The Amami Islands context

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"The Amami Islands communicative ecology has been shaped by their distinctive and diverse geographical and socio-cultural environment that has conditioned their inhabitants’ communicative sociality. Although these islands are seen as one group comprising of eight inhabited islands (Amami Ōshima, Kakeromajima, Yorojima, Ukejima, Kikaijima, Tokunoshima, Okinoerabujima and Yoronjima), each of them consists of a unique microcosm with distinctive identities.

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Situated to the south of the Japanese archipelago, the Amami islands are part of Kagoshima Prefecture. They consist of one city, nine municipal towns and two municipal villages with a total population of about 110,000, more than half of which lives in the main island of Amami Ōshima. Amami city has a population of about 43,000. The islands have been experiencing depopulation and similarly to the mainland Japan, they are faced with an increasing aging population. The total population of the Amami Islands has decreased since 1955. In 60 years between 1955 and 2015, the population was reduced by 95,216 people (Kagoshima Prefectural Office 2018: 6). Infrastructure plays a significant role in communicative ecology as it enables information flows. In general, these Japanese islands are well supported infrastructure wise, with frequent flight and ferry connections and subsidized fares that enable not only connections with the mainland but inter and intra-island ones. The origins of this infrastructural development lie in the “Special Measures Law for the Reconstruction of the Amami islands” put in place by the Japanese government in 1954 to address the economic devastation of the Amami Islands after they reversed to Japan in 1953. This law has been revised and has had its term extended every five years until today. Since then, more than 2 trillion yen for operating expenses have been poured into the islands for the task. Projects entailing large scale modifications of the natural landscape such as roads and harbours occupy almost eighty percent of the entire budget (Kuwahara 2012: 42).

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Amami Ōshima’s infrastructure system contains 37 tunnels and 20 ports that facilitate intra and inter-island communication. The tunnels have enabled land connection with communities that could have been reached only by boat in the past. The physical morphology of Amami Ōshima meant that several communities had developed distinctive cultures with their own dialects and forms of cultural expression that are still practiced today. Today, the tunnels along with the island’s FM radios are playing a significant role in not only connecting these communities across the island but also contributing to a pan island identity.

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It has been argued that the collective Amami identity, resulting from Amami’s reversion to Japanese administration in 1953 - following eight years of US occupation - and Japanese modernization, has now shifted from “One Amami” to “Many Amamis” (Kuwahara 2016). Along with this distinctiveness, there are multiple overlapping layers, including the historical and cultural connections with Okinawa that are evidenced today in Yoron and Okinoerabu and to some degree in the other islands too.

Social reciprocity and horizontal and egalitarian relationships form an integral part of the islands’ communicative sociality. Unlike mainland Japan, Amami’s bilateral society is based on an ego-centered bilateral kin group called haroji that lacks a specific discriminatory ideology, and the membership could be traced bilaterally. Brothers and sisters were equally positioned. There was no hierarchy among the people in the same generation. Haroji functioned as a joint labor organization (Yui or Yuitaba) in agriculture. For example, they voluntarily united and worked together in sugarcane cultivation, re-thatching of straw roofs, and rituals and festivals (Nakatani 2013: 54). Yui is a manifestation of reciprocal relationships and is interwoven into the island communities’ social organization seen in such expressions as “lend yui” and “return yui” (Yamamoto 2001: 754). It is a principle that is manifesting today in the islands mediated communicative practices by informing the mission of island radios [...]

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Similarly, another concept that of myar plays an important role in the Amamian culture and its communicative ecologies. Myar is the public square “where the residents gather and strengthen their cultural and religious ties” (Nishimura 2016: 44). It is where honensai (harvest festival) has been traditionally held in the summer during which community members engage in traditional dancing, music playing and sumo wrestling and where island storytelling takes place. This space has been adjusting to the changing needs of the island communities but it continues to play a symbolic role in connecting “the inner and outer elements of the community” (Nishimura 2016: 49). Uken FM in Amami Ōshima provides an example of that symbolic role that binds the community together through storytelling, a contemporary version of an “on-air” myar.

Amami shimauta is another important aspect of the islands cultural expression and identity and has a strong presence in the islands FM radio programs. Shimauta are folksongs in which high-pitched female and/or male voices are accompanied by the Amami sanshin (a three-stringed longneck lute) and sometimes by the chijin (drum) (Hayward and Kuwahara 2008: 65). The lyrics of these songs talk about the pain caused by forced labor, by the hardships of life, and by the separation of lovers and friends. Amami shimauta are closely related to the islands folk traditions such as hachigatsu odori (August dance) and uta asobi (singing game). Amami FM and its Asivi House have been contributing to the revitalization of shimauta that often results in hybrid new musical expressions."

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(Excerpt from Papoutsaki, E. & Kuwahara, S. 2018. Mapping small islands communicative ecologies: a case study from Amami Islands. South Pacific Studies Journal, vol 31, vol 1.)