Research Information System
26th JAWS Conference, İstanbul, Turkey, 1 - 05 September 2015, pp.1
“Seeking for a Leader in the Japanese Rural Community on the Basis of Risk, Nature, Technology and Sustainability Relationship”
Currently, Japanese rural society has deep-seated problems at the point of shaping its future; along with the problems of natural disasters, decline in the production power and the decrease of population. A deep academic knowledge has been formed and a number of policies have been developed related to the problems of Japanese rural community for 3-4 decades, and the socioeconomic problems of the community have been tried to be solved by various kinds of projects. However, an exact and overall formula has not been demonstrated yet. One of the key roles in the solution of the in question problems of rural community is the “leader”. Therefore, this study aims to address the leader phenomenon within the concepts of nature, technology, risk and sustainability.
This study is planned to comprise three main parts. Through various interviews that I’ve made in South and West Japan, first of all, I will bring forward the current problems in the community and how they are perceived and what kind of approaches have been developed as a solution of these problems.
In the second part of the study, I will focus on the concept of “leader” which has the key role in solving the problems mentioned above. As the fundamental analysis criteria, I will discuss the points such as the approaches of the production style, social relationships and problem solving; while discussing the “leader” profiles through the data acquired at different sites in the South and West Japan. In addition, since the workshop will be held in Turkey, I will attempt to discuss the concept of leadership in the rural Turkey on the basis of field data.
Through these studies, I will try to find answers to various questions such as; 1) what are the needs and problems in today’s Japanese rural community, 2) what kind of approaches that are different than the previous ones have been created for the problem, 3) how the nature-technology relationship is being discussed today in terms of the rural sustainability, 4) what kind of a relationship there might be between the concepts of nature-technology-risk and the concept of “a new type of rural leader”.
Finally, I would like to state that this work is still in progress. As a result of this presentation, developing a discussion framework rather than achieving direct and tangible results will be the main aim of this paper.