Reproduction of Local Culture Exhibitions at Japanese Local Museums and Community Participation: Focusing on the Case of Urayasu City Museum

This study aimed to examine the reproduction of local history and the participation patterns of residents in exhibitions at local Japanese museums. According to data from the Agency for Cultural Affairs under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, there are more than 5,700 museums in Japan. Japan's rapid growth after its defeat in World War II accelerated the establishment of museums that store local history and folklore materials. Around 1993, 452 local museums with history and folklore themes were built. This can be interpreted as a measure to respond to the standardization of existing centrally oriented museums due to the triggering of awareness of issues such as local population decline and regional crises. Unlike central or tourism-oriented museums, museums established in local areas tend to focus on residents living in the area. The local museum examined in this study also considers local ‘people’, who put the concept of ‘hometown’ at the forefront, as a significant element of museum operation, and their participation becomes the basis of the local museum's identity. As the leading case covered in this paper, the Urayasu City Local Museum promotes citizen participation by turning the results from various local participation programs, such as collaboration with local schools, student curator system, and regional competitions to transmit local cultural heritage, into exhibition contents. Japanese local museums provide many implications for today's Korean society, especially in the current era where there is talk of local extinction due to population decline, the direction in which the ‘region’ should move, and the social role that museums should take.