Vol.64 No.2(2012)

Contents

Articles

YOSHIDA Kunimitsu
Analysis of Transferring Farmland Rights in Terms of Social Relationships in Intensive agricultural area : A Case Study of Kamihara Settlement, Minami Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture 1

AMIJIMA Takashi
Continuous Agglomeration of Pharmaceutical Trade in the Modern Era : The Case of Dosho-machi Town, Osaka, Japan, 1868―1923 21

Review

KAJITA Shin
Policy―oriented studies in British medical and health geography since the 1980s 40

Forum

Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake : Opinions offerd by geographers 63

Meeting Reports

274th Regular Meeting 66
125th, 126th, 127th Research Seminar of Historical Geography Study Group 68
106th Research Seminar of Geographical Thought Study Group 75
41st, 42nd, 43ed Research Seminar of Metropolitan Area Study Group 76
22nd Research Seminar of Education of Geography Study Group 86
1st Research Seminar of Political Geography Study Group 89

News 90

Abstracts

Analysis of Transferring Farmland Rights in Terms of Social Relationships
in an Intensive Agricultural Area : A case study of Kamihata settlement,
Minami Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture

YOSHIDA Kunimitsu
Faculty of Human Science, Kanazawa University

This study aims at revealing how farmlands are managed by examining the roles played by the transfer of farmland rights in farm management and agricultural settlements; the study’s analysis is based on the social relationships among farmers that are involved in the process of transferring farmland rights for farmland maintenance. This study focuses on the spread and connection of social relationships among farm households. Past studies have often integrated the ties between farm households with territorial and kinship relations. This study focuses on the spread and connection of social relationships among farm households. This study classifies territorial relations on the basis of spatial spread as well as kin relations by degree of kinship. It also classifies various other social relationships after a careful consideration of each of their characteristics and analyzes them based on how these social relationships form layers, as explanatory variables, and who uses farmlands through the transfer of farmland rights as explained variables.
The following area was selected as study area: the Kamihata settlement in Minami Awaji City, Hyogo Prefecture, located on the Mihara Plain of Awaji Island, where even small farms in the settlement show an intensive use of farmland all year around. On the Mihara Plain, the “three crop” rotation system a combination of paddy rice, onions, and cabbages, or paddy rice, lettuce, or Chinese cabbages has been widely promoted.
On the Mihara Plain, the recipients did not attempt to increase profitability and the farmland transfers were motivated by non economic factors. In the past, after a farm’s retirement, its farmland was generally transferred among farm households through kinship or same neighborhood relations in order to maintain the “farmland as a family property” and as “farmland of the settlement.” However, it gradually became difficult to secure farmland recipients solely through such relations. In order to sustain the farmlands within the settlement, farm households with a sufficient labor force were passively forced to take on the farmlands of landowners with whom they had no neighborhood or kinship relations. Consequently, full time farmers with a sufficient labor force undertook the farming of additional farmlands simply because they were located in the same settlement. On the other hand, in the case of transfers of farmland rights extending to farms in other settlements, the main recipients were part time farm households who took on these farmlands to sustain social relationships such as kesshaen or kinship relations with the landowners. In addition to transfers of farmland rights within the settlement, those outside the settlement were promoted based on the same district, kesshaen, or kinship relations. While same settlement relations were the basis for sustaining farmlands within a settlement, territorial relations of a wider range than a settlement, kesshaen and kinship relations contributed to the sustainability of farmlands outside a settlement.

