Abstract
Rural society today is a highly mobile society. Nevertheless, social policy on rural areas has been “fixed domicile resident centric,” as typically shown in official statistics, making a variety of community revitalization activities invisible. In contrast to this traditional view, certain recent rural studies stress the importance of mobility, such as traffic and network, and touches on “tourism” frequently.
This article reviews rural sociologist Sadao Tokuno’s study on family network and Hiroshi Fujiyama’s concept of “small community center.” Their studies are associated strongly with the “new mobilities paradigm (NMP)” proposed by J. Urry.
In the course of the discussion, the author traces the history of rural tourism studies in Europe and the United States to elucidate that the most important agenda of rural studies has been “collaboration and management among different sectors.” This research history is reflected in the concept of “integrated rural tourism (IRT),” which is most represented by the IRT model proposed by (Cawley& Gilmour 2008).
These considerations lead to the conclusion that, “NMP-based rural tourism studies” can provide important insights that contribute to solving problems of rural society in Japan.
