2019 Volume 38 Issue 3 Pages 369-378
This paper aims to examine how rural communities in mountainous areas can sustainably manage their community’s traditional cultural events by overcoming difficulties arising from aging and depopulation. The result of surveys conducted in the Takachihogo-shiibayama area shows that a management system that enables the participation of all community households, whether old or the young, women or men, has been established in the area. In addition, in order to overcome the problem of shrinking communities, the management structure has been rearranged in three ways: 1) sub-groups of the community take turns to organize festivals, allowing these sub-groups to be merged to complement the shortage of participants from aged/depopulated groups, 2) representatives of several communities assist a community without enough capacity to organize its own festival, and 3) all shrine parishioners (called Ujiko), with participation not on a household basis but on an individual basis, are involved in the festival management. The study points out that a community in the most remote area has the least difficulty in sustaining the event by themselves independently, while a community with improved accessibility has more difficulty in uniting community members to ensure more participation. Also, in the community which has the least difficulty in sustaining the traditional culture, there exists a system to transfer roles and responsibilities to younger generations, ensuring that those who are brought up in the communities will recognize themselves as successors of the community in future.
