Japanese Rural Society Research Articles

An Integrated Approach to Visioning for Peripheral Farming Villages: A Case Study of Japan

This paper demonstrates a case study to comprehensively understand Japanese rural society, proposing an integrated approach to visioning sustainable rural society in the context of developed countries. We first provided an overview of Japanese agricultural history and conducted interviews with individuals regarding their life histories in two peripheral research fields in Japan. We then analyzed these life histories and compared them with the macro trends of agricultural policy. In particular, our analyses shed light on the interactions between agricultural policies, individuals’ life and local resource endowments in rural areas. Specifically, human, natural and man-made capitals in Japanese rural society have changed in the way they are used while agricultural policies have exclusively focused on rice production. Based on the observation, we argue that Japanese policy might have hindered farmers’ efforts and attempts in the country’s periphery. We conclude that integrating macro analysis and field research facilitates the understanding of local resources and residents’ wellbeing for conceptualizing and approaching the future of farming villages.

Japanese Rural Society. By Fukutake Tadashi. Translated by R. P. Dore. Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1967. Pp. xiv, 230.

<i>Japanese Rural Society</i>. By Fukutake Tadashi. Translated by R. P. Dore. Tokyo: Oxford University Press, 1967. Pp. xiv, 230.

TABATA Yasuko, Women in medieval Japanese rural society, Tokyo, 2011

TABATA Yasuko, Women in medieval Japanese rural society, Tokyo, 2011

結婚移民女性の適応・受容過程と農村の社会文化変容

結婚移民女性の適応・受容過程と農村の社会文化変容

The Social Meaning and Function of Folk Religion in a Japanese Rural Society

The Social Meaning and Function of Folk Religion in a Japanese Rural Society

開発理論としての《活性化》言説の構造分析試論

開発理論としての《活性化》言説の構造分析試論

新しい「共」を創る

‘Mura’ is a fundamental organization in Japanese rural society. In the aspect of politics, Japanese centralization of conservative power has been formed on the basis of Mura. On the other hand, in the aspect of economy, farming sector in Mura has been destructed by the free trade policy under WTO. Against these political and economic power structure, a new movement for the reconstruction of relations between urban and rural residents is starting. Both residents try to combine the living manner each other, for example, organic farm products, direct marketing, citizens garden and so on. However, the reform of conservative structure in rural area is not rapid yet, in spite of urban aggressiveness. This gap between urban and rural residents would be filled up by ‘the new citizens society’ as ‘soft network system’ , supporting ‘weak individuals’ against the pressure of the politically economic globalism. In this process Mura structure would be refreshed and reconstructed gradually. In this paper we describe some examples as for these changing process of rural society.

転作上の休耕の土地利用における意味

This paper discusses about the fallowed Paddies under the goverment program for rice set-aside from the viewpoint of rural land use. They are to be not only realized explicitly as the compulsory forced-fallow by regulation, but also realized implicitly as the 'Social Fallow' because of the unsufficience of labor of their user's farms.In Japanese rural society, there have been common sense that farmer would not have been seemed as lazy farmers. Especially, the typical index whether he is lazy or not is how carefully he endeavor to weed. Therefore, at some paddies, it was observed that farmers worked hard to weed over the minimum creteria which is stipurated on the program of rice set-aside.However, it was also observed at some paddies that farmers substantially abondaned to maintain the condition of paddies at least to the lebel under which farmer could reversiblely re-start to grow rice after the period of fallow.Thes phenominon can be explained as the 'Social Fallow' which is widely observed suburban areas among other advanced countries. Farms in which labor resources are unsufficient seems to get the land use of their farms extensive, besidely, to neglect the care of their fallowed paddies.The problem is that there is the difference between elder generation and youger generation about the consiousness for the care of fallowed paddies, especially for the weeding. Elder generation tend to consider the reputation of them within the villege community and it indue them to weed carefully. But, most of them do not have their farms' successor. In future, it would be doutfull that such kinds of behavior continue to exist in modernised rural society.

