The municipal merger which produced new local autonomous bodies with unfamiliar name in recent years in Japan -what is called "the great merger in the Heisei era"- has come to the end of the first stage in 31 March 2006. According to the newspaper, Mainichi-Shinbun, on that day, a number of local governments were reduced from 3,232 in 31 March 1991 to 1,821 in 31 March 2006. In this great merger, one merger was easily carried out, but the other was not. In Mori-machi, Shizuoka, the negotiation of merger with neighbor municipalities ended in failure. Mori-machi decided on not merging. This decision was reached on result of referendum which was held on 29 August 2004 in this town. In that process, it is noteworthy that the demonstration insisting on anti municipal merger was held on 27 August. Moreover, the participants of this demonstration included those who have taken part in the festival held in every November in the center of Mori-machi, and those people took a Japanese lantern having been used in the festival. In short, this demonstration was held as the lantern parade in which the participants of the local festival joined. Why did they join in this demonstration? Why was this demonstration held as a lantern parade? In this article, these questions will be resolved. And through it, I will show the political atmosphere which surrounded Mori-machi in those days.

特集文化人類学の現代的課題II
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