Spatial Organizations and Territoriality in the Former Border Area

Abstract

One of the important problems in social geography is to examine the relationship between the spaces defined by institutional bases and real life spaces of people, in other words, between so-called formal regions and substantive regions. An institutional space, such as an administrative area, does not usually remain as a pure formal region, but grows to a territory with some actual involvement of people. If the institutional framework were abolished, for example, the substantive framework of regions would not likely disintegrate immediately, but would persist for a certain period of time. In Japan the division of feudal clan territories had long been fixed in the Edo Period, but it was almost entirely replaced by a new prefectural system after the Meiji Revolution. This paper attempts to examine to what degree a former clan boundary has influenced the affiliations and organizations of people and how the actual integration has proceeded since the institutional framework of feudal territory dissapeared, through a case study of a region comprised of the Oniyanagi and Aisari Districts, northeastern Japan, where a former clan boundary divided these two districts.The Oniyanagi and Aisari Districts now belong to the same incorporated municipal unit, Kitakami, Iwate Prefecture, but in the Edo Period the former belonged to the territory of the Morioka Clan (Nanbu Territory) and the latter was a part of the Sendai Clan (Date Territorry). In this study the four aspects of spatial organizations, i. e. 1) administrative areas, 2) social and cultural spaces, 3) economic spaces, and, 4) communal life spaces, and their changes from the beginning of the Meiji Period to the present are examined with special attention to the separation and integration of the above two districts, through an intensive field research. And we consider, through this research, the territoriality of a region where its institutional framework has been drastically changed.According to our research it is shown that each community of the two districts has had its own cohesiveness, to varying degrees, in each aspect of the spatial organizations through the history of the modern era (after the Meiji Revolution) of Japan. In other words the two districts discussed here have continued to show a strong feeling of territoriality even after the former feudal boundary was abolished. However, it is also true that integration of the two districts in administration as well as in educational activities were tried several times repeatedly, and cooperation and intercommunication in social and cultural lives were also often attempted, especially in recent times after Kitakami was established as a city in 1954. Namely, the opposing forces toward separation as well as integration have operated among these former border areas, and the relationship between these forces has created the essential character of the history in this region.Although it is not easy to indicate the exact factors which cause the above-mentioned phenomena, we can suggest some general notions. First, as for the conditions which have supported the separation and independence of each district, the following information can be summed up; 1) cultural differences and perception gap caused by a continuing barrier function of the former clan boundary, 2) differences in agricultural practices and irrigation systems which are closely related to the physical conditions of each district, and, 3) social secession which would be fed back to further separation in social organizations. Second, the backgrounds for the movements toward integration can be summarized by indicating following three factors; 1) geographical conditions, especially the lack of evident physical dividing lines at the border area, 2) enlargement of economic regions, especially the growing urbanization of Kitakami, and, 3) political situations, especially the formation of large administrative units such as Iwate Prefecture or the city of Kitakami.