A Study on the Social Change of Japanese Rural Community

Research Project

Project/Area Number	63510088
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for General Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	社会学(含社会福祉関係)
Research Institution	Saitama University
Principal Investigator	SHIRAI Hiroaki Saitama University, Faculty of Education, Associate Professor, 教育学部, 助教授 (40015920)
Project Period (FY)	1988 – 1989
Project Status	Completed (Fiscal Year 1989)
Budget Amount *help	¥1,500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,500,000) Fiscal Year 1989: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000) Fiscal Year 1988: ¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Keywords	'Mura' / Redistribution / Reciprocity / Social exchange system / Cooperation / Co-assistance / Community / 贈与交換 / 村落構造 / 地方制度 / 村
Research Abstract	The purpose of this research program is to grasp the social structure of 'mura', the substantial core of traditional Japanese rural community, in order to approach to the social change in post World War II. For this purpose, 'Hozaka', which is a village among the Abukuma mountains in Hukushima Prefecture, was chosen as the field of our empirical researches. Main findings is as follows. 1.Hozaka has 94 households and 82 small farm families in it at 1988. In their social interaction two patternized types was observed. One is cooperation which is performed through bearing each share of obligations. Other is co-assistance which is performed through exchanging a aid each other. 2.The former was observed mainly in the organizations of the custom of working together and the village festival, and they are a sort of redistribution system which is composed of bearing each share and coming in for a share the conditions for economic and social subsistence. The imbalance between each bearing and coming in had been made reparation or forced by the function of the organization of village office which had intermediated those two aspects. 3.The latter mas observed mainly in a labor exchange custom on farming and customary mutual aid in marriage and funeral, and they are a sort of reciprocal donation exchange system. This system has been formed in both symmetrical social relations and groups, but when exchange is extended in long term,that reciprocity has been assured by social norm or reticence on the integration of the group. 4.In 'mura', the co-assistance system has been formed within the cooperation system, because it has given the membership village people. The structural change of rural community is grasped as a differentiating process of those two systems.