Action research on revitalization of rural depopulated areas

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The present study investigated various attempts to revitalize rural depopulated areas through introducing resident's participatory democracy system and developing community health care system. The study was carried out in two fields, i.e., Chizu town, Tottori Prefecture and Miyama town, Kyoto Prefecture, where researchers promoted their investigation while actively participating in resident's movement.In Chizu town, a new participatory democracy system had been introduced in 15 among a total of 89 villages in the town. As a result, it was found that a village that was successful in revitalization took a course in which an informal small group of residents who had already started a series of trial-and-error to revitalize their village was justified with the introduction of the new system by the vast majority of residents in the village. Moreover, an attempt to develop a mutual collaboration among several villages that were involved in the movement was investigated.In Miyama town, participatory management system for community health care had been developed for several years by the collaboration among three parties, i.e., medical staffs in a clinic, top of the town office like a town mayor and a deputy mayor, and representatives of a group of residents. It was found that, even among the persons who were positive for it, several different ways of justification were observed. Specifically, some emphasized the exclusive concentration of efforts on good medical care for residents while others regarded resident's participation in decision-making on community health care as a way of revitalizing the community or a way of decreasing an asymmetrical power relation between a medical doctor and a resident that is still prevailing in many communities in Japan.