Key words: Transfer of farmland rights, social relationships, group farming, farmland as family property, Awaji Island

Continuing Agglomeration of the Pharmaceutical Trade in the Modern Era:
The Case of Dosh machi Town, Osaka, Japan, 1868 1923

AMIJIMA Takashi
Graduate Student, Kyoto University

This paper examines the historical industrial agglomeration of the pharmaceutical trade in modern Japan with a special reference to Dosh machi Town, a pharmaceutical district in central Osaka. Dgysha machi or historical towns with many people involved in the same trade, many of which have their origins in early modern urban planning, have rarely attracted researchers in recent decades, though they once constituted a classic topic in Japanese historical geography in the 1950s and 1960s. However, some important questions remain unexamined and uncertain: for instance, why have some dgysha machi continued to exhibit spatial agglomeration during and after the modern industrialization period?
In order to consider how a town involved in the same trade maintains concentration through recomposing itself during the rapid social and economical changes of the modern capitalist age, it is important to analyze the relationships between and the social co ordination and customs followed by the same traders, as shown in recent developments in the economic geography of industrial agglomeration. However, the previous studies on dgysha machi have not examined the modern agglomeration of merchants who are directly involved in exchange.
The findings of this paper are summarized as below. First, the pharmaceutical industry had developed continuously since the latter half of the Meiji era （1890 1912）, which is in contrast to the sudden development of the chemical industry during the Taisho era （1912 1926）. At the same time, several pharmaceutical merchants sustained themselves in Dosh machi, and the economic scales of their business tended to increase. Second, the concentration of pharmaceutical merchants was constant mainly owing to the participation of new ones, while some of the traditional merchants with early modern origins survived. The pharmaceutical industry in Osaka during the Meiji and the Taisho periods developed as a subsidiary sector of pharmaceutical wholesalers. Finally, in Dosh machi, there were some groups of pharmaceutical merchants formed by details of their business, and the interests of those groups often conflicted with the business co ordination for quality control of products. However, the conflicts were managed at the meetings of the association of Osaka pharmaceutical wholesalers. These findings suggest that additional geographical research on modern industrial agglomerations are needed in order to analyze the co ordination and customs followed by merchants and manufacturers.

Key words: dgysha machi, towns involved in the same trade, pharmaceutical merchants, pharmaceutical industry, co ordination, Dosh machi

Policy oriented Studies in British Medical and
Health Geography Since the 1980s

KAJITA Shin
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences,
The University of Tokyo

Human geography’s contributions in policy arenas have long been discussed within the discipline. Although policy （re） turn debates emerged after the late 1990s, the author suggests it is important to examine not only the current situation of policy oriented geographical studies, but also their long term development and evolution. In this paper, the author traces and analyzes policy oriented studies in British medical and health geography since the 1980s, when quantitative and policy science approaches came to be severely criticized and various alternative approaches developed in British geography.
Since the 1980s, the dominant research in these areas were, first, studies seeking fundamental explanations and primarily depending on political economic/Marxist approaches, and second, studies strongly influenced by humanistic geographies and various social theories, including the so called cultural turn movement, with focuses on differences and particularities. These developments shifted medical and health geographers’ attention toward factors affecting individual health, from medical affairs to non medical （environmental, psychological, social, etc.） ones. Qualitative methods （such as in depth interviews and discourse analyses） also came to be eagerly introduced into these areas.
In their policy oriented research, researchers using a political economic/Marxist approach tried to “explain” the fundamental mechanism behind why health disparities emerged, leading to the introduction of certain policies. Cultural and social approaches aimed at “understanding” the more nuanced meanings of policies and their effects. On the other hand, policy “evaluation” and “design” studies were largely discarded.
In contrast, some related disciplines developed such studies, and a few medical and health geographers claimed to tackle them. Especially important, we feel, are quasi experimental and quasi market approaches. The former approach’s purpose is to gain evidence for effective policy intervention, exploiting naturally emerging situations. The latter seeks the effective use of market mechanisms by minimizing its faults. Thus far, these approaches have not been accepted enthusiastically.
If we hope to seek contributions to policy evaluations and development and improve the public’s health through policy interventions, we should not only develop policy evaluation and design studies, but also constructively promote the supplementary and integrative use of various approaches such as qualitative and quantitative, political economic and cultural social, policy science, etc.

Key words: policy oriented studies, medical geography, health geography, quasi market, quasi experimental