The restructuring of the management bases of Yama-Hoko Events of Gion Festival in Kyoto: Succession of urban festivals in the current city

Abstract

In 2015, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan, decided to re-propose "Yama-Hoko-Yatai Events" for a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Agency sees the events' values in the fact that people in local communities all together commit to the events, wishing for their communities' peace and disaster-prevention. The events have been gathering momentum for their registration all over Japan. On the other hand, dynamics of populations in cities these days make the passing down of urban festivals more difficult. This paper, therefore, investigates the management bases of urban festivals from social, economic and locational aspects in order to suggest how to pass them down to following generations. As an example, the paper takes the Yama-Hoko Events of the Gion Festival that takes place in the center of Kyoto City every July. My fieldwork and statistical analysis reveal the current situation of management bases of 33 Yama-Hoko floats and their historical changes. The districts which own the floats in the city center are different from each other in terms of demography and land use. So are their management bases, reflecting the differences of the districts. What my research finds out is that such historical changes in demography and land use resulted in restructuring of each float's management base. Changes in urban structure led to restructuring of the management bases of urban festivals, which affects how urban festivals are passed down from generation to generation. This paper, therefore, insists that we need to pay more attention to the restructuring of the management bases when considering the succession of urban festivals all over Japan.