The Japanese organic farming movement: Consumers and farmers united

Organic farmers' groups throughout Japan have formed direct-marketing relations with urban consumers who are interested not only in obtaining “safe” foods but also in helping farmers survive as full-time farmers. This article looks at one such urban-rural coalition, focusing on actions taken by farmers and consumers united in a joint struggle to stop the construction of a golf course resort. Part of that “other Japan” in which people are working together at the grassroots to create an alternative vision of what Japan can become, participants in this movement are fashioning new cultural values and social relations that challenge the dominant culture's hegemony.The Japanese organic farming movement, which has its roots in the social upheavals of the 1960s against war, pollution, corporatism, and sexism, is today part of a global proliferation of alternative strategies for environmental, social, and personal transformation. Movement participants representing a diverse cross-section of Japanese society are transforming social relations and creating new values, self-identities, definitions of gender, and socio-political assumptions. Earlier village-bounded studies of Japanese rural society emphasized cultural continuity, the masterful blending of modernity and tradition, and the stoic acquiescence of villagers to externally imposed change. My research, by contrast, found organic farmers' groups revitalizing rural economies, forming direct-marketing relations with urban consumers, linking up with farmers in the Third World, opposing Tokyo-directed golf-course and resort development plans, and uniting in a variety of new social movements.

Resilience and the spirit of self‐advancement: Japanese rural society, 1878–1945

Oishi Kaichirō and Nishida Yoshiaki (eds), Kindai Nihon no gyōsei‐son: Nagano‐ken Hanishina‐gun Goka‐mura no kenkyū. Nihon Keizai Hyōron‐sha, Tokyo, 1991. Okama Kunio, Gyōsei‐son no shikkō taisei to shūraku: Akita‐ken Yuri‐gun Nishime‐mura no ‘keisei’ katei. Nihon Keizai Hyōron‐sha, Tokyo, 1994. Okado Masakatsu, Kindai Nihon to nōson shakai: nōmin sekai no hen'yō to kokka. Nihon Keizai Hyōron‐sha, Tokyo, 1994. Hijikata Sonoko, Kindai Nihon no gakkō to chiiki shakai: mura no kodomo wa dō ikitaka. Tokyo Diagaku Shuppankai, Tokyo, 1994.

A Study of the Mukason (non-inhabited village) in Ecchu Province in a Time-Space Perspective

It is recognized that the smallest spatial unit of Japanese rural society is the oaza, which roughly coincides with the areal extent of the hanseison, an administrative unit in rual areas in pre-Meiji feudal Japan. However, the areal extent of the hanseison or the oaza does not always coincide with those of the mura, the naturally developed agricultural commune.Much research has been done concerning spatial relationships between formal and substantive regions, drawing examples from villages termed the Sue Mura type, which consist of several mura units chiefly found in the southwestern part of Japan. However, little has been done on the small-scale villages consisting of a single oaza, or former hanseison. This paper, therefore, aims to examine areal discrepancies between a formal region and a substantive region, and how such discrepancies came to exist, taking the hanseison or oaza as example of a formal region, and the mura as that of a substantive region.During the Tokugawa era, the administration of the hanseison was done through the control of both the production of rice and the rice-producing households, since the revenue of the feudal government depended on the amount of rice produced in the respective feudal domain. In the province of Ecchu (present Toyama Prefecture), there existed single-oaza hanseison without any households or inhabitants. They were independent spatial entities created purely for administrative purposes. Such noninhabited “villages”, termed the mukason in this study, may be considered as strongly exhibiting characteristics of a formal region. At the same time, it is assumed that the non-inhabited “villages” also shared certain mura functions despite the lack of inhabitants. Thus, it is postulated that the examination of areal and functional changes of the mukason through time may help clarify certain dynamic relations between formal and substantive regions.This study has examined the entire area of Ecchu Province. First, the overview of the present conditions has been presented through the survey of agricultural communes; second, after a survey of characteristics of formal region as observed through the hanseison and oaza, a taxonomic categorization of the situation, areal extent, and function of the mukason has been attempted.The major findings are as follows:1. The average number of household per agricultural commune in Toyama Prefecture is slightly less (33 households) than that of the national average, and the majority (72.5%) of the communes coincide with the oaza in areal extent. However, there are also two types of agricultural communes which may deserve attention:1) some which are extremely small in size; and 2) some others which extend over two units of oaza.2. As a result of very intensive reclamation efforts in Ecchu in order to create new paddy fields during the Early Tokugawa period, a large number of small-scale hanseison, including the mukason, came into existence. The reorganization of administrative systems during the Meiji era resulted in the renaming of mukason as oaza without changes in areal extent. After the Meiji era, the number of mukason was reduced, however, since many of the non-inhabited oaza units were amalgamated into other oaza units which contained settlements.3. The main cause for the creation of mukason can be explained. Many detached territories and border areas having complicated administrative borderlines came to exist as a result of repeated flooding and consequent redevelopment. Agricultural lands in such areas were cultivated by inhabitants of neighboring villages, or by those of “parent villages” in some cases.

