“Perceptions of Cultural Heritage” and Landscape Change: An Anthropological Study of Kume Island, Okinawa, Japan

Objective This paper is intended to trace landscape transformations on Kume Island, Okinawa, between the 1970s and 1990s, focusing on the emergence of a phenomenon that could be called “heritage consciousness.”

Methods/process  After the 1970s, Okinawa experienced a boom in tourism development, and villagers created numerous landscape elements such as red-tiled roofs, shissa, ishigantou, and utaki to represent Okinawa’s distinctive landscape. The proliferation of these landscape elements has certainly been influenced by Okinawa’s tourism policy, but to view it solely in terms of such political and economic dynamics is to lose sight of the essence of the landscape transformations on Kume Island. Therefore, this study focuses on why villagers created red-tiled roofs, utaki, and other landscape elements with their own hands, using the perspectives and methods of landscape anthropology. Specifically, we will trace the physical transformations of the landscape through mapping and examine the villagers’ stories, dreams, beliefs, social relations, and relationships with the environment through fieldwork to decipher how they have modified the landscape.

Results/conclusion My investigation reveals that the villagers perceive the red-tiled roofs, utaki, etc., as a “cultural heritage” they must protect and have been guided by a different set of concerns than tourism policy in reproducing the landscape.