2017 Volume 29 Pages 5-12
The focus of the 41st Symposium of the Japan Association of Regional and Community Studies (JARCS) was the Grand Design of National Spatial Development and Regional Society. The realities of regional societies in big cities, rural areas, and remote islands could refer to a “crisis,” according to the local people who do not possess the optimism of recognition, which makes it easy to talk about the reconstruction, creation, and potential of new life spheres. Optimism of will is required to rediscover the ongoing processes of life spheres in regional societies and their historical and social significance. The symposium included various discussions to promote an understanding of regional societies and the lives therein, as well as their relationships to political and power structures, including those resulting from-national and geopolitical changes. The “choices” of local people are not always active ones; in many cases, they are forced by external matters. “Regional societies as life spheres” are spaces that guarantee that people can lead their lives with dignity. To grasp this concept, it is vital to consider the diversity of communities, the flow and storage of time, and the perspective(s) of “invisible habitants.”
