For more than a quarter of a century, the author has conducted research from the standpoint of public administration, local government, and public policy on community development workshops, in which citizens discuss community development and regional issues. Meanwhile, the author has discovered the possibility that "dialogue" in community development workshops may cause some kind of "phase transition" among the citizens who participate in them. Based on the above recognition of the problem, this paper will present a research design to empirically elucidate what kind of phase transitions are brought about among participants through dialogue and what kind of mechanisms cause such transitions, targeting community development workshops organized by local governments.

This paper presents an analysis of dialogues from a sociolinguistics perspective. Political science and public administration have empirically examined dialogues as a place for deliberation, focusing on the transformation of participants’ opinions and whether the opinions changed before/after dialogues. However, little research has been conducted on the transformation of participants’ linguistic behavior during dialogues, including what they said and the ways in which they said it. In this paper, two cases of dialogues in which observers at the actual discussion site perceived positive changes are considered with an analysis of the participants’ linguistic behaviors. The common transformations across the examples include (1) positive and constructive opinions in accordance with the theme of the discussion, (2) expression of opinions from a subjective yet legitimate standpoint as a participant in the discussion, and (3) presentation of opinions from the viewpoints of other non-participants. The result of the analysis corresponds to the aim of deliberate discussion.

There has been a growing demand for public “hanashi-ai” in recent years. Hanashi-ai is not just a group of people chatting for no purpose, but rather a deeper communication for decision-making through dialogue. In Japan, there are not many opportunities to learn the method of hanashi-ai for better decision-making and while it is true that not all decisions made through hanashi-ai is reflected in policies, we cannot deny that it is meaningless to participate in public hanashi-ai. In this paper, we attempt to use analytical concepts such as phases of hanashi-ai and phase transitions, to consider the changes in hanashi-ai and the transformation of behaviors of the participants themselves through an actual community-building workshop.

This study aims to explore what factors enhance participants’ awareness and learning in community development discussions. Based on the mixed research method between quantitative analysis of questionnaires and conversation analysis on the actual discussion, this study focuses on two types of groups: a) participants evaluate their intergenerational discussions positively and explicitly refer to generational categories, and b) participants evaluate their intergenerational discussions negatively and hardly mention generational categories. The analysis indicates the followings: in the former group, participants were oriented to their intergenerational relationship, and interpreted each opinion as representing their own or other’s generation. In contrast, participants in the latter group tended to complain the local government which organized the workshop. These results suggest that it would be useful to design the workshop to facilitate participants’ orientation towards their ‘intergenerationality’ in order to enhance their awareness and learning.

This paper is intended as an investigation of association between the motivation of domestic migration and the disposable incomes’ change of the migrants in Japan. It had been recognized that companionship with local people stimulates the motivation from urban area to rural area as a facilitating factor. To the contrary, very few attempts have been made at research for the obstructive factors: anxieties for disposable income and companionship with the locals. It was found from the association analysis based on online-questionnaire that the number of migrants who are indifferent and/or frown on connection to the locals and community activities has been around 7-10% of total migrants regardless of socio-economic situation. Their disposable income increase after migration more than those of the other migrants. It implies the presence of migrants who are able to avoid the common obstructive factors by themselves. Therefore, it seems reasonable conclude that migrants’ policy involve flexibility to work on a variety of target potential migrants in view of their motivation.

The cases that local government has breed named with breeding line are increasing. They are the method that register the name of agricultural products by trademark law with post-plant breeder’s right extinction. However, the effect is unclear. If geographical indications are used, it will be possible to create a brand using the breed name even after the breeder’s right expires.

This study clarified the relationship between ties to the local community and U-turn. An Internet research questionnaire was used. The subjects of the survey were those who were from rural area, entered a university in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and made a U-turn to their hometown after graduation, and those who remained in the metropolitan area after graduation. The results of the study confirmed that the connection with the region affects the change in attitude toward U-turn, but did not confirm that it affects the change in behavior toward U-turn.

One indicator for monitoring the impact of COVID-19 is the number of deaths. As a method for counting the number of deaths by date, it can be based on the date of notification of death. Each municipality can count the number of deaths independently and confirm this the day after the date of notification of death. This data enables rapid publication of the number of deaths. In this study, changes in the number of deaths in Hino City, Tokyo, were analyzed using data by date of notification of death. Looking at the changes in the number of deaths by gender and five-year age band, there was no significant increase until September 2022. It did not significantly exceed the normal level for a prolonged period of time apart from a temporary increase, after which it returned to the normal level.

Kurara is a “Ibasyo (the comfortable place)” for older adults. We conducted participants observation, face-to-face interviews, and questionnaires to reveal why this place could survive the period of COVID-19 pandemic. Kurara has been run as a worker’s collective and the land and the building belong to older adults who work there. Thus, they need not care about the rental fee and the labor cost during the closing duration. Moreover, the leaders of Kurara have been endeavoring to engage in 3 things 1) to establish an easily understandable goal for all related persons, 2) to conduct some personalized approaches to care for everyone, 3) to prepare for the future by using existing resources, which makes Kurara a “Ibasyo” for the participants psychologically. The system of worker’s collective and the leader’s appropriate care for all workers are essential to maintain the “Ibasyo” for older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.