A Historical Sociological Study of the Repatriation, Resettlement, and Life Reconstruction of Manchuria Settlers

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25870918
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Sociology; Area studies
• Research Institution: Ritsumeikan University
• Principal Investigator: SATO RYO 立命館大学, 経済学部, 非常勤講師 (20587753)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 満洲開拓者 / 引揚げ / 再定住 / 生活再建 / 地域定着 / 開拓者ネットワーク / 記憶 / 日中関係

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The results of the present study are as follows. Firstly, it was revealed that the repatriation of Manchuria settlers was regulated not only in the context of the movement of people across national borders and boundaries, but also another context of the process of resettlement in local communities in conjunction with state policy. Secondly, it was found that “settler networks” (i.e., interpersonal networks among settlers) played an important role in the resettlement into postwar Japanese society of Manchuria settlers who had been disconnected from kinship, territorial, and communal networks as the result of repeated movements from the period before the war into the postwar period. Thirdly, it was elucidated that these settler networks functioned not only as survival strategies among Manchuria settlers seeking to rebuild their lives, but were also expected to serve as an important source of “human capital” for the government implementing postwar agricultural land reforms.

Free Research Field

歴史社会学