1.1 Purpose of study
The major purpose of this study is to conduct a poststructural critique of futures images generated from data of the post-bubble rural community known as Ashibetsu situated in Japan's northern island of Hokkaido. It is hypothesized from the outset that a poststructural perspective will be instrumental not in the prediction of a certain future, but rather in the deconstructionist process of 'undoing' dominant futures images in order to unmask the un-said, thereby opening up transformative spaces from which authentic futures images may be generated. The method of analysis employed in this study requires that we have a closer understanding of the 'official' futures images. Consequently, another objective of this study is to juxtapose the 'official' or dominant images in the study area with those of local katayaburi -- the idiosyncratic thinkers. One question asked is 'Can the seeds of alternative and preferred futures be found in the marginalized voices of the katayaburi?' However, this study does not conclude with a deconstruction analysis. Consistent with the contemporary demand for reconstructive approaches to critical analyses, the final purpose of this investigation is to suggest a new framework for an alternative communicative discourse which potentiates new futures.

1.2 Statement of problem
In this section, a number of key issues and concepts are addressed in order to introduce the reader to the line of argument to be pursued by this critical futures investigation. In the midst of emerging dramatic global structural transformations pointing to massive shifts in identity, economy and governance (Inayatullah, 1997), once seemingly invincible Japan Inc. has not remained unaffected by the imperative of assessing its own futures images portfolio. Since World War Two, Japan's futures image has been characterized by a monolithic 'catch-up and overtake the USA and Europe' model whose implicit objectives were to attain the scientific, technological and economic levels of the World War Two victors. It is hypothesized in this investigation that Japan's single-minded pursuit and unquestioned acceptance of the authority of the 'catch-up' model has contributed to the marginalization of the female, the young, the non-economic, the outsider and the unconventional. The nation's economic-driven paradigm has impacted upon the ability of the Japanese to think or act 'outside the box' or to recognize as legitimate, alternative ways of thinking, doing and being. Official discourse on Japan's post-bubble 'problem' attributes the source of the impasse to the singular source in the form of 'bad loans', a problem whose solution assumes the need to install in Japan a US-derived ultra competitive society.

Inextricably linked to the issue of Japan's search for new futures images is the notion of development. Inayatullah (1994) has claimed that "development and development theory have become increasingly problematic" (p. 24).
As nation-states find it increasingly problematic to act effectively at the macrolevel, micro approaches to development have received greater worldwide attention. Significantly, post-war development has displayed two major shifts: from macro to micro development initiatives; and from quantitative to qualitative, that is from economic-oriented development to human development approaches. Correspondingly, development thinking in the last two decades has seen a global boom in Community Futures (CF), an approach whose task is to "forge an equitable, efficient and appropriate-scaled alternative to global capitalism" (Wildman, 1998, p. 7). The pathologies of post-bubble Japan have left rural communities bereft of guiding futures images. One response to this problematic situation in Japan is witnessed in the proliferation of community futures programs collectively known as machi-zukuri or 'town-making' strategies. As Slaughter (1996a) has noted "Images and imaging processes powerfully affect the ways in which people and organisations look ahead, yet they are seldom studied explicitly." In one of the first major investigations in futures images research Galtung (in Ornauer et al., 1976) defines the import of this genre of research, not by highlighting their predictive capacity but rather preparatory effect upon the area of study. The author notes: Are these efforts to speculate about future attitude distributions really important or interesting at all? Certainly not in the sense of being able to foretell - as already pointed out. But they are of importance, and they are interesting, when they are contrasted with unreasonable expectations as to some aspects of the objective future.

 Unwarranted optimism and unwarranted pessimism will both have their consequences. Thus, if a population seems to feel that science will bring more and more benefits and solutions, and the attitude distribution is such that there are good reasons to expect that the subjective future will look even more optimistic in the years to come, whereas at the same time there are good reasons to believe that more science will bring with it considerable costs and problems, then this finding is important. It is important because disappointments for which a society is unprepared may have paralyzing, and even retrogressive effects (Galtung, in Ornauer et al., 1976, p. 18).

The report also alludes to the importance of understanding the non-official futures images. The social pursuit of dominant visions may in fact be harmful because they may function as one more factor leading people to focus on that single trajectory of development instead of focussing on the mapping out of new paths of social transformation (Galtung, in Ornauer et al., 1976, p. 19). Central to the task of reinventing new futures in the face of obselete and limiting social realities, is the study of futures images. Although various techniques derived from images research have been increasingly employed in local futures-creating strategies throughout the world, critical questions that ask 'Whose futures?' and 'Who benefits from the dominant futures discourses?', remain largely under-researched. Seen in the macro-context of Japan and the micro-context of the study area Ashibetsu, the lack of critical approaches to futures images and developmental issues, is especially conspicuous. This investigation can also therefore be understood as a strategy to redress this imbalance. It is explained in the following chapter that central to the study of futures images is the culture-specific phenomenon of communication.

