Japan is facing depopulation due to rapid population aging and a declining birthrate. The situation is particularly severe in rural mountain villages. This study aims to understand the impact of socio-cultural characteristics on population migration in rural mountainous local communities and investigated socio-cultural characteristics in regions with slow depopulation progress.
The study location was the Omukai area in Shiiba village, Miyazaki prefecture. In Shiiba village, there is an inherited characteristic of traditional folklore-based sacred Japanese music and dancing that are performed at shrines called Kagura. This qualitative study is based on ethnography and data were collected primarily through participant observation and semi-structured interviews and collection of local materials. Forty-two individuals with an average age of 46.8 years (range: 24-72 years) were included in the study group. Data analysis was based on Spradley’s step-by-step research procedure.
We listened to participants’ stories, coded their words, and repeated classification and unification of those words to select eight cover terms. The four domains that emerged by further integration of these cover terms are as follows: “Mutual aids”, “area where women and immigrants are active”, “inheritance of regional assets”, and “community education from childhood”. These four domains represent the socio-cultural characteristics of a particular region of rural mountainous community in Japan with slow depopulation progress.
