Dear colleagues, 

I hope you are having a pleasant week! If you live in Japan or visiting then this might be of your interest and I am very pleased to invite you to this lecture that we are organising at the Institute of Comparative Culture, Sophia University - 

"Instagramming the Countryside: Social Media and Demographic Change in Rural Japan"
Speaker: Prof. Cornelia Reiher (Freie Universität Berlin)
Date & Time: Thursday, October 16, 2025, 17:30-19:00 (JST)
Venue: Room 301, Building 10, Sophia University (in person only)
Registration: None required

For poster please check this link - https://www.icc-sophia.com/_files/ugd/487f91_ac532e3a0626497f8dc3d15623f82aac.pdf

Abstract : Against the backdrop of a shrinking population and the decline of agriculture and local economies in rural Japan, local and central governments have launched initiatives to encourage city dwellers to move to rural areas. While authorities often utilize more traditional online and offline media, rural residents and ur-ban-rural migrants have increasingly used social media to showcase and promote diverse rural lifestyles.

This representation of rural areas attracts urbanites to move to the countryside, creates real-life connections and community and provides young creatives with employment. Based on online and offline fieldwork between 2018 and 2023, my presentation explores how residents in rural Kyushu use Instagram to negotiate rural lifestyles and community. I will show that Instagram not only represents rural Japan, but also produces new rural lifestyles and communities. The focus on rural change and the ways in which rural residents engage with Instagram from a qualitative and hybrid perspective, offers valuable insights into how social media is reshaping rural communities, lifestyles and urban-rural migration in contemporary Japan.

 

Cornelia Reiher is a professor of Japanese Studies at Freie Universität Berlin and Pl of the research project "Urban-rural migration and rural revitalization in Ja-pan" that was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Her main research interests include rural Japan, food studies, migration and digitalization.Her recent publications include the virtual special issue Urban-rural migration in Japan and Europe from a transnational and comparative perspectives in the Journal of Rural Studies (2024). Cornelia is also the editor of a blog on urban-rural migration in Japan that started in 2021: https://userblogs.fu-berlin.de/ urban-rural-migration-japan/

 

Looking forward to seeing you.

 

Best wishes,

Megha Wadhwa

Assistant Professor

Sophia University Japan