This collaborative research focuses on the representation of locality in Japanese literary and film works. We will collectively examine the interaction between regional culture and creative expression. We will analyze how writers, artists, and filmmakers recognize and construct regional identities through their creative activities, and how they visualize them through cultural imagination. Through this collaborative research, we will also examine questions such as the relationship between nationalism and localism.

　The principal research investigator, Wei Ran, focuses on representations of Kamagasaki in Nishinari Ward, Osaka City, as depicted in Japanese literature from the 1970s to the present. This research aims to explore how the lives, culture, and history of day laborers have been portrayed, particularly through their own narratives. In addition, employing digital humanities methodologies, the study seeks to compile and systematize information on laborers who migrated to Osaka. The co-research investigator, Nihei Masato, examines representations of the Tohoku region in the avant-garde literature and art of the 1960s and 1970s through extensive archival research, including digital archives, to elucidate their significance. The study especially concentrates on how Aomori is depicted in the theater and poetry of Shuji Terayama, analyzing: (1) its relation to earlier discourses on Tohoku, and (2) its connection to contemporary artists, intellectuals, and the contexts of avant-garde art. Furthermore, the study investigates how Terayama’s works and activities were received in Tohoku during that period, based on archival materials. 

　Furthermore, through regional studies focusing respectively on Fukushima, Hiroshima, and Hokkaido, the collaborating researchers aim to clarify the diverse relationships between localities and regional cultures.