Abstract
A former village that had been an independent municipality until a nation-wide merger was implemented before the war has been maintained as a source of identity for residents in the way in which they have an elementary school and hold a festival and an athletic meeting each year. The village is still substantially the community in which the residents share a sense of living together. This study concerns the movement by residents in Chizu, Tottori, Japan to revive the former village as the space in which a new social system to promote their autonomy is developed. The movement is basically a grass-roots and bottom-up activity by residents while receiving supports from a formal local governmental office, the Chizu town office.
Such a new movement cannot be initiated without a few persons who stand up to change their community. But, it is not easy for you to do so because you must take into account negative effects from the people around you on not only yourself but your family members and your friends living in the same community. Actually, there are many people who are convinced of the necessity of such a movement but hesitate rousing themselves to action. This paper is a message from the Yamagata district in Chizu for such people.
This paper described how a few people initiated the movement to create a new social system to promote the autonomy of residents and how they have made their way for four years so far while hearing many remarks that were made not just by persons who have been involved deeply in the movement but persons who have been negative about it.
