This paper attempts to survey various theories and policies on regional development in economic geography and adjacent fields, and to schematize them in terms of both the classification of perspectives on how space is understood and the balance between market and society. In this paper, perspectives on space are divided into categories of territory and network. Territorial perspective focuses on a territory, such as a country or region, and examines the economic activities within that territory, while network perspective focuses on the network of economic actors that extends beyond territories, and how they are connected.

These arguments can also be divided into those that emphasize the market and the resulting economic growth and those that consider the negative aspects of the market and emphasize social factors. Firstly, from a territorial perspective, the author considers spatial and urban economics, institutional and evolutionary economic geography, and the endogenous development model from the standpoint of the balance between market and society. Secondly, from a network perspective, global value chain/global production network studies, and post-development theory are also examined in terms of the balance between them. Finally, the relationship between them is shown schematically where the horizontal axis represents the balance between market and society and the vertical axis represents perspectives on space. The author hopes that this will contribute to deepening the discussion on regional development and related policies.

This study analyzes the participation of individuals in festivals as a career choice and their perception of festivals, using the Yamagata Hanagasa Festival in Japan as a case study. It also examines the structures of festivals representative of various local areas. The Yamagata Hanagasa Festival features a parade of Hanagasa dance. The dance teams are composed of members of local community organizations, schools, businesses, dance circles, and prefectural resident associations. Considering the careers of the dancers, they participate in this festival even while occasionally changing the organizations they belong to, entering further education, changing their addresses, or getting a job. Through participation in these various opportunities, the dancers develop multiple perceptions: a sense of belonging to the group and local area, confidence in their Hanagasa dance abilities, and images of the local area (e.g. Yamagata City or Yamagata Prefecture). These multiple elements of dancers’ perception of festivals encourage their future participation as members of different groups, even if the groups to which they belong change over time. Moreover, the various opportunities to participate in festivals during their life course and participation of both veterans and beginners within each group support dance learning for inexperienced dancers and contribute to the development of new dancers and maintain the standards of the parade. The festival serves as a support for participation by dancers, while also leading to the creation of multiple perceptions through a variety of opportunities.