2001 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
The Research on the Conditions for Establishing Ecologically Sound Local Communities in Remote Rural Areas: A Tentative of the Environmental Sociology for Independent Local Communities
| Project/Area Number |
10610185
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
社会学(含社会福祉関係)
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| Research Institution | Shukutoku University |
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Principal Investigator |
MASUGATA Toshiko Shukutoku University, The College of Sociology, Professor, 社会学部, 教授 (00255150)
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| Project Period (FY) |
1998 – 2000
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| Keywords | Kumari / Indraiatra / Great Mother / Nepalese Buddhism / virgin worship / Matsyendranath / Karunamaya / Avalokitesvara |
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| Research Abstract |
This research aims at examining the conditions for establishing ecologically sound local communities as being sustainable and independent based on the organic agriculture and forestry. For this research, I selected five rural areas, and then made a field survey in each area mainly using an intensive interview method and collected the related materials. The five chosen fields are Okuizumo region in shimane, Akehama-cho in Ehime, Aya-cho in Miyazaki, Yakushima Island in Kagoshima and Nagai-shi in Yang. In these remote rural areas people are trying to reconstruct and vitalize their local communities by organic agriculture as main activity in combination with local industries utilizing local resources and eco-tourism.
In this report, I attempted an analysis mainly of two fields. One is Okuizumo region in Shimane, where the organic agriculture movement has expanded under the leadership of Kisuki-nyugyo (the company established by dairy farms).
The other is Akehama-cho in Ehime, where a group of citrus fruits growers, "Muchachaen", has taken the initiative in promoting the organic agriculture. Through these movements (based on organic agriculture), both communities established local endogenous businesses and secured people who manage self-government of local communities. Each movement effected also to introduce models of " cooperative local community" with a qualitatively new social relationship so-called "intimate sphere", and networks with urban consumers. The developing processes of each movement suggested the direction of the reform of present social economic systems and the way of the cooperation between urban cities and remote rural areas in the future establishing "ecologically sound local community".
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