan's Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan is the light it sheds on cosmopolitan rurality, the process of creating a new social and geographical space with material hybridities that do not fit into the binaries of urban/rural and traditional/modern. Traphagan describes cosmopolitan rurality as "reconfigured social and physical space that is neither explicitly rustic nor cosmopolitan and that is conceptualized and situated as part of a globally linked frame of existential experience" (pp. 58–59). This term captures the reality that many rural [End Page 150] towns today are beyond the rural nostalgia of inaka . Previous studies have measured rurality based on places using administrative units such as postal code areas. As Traphagan points out, such area-based measurements have a limited ability to capture the richness in voices and experiences of hybridities in rural lifestyles. In the time of globalization, not only people living in rural towns in Tohoku such as Kanegasaki, a town Traphagan has studied for 30 years, but neorural people around the world experience the depolarization of urban and rural categories in their everyday lives. Understanding cosmopolitan rurality raises important questions about how we study rural towns in contemporary Japan and other nations. What makes a town rural? Should rurality be determined based on subjective and/or objective measures? How can we fill in the gap between contemporary rural living and rural living defined in preexisting literature? Traphagan describes various examples of cosmopolitan rurality: the hollowing of local downtowns caused by the construction of shopping malls and franchises like McDonald's along bypass routes, rural residents experiencing travel to foreign nations and using imported commodities in their daily lives, and transnational families and businesses interacting with their members in foreign nations through Skype or FaceTime. These examples are shared by many living in rural Japan. Residents of rural towns in Japan also face other social issues such as long waitlists for the elderly for nursing homes and a declining number of students in elementary schools. Qualitatively measuring rurality based on listening to how rural residents describe their situations and lives allows us to understand rurality based on shared experiences. As Traphagan points out, generalization is difficult because regional history, location, availability of transportation, and job opportunities make dramatic differences in the experiences of rural living in contemporary Japan. For instance, those living in genkai shūraku, rural villages surrounded by mountains that face difficulty in sustaining themselves due to severe depopulation, may not consider rural spaces with shopping malls and franchises to be rural. Although not clearly mentioned in the book, interviews with local entrepreneurs suggest the importance of taking the life-course approach in understanding the motivation behind starting a business. Traphagan writes, "Entrepreneurialism is embedded in an ongoing biographical process in which people analyze and interpret their own life-courses and experiences in relation to those of others around them and the social conditions that influence their lives" (p. 121). His case studies of entrepreneurship help us understand that decision-making processes are influenced by earlier life events and the life courses...