Abstract
This thesis discusses hotaru no sato (firefly villages) and the various ways in which they relate to fireflies and regional revitalisation. Fireflies have long wielded the imaginations of Japanese people, from featuring as aesthetic subjects in art and poetry to being caught or sold as commodities. They became endangered in the early 20th century, due to overharvesting, river pollution, and habitat destruction due to urban developments, which eroded the satoyama landscapes in which they dwelled. To counter the decline in fireflies, firefly protection groups emerged in the 1960s. Simultaneously, urbanisation and rural decline has caused local governments in rural towns and villages to attempt to ‘revitalise’ themselves through promoting unique aspects about themselves. Some towns use fireflies as a crowd puller, arranging firefly festivals in order to attract tourists. Firefly protection groups thus became entangled with regional revitalisation projects in the 1990s. In this thesis, I examine firefly festivals and their importance for town-building and the local community, and discuss how nostalgia imbued in the ideologies of furusato and satoyama impacts how people relate to fireflies. The thesis aims to answer the question of whether the wish to protect fireflies is compatible with their use as tools for town revitalisation. While I find the answer is often a complex interaction between the two, there are instances in which firefly ecology is ignored, for instance in the case of importation of foreign firefly species. Additionally, I find that a third element – affect – is also of significance, as people often structure their relations to fireflies around fond childhood memories. Throughout, I make a case for the importance of protecting insects in this age of mass extinction of insects and animals due to anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems. I therefore argue that firefly villages are only appropriate if they incorporate protection of firefly habitats as a main goal.