2006 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary
Research on Vigor(GENKI) of the Aged in Community Culture
| Project/Area Number |
16530360
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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 |
Sociology
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| Research Institution | Konan Women's University |
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Principal Investigator |
ASHIDA Tetsuro Konan Women's University, Faculty of Human Sciences, Professor (20151053)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
HOSOTSUJI Keiko Konan Women's University, Professor (90199505)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2004 – 2006
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| Keywords | aged society / vigor of the aged / community culture |
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| Research Abstract |
With the coming of "the ageing society" or "the aged society" many people seem to have dark and gloomy images of that. But we have seen a lot of elderly men and women who are full of vigor or vitality. Accordingly we have searched for possibility of "the cheerful and hopeful long-life society" through our empirical studies.
Our basic attitude of research is that we never confine the images of the aged into a simple and unified frame and that we have to study actual lives of the aged in various specific scenes. Because each elderly man/woman has his/her own particular life and his/her life has vigor or vitality in each style.
So we have investigated the real lives of "the vigorous elderly people" in some communities of the prefectures of Gifu, Kumamoto, Saga, etc. and their local cultural conditions. Especially we report in detail on the aged who contributed to the revival of YACHIYO-ZA, an old local theater which now is a symbol of renaissance of the community of Yamaga City of Kumamoto Prefecture. They organized and promoted vigorously the movement for the revival of YACHIYO-ZA which had faced a crisis of ruin.
By this research we found a possibility of unique contribution of the aged to refreshment of a community. On one hand the aged of Yamaga are attached to and proud of their community and its culture strongly. On the other, they are free from the common senses of the community and sometimes raise resolute objections. Attachment and pride, freedom and objection : the unique combination of these attitude functioned successfully to revive the old local theater and to encourage the community and its culture.
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