4 - To live by means of Kagura: The contemporary Kagura performance as a theory of mediation in semi-mountainous areas in Shimane, Japan

This paper focuses on kagura performances practiced by local grassroots people in the Iwami region of Shimane Prefecture, Japan. Iwami kagura, rooted in the history and traditions of Shimane’s local Shinto shrines, has continually been modified in response to local political and economic conditions and by utilizing local environmental and cultural resources since Japan’s modernization. Today’s kagura is a theatrical performance as a prayer to the indigenous gods, a nostalgic entertainment for residents, and a source of identity and self-efficacy for the local performers. In this study, Iwami kagura is seen as a complex and dynamic assemblage consisting of people, costumes, props, musical instruments and the sounds or music played by them, and the human and economic networks supporting the activities of the local performance group called　shachu. This paper considers how the assemblage of people, sounds, and things surrounding kagura mediate the ‘social’ in the mountainous areas of Shimane Prefecture, one of rural Japan’s geographic and economic peripheries today.