1990 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
A Relationship Between Regional Structure and Historical Development from 17TH to 19TH Century in Japan
| Project/Area Number |
01301042
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Co-operative Research (A)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Research Field |
Japanese history
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| Research Institution | Hitotsubashi University |
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Principal Investigator |
SASAKI Junnosuke Hitotsubashi University, Faculty of Social Studies, Professor, 社会学部, 教授 (60017613)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
MORI Yasuhiko National Institute of Japanese Literature, Department of Historical Documents, P, 教授 (30020613)
KAGAWA Takayuki Mitsui Research Institute for Social and Economic History, Researcher, 研究員 (90087908)
ITO Tadao Nagoya University, Faculty of General Education, Professor, 教養部, 教授
MATSUDA Yukitoshi Gifu University, Faculty of General Education, Professor, 教養部, 教授 (90021766)
INADA Masahiro Aichi University of Education, Faculty of Education, Professor, 教育学部, 教授 (00093089)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1989 – 1990
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| Keywords | Japan / the 17th and 19th Century / a concept of region / people's perception / political control / economic change / social change / a mass movement |
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| Research Abstract |
The main theme of this research is to investigate how people saw and conceived their region along with historical development from 17th to 19th Century in Japan.
The concept of "region" in regional study usually means an administrative region and has been a useful unit of analysis, such town, village, and so on. Many regional studies have been based on these authorized or administrative concept of "region". In reality, however, the authorized or administrative region was different from people's perception of "region". There must be a wide gap between people's hands-on perception of their "region" and authorized administrative one. In addition, the people's perception changed with the time when they lived, the class to which they belonged, and the place where they worked. Therefore, this research analyzed representative characteristics of the Japanese regions through the 17th and 19th Century by focusing on the people's perception of "region" which the ordinary regional studies have negrected.
Two major findings of this research are follows :
1) People's perception of "their region" was regulated by political, economic, and social factors. In concrete, the political and economic region was perceived a homogeneous space as "region" and this perception was usually wider than administrative region.
2) The perception of "region" of the upper class was wider than that of the lower class. In the merchant class, however, their perception was wider, although their social status was lower than those of samurai and farmers. As this, economic factors widened the concept of region in the people's perception.
Because this kind of study has just begun, the result of this research was not satisfactory with our expectation. However, we believe this kind of approach to regional study will contribute to the further development of regional and historical studies.
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