Historical research on postwar history

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12517
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 03020:Japanese history-related
• Research Institution: International Research Center for Japanese Studies
• Principal Investigator: GOZA Yuichi 国際日本文化研究センター, 大学共同利用機関等の部局等, 助教 (50642005)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 史学史 / 中世史 / 戦後歴史学 / オーラルヒストリー

Outline of Final Research Achievements

As one of Japan’s best-known scholars, Amino Yoshihiko (1928 2004) made wide and far-reaching contributions to historiography, but he is most commonly credited with proposing a new vision of history based on a critique of the Marxist methodologies that dominated historical studies in early postwar Japan. His unique perspective on the history of minorities, including itinerant entertainers and outcasts (both of whom formed part of a larger category he called hin hinogyomin,“non-agrarians”) and women,has been compared to the social history of the Annales school.
The primitive belief that the world belonged to the divine and could not be
possessed by human beings endured, Amino argued, in civilized societies as well. He gave the name muen to the Japanese expression of this original philosophy of non-ownership and non-possession,reinterpreting the history of the archipelago in terms of the conflict between it and thelogic of private ownership (uen, “connectedness”).

Free Research Field

日本中世史

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

網野善彦は一流の日本中世史研究者であり、その学説の影響力は歴史学界を超えて一般社会に広く浸透した。マルクス主義者でありながら戦後歴史学を批判する立場を採った網野の学説を史学史の中に位置づけることは重要な課題である。しかしながら、圧倒的な知名度を誇った「網野史観」は数々の伝説に彩られており、歴史学者や評論家による従来の網野善彦論は、作られた「神話」に惑わされ、網野の研究の実像に迫れていない。本研究は、同時代資料によって網野の回顧談を相対化し、網野の研究の真の軌跡を明らかにした。この研究手法は他の学者を対象とする評伝にも応用可能であり、大きな学術的意義・社会的意義を持つと考える。