Japanese Social Organization and the Mingei Movement

THIS ARTICLE is about a group of potters living a small community called Sarayama (Onta), which is situated the south of Japan. It concerns certain problems arising from the production, marketing and aesthetic appraisal of a kind of stoneware pottery that is generally referred to as a folk art or craft. The underlying theme of the paper is that of social change Japanese rural society. I would like to make two points by way of introduction, since there are some, no doubt, who feel that this theme has been discussed too often for them to benefit from reading further. Firstly, almost all the data from which sociological explanations of rural society Japan have hitherto been drawn fact derive from studies of farming villages. Although the Japanese like to categorize rural communities into agricultural, fishing and mountain types, not much attention has been paid to the latter two by Western scholars (see Norbeck 1954 and Cornell 1956 for exceptions). Moreover, as Plath (1967:519-20) has had occasion to note, in today's rural Japan not only is the farmer 'half a farmer,' vast numbers of people are not farmers at allthey are merchants, craftsmen, doctors, politicians, teachers, commu

Japanese Rural Sociology before World War II

From 1920's to early 1940's Japanese rural sociology were gradually coming into existence as special sociology with two systematic theories. The two theories were Eitaro Suzuki's 'Shizenson' theory and Kizaemon Ariga's 'Ie-rengo' theory which was mainly researching on 'Dozoku' group. This paper is to discuss how the two theories were influenced in the formative process by agricultural policy, folklore, and American rural sociology, and it is also to deal with what characteristics they came to possess as a result of the influence.Summing up, Suzuki and Ariga were alike in trying to investigate the structure of Japanese rural society with the key concepts of their own inventions. While Suzuki's 'shizenson' theory, whose method accepted the influence of American rural sociology, was chiefly founded on the facts in the rural society in the southwestern part of Japan, on the other hand Ariga's'Ie-rengo' theory, under the enormous influence of folklore, was based upon the study of 'Dozoku' group which had often been observed in the rural society in the northeastern part of Japan, and it was the theory generalizing the hierarchal pattern in social relation, admitting that it was true of the social character of Japanese people.

The Structure and Principle of the Family and Kinship System in Asian Rural Societies

Having the belief that we could find varieties of principle and structure in Asian rural societies, the Japanese rural sociologists have been analyzing only Japan. Through these tasks, some sociologists have been able to find the individual characteristics of the Japanese rural social structure, for instance ie (the Japanese family) and dozoku (the Japanese extended family system) and so on. However, such a method might loses sight of homogeneity which exists among Asian countries even though it emphasizes heterogeneity.In this paper, I would like to take a point of view of seeking identity rather than variety, and homogeneity rather than heterogeneity. It is my viewpoint in this paper that the understanding of the Japanese rural society must come after understanding the other Asian countries.I have adopted the principle of lineage of the family and kinship system which are thought to be the fundamental structure of the Asian rural societies as the criterion for finding identity between the societies. Then we can devide Asian rural societies into two areas A, an Area of Bilateral System, and B, an Area of Unilineal.System. Most countries in the south west islands belong to the A-Area, and the countries in the north east continent belong to B-Area. While Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia and so on would be included in the former area, India, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, China and Korea and so on are the latter. This paper seeks to identity which area Japan belongs to.The case studies are as follows.A-Area : Some villages in Indonesia and Philippines have been considered as the case studies. In this area, the family type is that of nuclear family. It cannot be determined whether male or female lineage system are dominant. The way of living might indicate the superiority of the male (patrilocal). Marriages between cousins are more frequent. The kinship structure is the bilateral system. The nuclear group of the kinship system is the sibling group. We cannot decide whether the patrilineage or matrilineage is dominant. But in the modernized areas, patrilineage may be dominant.B-Area : Some cases in India, Vietnam and Korea have been considered. The family type compared with A-Area has the characteristics of the extended family system. We will give attention to the compound family in India, the polygamy in Vietnam, and the clan in Korea. The kinship system is the unilineal system.C-Area : The case of Japan. The established theory which has been dominant concerning family and kinship was that ie and dozoku were in the partiunilineal system. If it were true, Japan should be included in B-Area. However, when we study the Japanese rural society compared with other Asian societies we could find in Japan the factors of both A and B areas.For testing this hypothesis, I have studied Kunimitsu village in Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa Prefecture.The social nucleus of this village is the ie..Ie can be recognized as ie when it exists in both tsura institution, a kind of village community, and ikke organization, a kind of kinship system. The nucleus of this ie is oya (parents), in this case especially the father (the mother follows the father).From the oya, with the father as the nucleus, the oya-ko relationships (the parents-children relationships) extend in the direction of both patrilineage and matrilineage. Thus I can define the kinship organization in this village as a parti-prior-bilateral system of kinship.

