2018 Volume 13 Issue 1 Pages 50-67
This article discusses how a rural settlement has been maintained by focusing on the values of I-turn migrants and settlement functions in the study area of Katetsu, Setouchi-cho, Amami-oshima Island, Kagoshima prefecture, Japan. Since the 1990s, the rural settlement of Katetsu has continually received migrants from urban areas of mainland Japan, such as Tokyo and Osaka. Migrants have chosen Katetsu as their new domicile rather than settling in urbanized and/or tourist areas of the island. Migrants to Katetsu must build social relations in and around the settlement and embed themselves in the social networks of property owners in order to find and acquire housing. Before a migrant begins living in the settlement, existing residents arrange opportunities to confirm that the individual will participate in a variety of events that characterize Katetsu, including Honensai (a festival celebrating the harvest). Reflecting a tightly knit community, its closed housing market and practice of consensus-building in relation to established settlement social customs have played crucial roles in screening people who wish to settle there. After migrants begin living in Katetsu, settlement events function as places at which current residents accept migrants as their new neighbours. The settlement of Katetsu is now spatially and socially maintained by the nexus between the presence of I-turn migrants who seek a nonurban life and the inherent settlement functions for screening and accepting them into the community. This article provides counterevidence to the “marginal settlement discourse.”
