Development of a general-purpose analytical tool for structured data of historical financial records and presentation of practical examples

2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K21981
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: 0102:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Kokaze Naoki 千葉大学, 人文社会科学系教育研究機構, 助教 (80880161)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-09-11 – 2023-03-31
• Keywords: 会計史料 / 構造化データ / Text Encoding Initiative / DEPCHA / 経済史 / 経営史

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this research is to contribute to the further development of historical studies through digital humanities by establishing a foundation that enables historians to widely utilize the analysis methodology of financial record historical data. In recent years, the potential of the methodology called DEPCHA, which involves creating structured data in a format that is easily processed by computers for complex historical financial records, has been internationally discussed in the field of digital humanities. However, while discussions regarding data creation have progressed, there have been few endeavors to analyze this data and gain new insights in the field of history.
Therefore, this research has developed an analysis tool for historical financial records that does not require technical skills such as programming, and demonstrated its usefulness through some case studies.

Free Research Field

歴史学、デジタル・ヒューマニティーズ

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

DEPCHAは、経済史・経営史研究を加速させ得るデータ作成手法だが、そのデータを処理する方法は個々の研究者に委ねられており、誰でも汎用的に使える分析手法はまだ確立されていない。そこで本研究は、プログラミング等の技術を要しない財務記録史料データの分析ツールを開発し、これを実際に用いた成果を示してその有用性をいくつかの事例研究から検討した。
具体的には、古代日本史・近世スペイン史・近代イギリス史における帳簿型史料のデータ分析を行い、国内外の学会や研究文献にて成果を発表した。これにより本研究は、データ分析ツールの構築という手法の活用を通じ、経済史・経営史をはじめとする歴史研究の新たな方法論を提起した。