Family Control and Social Problems in Japanese Rural Society

Family Control and Social Problems in Japanese Rural Society

: Japanese Rural Society . Tadashi Fukutake, Ronald P. Dore.

: Japanese Rural Society . Tadashi Fukutake, Ronald P. Dore.

Japanese Rural Society. By Tadashi Fukutake (Translated by R. P. Dore). Oxford University Press: London, 1967. Pp. xiv + 230, illustrations, 63s.

Japanese Rural Society. By Tadashi Fukutake (Translated by R. P. Dore). Oxford University Press: London, 1967. Pp. xiv + 230, illustrations, 63s.

Japanese Rural Society.

Japanese Rural Society.

Japanese Rural Society.

Japanese Rural Society.

Cultural Integration and Change in Japanese Villages1

American AnthropologistVolume 65, Issue 1 p. 102-116 Free Access Cultural Integration and Change in Japanese Villages1 TEIGO YOSHIDA, TEIGO YOSHIDA Kyushu UniversitySearch for more papers by this author TEIGO YOSHIDA, TEIGO YOSHIDA Kyushu UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: February 1963 https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1963.65.1.02a00080Citations: 5 1 This paper derives from the field research by the author and his colleagues in selected rural communities of Saga Prefecture in Kyushu, Japan, conducted mainly in the spring and summer of 1955, 1958, 1959, and 1960. This article is a combination of data from two papers originally read by the author at the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for the Study of Educational Sociology in 1960 and the Annual Meeting of Japanese Ethnological Association in 1960, respectively. The present English version, however, was rewritten, somewhat enlarged, and revised. Though the field work was undertaken jointly with Associate Professor Takashi Yano and Research Assistant Fumito Kobayashi, the author is responsible for this paper. AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL REFERENCES CITED Ariga, Kizaemon 1943 Nihon kazoku seido to kosaku seido (The Japanese family system and the tenantry system). Tokyo, Kawade Shobō. Barnett, Homer G. 1953 Innovation: the basis of cultural change. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Beardsley, Richard K., John W. Hall and Robert E. Ward 1959 Village Japan. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Fukutake, Tadashi 1949 Nihon nōson no shakai-teki seikaku (Social characteristics of Japanese agricultural village). Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai. Fukutake, Tadashi 1959 Nihon sonraku no shakai kōzō (Social structure of Japanese rural society). Tokyo, Tokyo Daigaku Shuppan Kai. Hori, Ichirō 1951 Minkan shinko (Folks-beliefs in Japan). Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten. Hori, Ichirō 1959 Japanese folk-beliefs. American Anthropologist 61: 405– 24. Norbeck, Edward 1954 Takashima: a Japanese fishing community. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press. Norbeck, Edward 1961a Postwar cultural change and continuity in Northeastern Japan. American Anthropologist 63: 297– 321. Norbeck, Edward 1961b Voluntary associations in rural Japan. A paper presented before the Tenth Pacific Science Congress, Honolulu, August 24, 1961. Yuzuru Okada and Keiji Kamiya, eds. 1960 Nihon nōgyō kikai-ka no bunseki (Analysis of mechanization of Japanese agriculture). Tokyo, Sōbunsha. Radcliffe-Brown, A. R. 1952 Structure and function in primitive society. London, Cohen and West Ltd. Redfield, Robert 1941 The folk culture of Yucatan. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Seki, Keigo 1958 Nenrei shüdan (Age groups). in Nihon minzoku-gaku taikei (Outline of Japanese Folklore), III, A. Omachi, M. Oka, M. Sakurada, D. Seki and T. Mogami, eds. Tokyo, Heibonsha. Shiomi, T., Y. Watanabe, Y. Ishimura, T. Oshima and H. Nakao 1957 Nihon no nōson (Japanese agricultural village). Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten. Smith, Robert J. 1961 The Japanese rural community: norms, sanctions, and ostracism. American Anthropologist 63: 522– 33. Takeuchi, Toshimi 1957 Kodomo-gumi ni tsuite (The children's group). Minzoku-gaku kenkyu (The Japanese Journal of Ethnology) 21, 4: 61– 67. Takeuchi, Toshimi, S. Ema and M. Fujiki 1959 Tōhoku sonraku to nenjo-soshiki (The rural society and age-grading system in Northeastern Japan). Tōhoku Daigaku, Kyoiku Gakubu Nenpō (Annual Report of the Faculty of Education, Tōhoku University) 7: 63– 172. Citing Literature Volume65, Issue1February 1963Pages 102-116 ReferencesRelatedInformation