“Shodansho” : A place for laughter and chatting: a women led community response to aging and depopulated small island communities in Japan
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Authors
Papoutsaki, Evangelia
Kuwahara, S.
Kuwahara, S.
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Date
2025
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Type
Journal Article
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
Amami Islands (Japan)
Japan
Japanese women
older people
mutual aid societies
community centres
voluntarism
island studies
Japan
Japanese women
older people
mutual aid societies
community centres
voluntarism
island studies
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Papoutsaki, E., & Kuwahara, S. (2025). “Shodansho”: A place for laughter and chatting: a women led community response to aging and depopulated small island communities in Japan. South Pacific Studies Journal, 45(1), 27-50
https://hdl.handle.net/10652/7214
Abstract
This article is based on ethnographic research that seeks to map various aspects of the Amami Islands communicative ecologies. The rapidly declining and aging population of small island communities in Japan have had a dramatic impact on their communicative ecologies and overall wellbeing. The Naon village café of the Yamato Municipal Village in Amami Oshima, in the southwest of the Japanese archipelago, has been a community initiative that sought to find creative and sustainable ways of addressing the needs of their aging members while embracing all generations. Established by the community in 2011 after extensive “mutual aid community mapping”, it became very quickly a focal place for the community. With the nominal cost of one coin (¥100), the café was run mostly by the women volunteers and utilized local resources while generating an income to cover its cost by hiring its space and offering services. Based on the principle of “self-help, mutual aid and mutual assistance,” the emphasis has been on the village welfare and information gathering and dissemination, making it thus a key nodal point in the community’s communicative ecology.
Publisher
International Center for Island Studies, Kagoshima University
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