One salient issue concerning Japanese communication modes is the clash of paradigms observed between Japan's ageing post-war generation -- stereotypically typified by the company salaryman -- the derivative of an industrial-modernistic worldview, and the younger generation of Japanese brought up within a superficially americanized postmodern global environment. From this paradigm clash, a question concerning Japan's future can be derived: Has this paradigm clash impaired the communicative ability of this nation, where in terms of Japanese culture, the young are subordinate to elders? And, by extension, has this impairment of communicative ability contributed to the sense of alienation, disempowerment and anomie (Baert, 1998) not only amongst Japan's current youth generation, but amongst the idiosyncratic, and marginalized other? Have the interpersonal relations, naturalized as the 'Japanese character', and subordinated by the nation's dominant corporatist worldview, produced a nation of individuals unable to speak their mind or imagine anything other than the taken-for-granted?

And finally, can this problematique be correlated to Japan's communication styles, from which the spaces of potential social transformation through communication, have been crowded out by linguistic formalism, perfunctoriness and a repressive communication climate? How can the reader unfamiliar with Japanese communication modes and issues visualize this problematic? One useful conceptual tool can be borrowed from Japanese shiatsu therapy based on the medical philosophy that physical and mental pathologies manifest in the human organism due to blockages of energy flow through the body's so-called 'meridians'. This metaphor can be extended to facilitate the visualization of blocked communication channels within Japan's present communication climate.

This leads to an obvious question: What is the nature of the crisis of communication the researcher claims is impacting both on Japan and the study area? A partial answer to this can be found in the comments of a Japanese informant currently employed in Japan's banking industry, reporting about planned strategies to make his bank more internationally competitive. Our bank is thinking of abolishing the seniority system. Do you know what that means? I could end up being the boss to my own boss now -- the same guy that has put me down for years and harassed me at work. It means I could make lots of money and reap the financial rewards of my own skills -- and if he doesn't 'perform' he won't get anything. It even means I won't have to use honorific Japanese to him any more. In other words, he won't have any kind of control over me. Can you imagine what this means for Japanese business and culture? I don't think it can ever work in actuality. It's too radical for Japan. Whereas conventional community futures thinking has concentrated on empirical-quantitative dimensions, the poststructuralist approach reinstates the political.

 According to Inayatullah (1990), "A critical perspective will show the monuments of power before us and thus allow the continuous destruction and reconstruction of alternative futures, 'past', 'present' and 'future'." Accordingly, new and radical theoretical and epistemological perspectives have been applied to the issue of development. On this point, Rabinow and Sullivan (1979) have noted that "Politicians, and our academic experts, find it easier to talk about the standard of living than about what a society might be living for" (Rabinow and Sullivan, 1979, p. 14). Despite perceptions that poststructural perspectives are theory driven and impractical to real-world problematic situations, Inayatullah (1990) vividly highlights how futures researchers ought to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world problematics: ...futures studies must not solely be engaged in pure research, but rather the future must actualize itself through praxis.

There must be an effort to identify cultures that have been suppressed or that will be suppressed given various trends, and then aid them in articulating and realizing new visions (Inayatullah, 1990). Tied to the desired outcome of the poststructural futures agenda to deconstruct the present as one necessary step to opening up the transformative spaces for alternative futures (Inayatullah, 1998a) is the need to investigate the dynamics of transformative change. Based on the research outcomes of previous communication futures research by Stevenson and Simpson (1993), the role of idiosyncratic futures has been cited as an important but largely overlooked source of alternative and authentic futures. In the context of Japan, the idiosyncrat -- is approximated by the individual referred to as katayaburi -- literally the 'mold-breaker', an informally recognized social subgroup whose opinions have only recently been taken seriously but are yet to impact significantly on Japanese policy. Recognizing the imperative for positive change, how then can social transformation be brought about? Even Japan, labelled by many Japanese experts with the collective credo "nothing ever changes" (Wood, 1992, p. 3) is not without historical precedent for major societal transformaton, as witnessed by the Meiji and post-war reformations. The katayaburi is by nature non-conventional, which implies a frame of mind and way of being-in-the-world that is creative, innovative, experimental, and not always socially accepted. As Boulding (1995) astutely notes: "When a community is close to the margin of survival, the innovator is suspect and discouraged as threatening to the good order of society" (Boulding and Boulding, 1995, p. 66). In light of the above lines of inquiry, it can be hypothesized that Ashibetsu and other rural communities are the potential sites of qualitative change; the creators of new futures images; and the agents of micro-transformative dynamics that over-populated metropolitan regions including Tokyo, are incapable of achieving Finally, this poststructural investigation is based upon a number of assumptions and premises formulated from previous research and theory, intuition derived from personal experience and research undertaken in Japan over more than a decade, and on information provided by Ashibetsu informants prior to entering the study area. These organizing assumptions and premises are:

l Japan is traditionally a hegemonically governed nation, planned centrally from Tokyo by a singular vision of the future which has systematically, marginalized alternative images;

l Although the relative homogeneity of Japan's post-war future image facilitated the nation's rapid rise to economic superpower status, this 'catch- up and overtake' model is obselete in Japan's post-bubble social reality. Despite this, alternative images are rarely articulated in public debate, leaving dominant images unchallenged;

l The dominant futures image promoted by official sources such as local government in Ashibetsu, functions as a structural impediment to the ability of Ashibetsu citizens to imagine, articulate and communicate authentic and alternative post-bubble futures;

l Alternative, non-official images may be the reservoirs of creative ideas more appropriate to the needs of the future than are existing dominant images;
l The Japanese katayaburi individual is best conceptualized in Foucauldian