Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2020. xviii, 232 pp. (B&W photos) US$90.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4384-7805-0.
This timely study about the growing number of Japanese urbanites relocating to rural areas provides some cautionary tales about unrealized dreams and the long shadows of mainstream norms. Due to the pandemic, in the last half of 2020 there was a net outflow of residents from Tokyo to other prefectures for the first time in twenty-five years, sparking speculation of what this portends in terms of employment practices, lifestyles, demographic trends, and Japanese society. Overall, Klien is cautiously optimistic about, “the huge potential rural areas hold with regard to providing migrants with more agency and self-determination over their lives” (68) and how this will transform Japan for the better.
Based on one hundred and eighteen interviews with “neorurals” during 2009–2017, including thirty-five women, Klien complicates the uplifting narrative of rural and personal rejuvenation that prevails. In her view, media coverage of this trend is overly positive, overlooking the real difficulties and disappointments that many migrants experience. She notes that, “the flip side of hope and aspiration is risk and insecurity” (xiv) and for many, a better quality of life remains elusive, in many cases because the migrants become too busy to enjoy the countryside. Even so, she finds that most are satisfied with their choice even as they struggle with overwork. Explaining the apparent contradictions, Klien finds that, “Moratorium migration [is] a fuzzy grey zone where work, lifestyle, leisure, self-realization, and precariousness all blend into one” (xxvi).
This multi-sited immersive ethnography provides rich detail about the lived experience of these migrants and how most were unable to escape the work-centred life that for many was the prime reason for relocating. In general, Klien finds that male migrants are more likely to replicate their work-centred urban lifestyles while, “Female settlers seem more focused on creating work that is compatible with their families, if they have one” (179).
There is much to be learned about the impact of 3.11 on urban migrants and the devastated local communities of Tohoku they relocated to. The volunteers/migrants left behind corporate drone lifestyles to take on the challenges of helping communities recover and make a difference in working at small underfunded NGOs or as entrepreneurs. There migrants found something missing from their urban orbits and satisfaction in helping those who were coping with loss, some slowly settling in while others moved on. Klien interviews five female migrants and the various choices they made in adjusting to rural Tohoku and searching for a sense of belonging and purpose. Regardless of educational attainment, Klien observes that, “more often than not they tend to act in ways that imply an internalization of patriarchal norms and endorsement of traditional gender roles” (44). Yet in this she divines a strategy for women to “co-opt ingrained patriarchal norms to pursue their aims” (45), navigating around the constraints as “gentle shadows.”
The growth of Japan’s precariat of non-regular workers in low paid, dead-end jobs is a major push factor for migration, while the lower costs of living act as a magnet. The precariat constitutes thirty-eight percent of Japan’s labor force and its members can find similar jobs in rural areas where their limited incomes go further. It also seems many migrants appreciate the slower pace of country living with lower social and emotional pressures.
Moratorium migration also gives people a chance at self-reinvention and exploration, but others remain misfits. Ironically, one male loner with limited social skills and little interest in engaging locals, worked as a community volunteer for regional revitalization. Unsuited to the job, he embraced the isolation and seemed untroubled by his marginalization, confiding that his relocation helped him to stop, “worrying about what other people think of him, since so many of his suggestions were rejected or met with lack of understanding” (78). Such are the blessings of distance from censorious relatives and acquaintances.
Others feel the pressure in paradise because incomes are low, and time is swallowed by work and social obligations. Urban Migrants explores how difficult it is for migrants to escape mainstream norms and values as they navigate the riptide of agency and anomie in their adopted communities.
Klien, however, also encounters youth who find in mobility a means of downshifting and remaining untethered rather than obsessed with upward career mobility. These “social mavericks,” according to Klien, are change agents who, “veer from conventional life courses by opting for alternative practices” (90), and in doing so pioneer new ways of living and working. She expresses optimism about how increasing employment precarity is propelling individuals to “carve out a niche for themselves in their quest for a sustainable future that both provides a livelihood and is emotionally satisfying” (91). In this sense, mobility can be an empowering path to self-reinvention and personal growth, but it’s also fraught with risk.
Most people don’t make a living by doing what they enjoy, but the possibility of doing so beckons. Here we meet a few lucky ones who, through serendipity, planning, and hard work are able to tap their networks and entrepreneurial skills to establish rural niches. It also helps, Klien notes, to come from means and have high social capital. Others improvise, cobbling together various jobs while finding small joys in rustic pleasures, but Klien reminds us that many migrants “become so engrossed in their work that in many cases there is no divide between work and leisure anymore” (104). Most migrants seem to live continually on the cusp of realizing their ideal lifestyle, if only they had more time and less work.
Moreover, the anxieties of risk abound as, “Many lifestyle migrants grew up in protected middle-class households with housewife mothers and breadwinning fathers, and they find themselves in the position to fend for themselves for the first time” (142). These younger migrants are children of the “lost decades” when hope faded along with faith in the Japan, Inc. model of life-time employment and the security it ostensibly conferred on their parents’ generation. They may not find fulfillment in their rural idylls, but relish “the convenient state of permanent limbo” (143) living in the present free from the tyranny of aspiration and planning for the future.
These inspiring tales from the field help us better understand the contradictions, improvisations, and anomie that shape migrants’ countercultural search for self-growth. There’s lots to like in this cool Japan of mavericks and renegades, even as they scramble to makes ends meet. Yet, despite Klien’s upbeat take on the prospects for this quiet revolution, it’s hard to avoid a gnawing sense that the powerful social patterns and norms she identifies will remain powerful constraints for the foreseeable future. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.
Jeff Kingston
Temple University, Tokyo