Vol.65 No.4(2013)
Contents
Article
OTA Takashi
A Study of School Trips to the Ise Jingu Shrine During the Prewar Showa Era 1
Research Notes
SHIMIZU Kazuaki
The Evolution of Community Farming Organizations and their Significance in a Paddy Rice Production Area : A Case Study of Sanwa Ward of Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture 20
KAWAGUCHI Natsuki
Development of a Social and Solidarity Economy and Urban Regeneration in Roubaix, France 40
NAKATSUJI Susumu
Differences in the Importance of Shifting Cultivation among Villages in Northern Laos : A Case Study of 14 Villages in Xieng Ngeun District, Luang Prabang Province 57
Meeting Reports
278th Regular Meeting 75
131st Research Seminar of Historical Geography Study Group 79
26th Research Seminar of Education of Geography Study Group 83
News 86
Annual Meeting 2013 Program 88
Abstracts
A Study of School Trips to the Ise Jingu Shrine During the Prewar Showa Era
OTA Takashi
Graduate Student, Yokohama City University, and Dept. of Tourism, Tokai University
As Japan was reorganized on a war footing during the prewar Showa Era, various measures restricting consumption within citizens’ lives were enacted by the government. School trips to pay respects at the Ise Jingu Shrine, however, were widely carried out by schools throughout Japan as ‘specially permitted school trips’ due to the Tenno ideology or emperor system. This study is an examination of the influence of these school trips to the Ise Jingu Shrine on the development of postwar Japanese tourism. In conducting the study, the cultural aspect of tourism was focused on.
In the postwar Japanese travel market, the travel boom known as ‘mass tourism’ took place. The Japanese travel style in the category of the mass tourism is often referred to as ‘a hurried group excursion. ‘Where do people’s motivations for a trip originate ? And where does their travel style come from ? An earlier study has pointed out that the development of tourism is largely influenced by such external factors as socio-economic environment and media information regarding tourism. But while these external factors can act as promotional or suppressive factors, they are not fundamental in determining the desires of people. The arising of a motivation to travel and the development of a travel style take on form only when there is already a basis in the mind that responds to these external factors, which must have been fostered over a long period of time. It might be supposed that such a basis had already formed in the mind of people in the prewar period. Based on the above-mentioned awareness, in order to examine the epochmaking nature of postwar Japanese tourism, this study shows how the basis of Japanese tourism has been formed, first through analyzing the practice of travel contemporary with that period, and second, through examining the process in people’s mind towards travel style in prewar period while looking the ‘school trip to Ise Jingu Shrine,’ which many schoolchildren had experienced, as a model case.
While the school trip to Ise Jingu Shrine has often been studied from the perspective of militaristic indoctrination, the ideology of the Tenno system and of ritualization, and with regard to the history of its establishment and development, studies based on the cultural aspects of tourism are rather few. In addition to the significance and effect of the school trip in terms of reverence for the imperial household, the veneration of gods, respect for ancestors, and as an opportunity for educators to train and discipline, it consequently contributed to a better exchange of communication between teachers and pupils, and among the pupils themselves. The experience of the school trip itself as well as on-the-spot group training and the contact with friends have had an influence on the formation of the mass culture, in which the pupils got involved duringthe course of their later lives.
In this study, I took a different approach from the conventional perspective in the history of school trips, and as a result, the extent to which the school trip to Ise Jingu Shrine has influenced the development of postwar Japanese tourism was revealed.
Key words: educational trip, group training, culture of travel, travel business in the prewar period
The Evolution of Community Farming Organizations and their Significance in a Paddy Rice Production Area : A Case Study of Sanwa Ward of Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture
SHIMIZU Kazuaki
Graduate Student, Nihon University
In Japan, the subjects of agricultural policy changed from individual farmers to management bodies satisfying certain requirements in the mid-2000s. As a result, the establishment of community farming organizations is expanding nationwide. This paper aims to clarify the deployment of community farming organizations and their significance for regional farming. The case study area selected is Sanwa Ward in Joetsu City, Niigata Prefecture.
Sanwa Ward is located in the flat lands of Joetsu City. Farmland consolidation was carried out in the 1990s, and the expansion of management scale of the individual farmer has progressed. In addition, community farming organizations have been established in accordance with the completion of farm land consolidation.
In the Kubo settlement in Sanwa Ward, individual farmers were involved in agricultural production until the 1980s. However, it was difficult to maintain agricultural production in this settlement owing to the aging of farmers and an increase in part-time farmers. As a result, in the early 1990s, some farmers voluntarily established an organization for the joint use of machinery. Then in 2003, based on the earlier organization, they established the agricultural cooperative Corporation G. Most of the farmers in Kubo settlement are now participating in Corporation G, and because of this the principal actor involved in agricultural production in this settlement changed from individual farmers to this cooperative. In addition, the cooperative has been entrusted with production operations on farmland in neighboring settlements, and has been interacting with consumers as well as part of securing channels for sales. Through these activities, the corporation plays a distinct role in the maintenance of regional farming.
In order to maintain future cooperative activity, it is necessary to make an effort to increase revenues. However, there are differences in motivation among the members of the cooperative, and in managing the farmland new problems have arisen. In addition, since the members who established the cooperative are getting older, it is necessary to ensure that there are enough members to take on the activities of the cooperative.
Key words : paddy rice production area, community farming organization, agricultural cooperative corporation, regional farming, Sanwa Ward of Joetsu City
Development of a Social and Solidarity Economy and Urban Regeneration in Roubaix, France
KAWAGUCHI Natsuki
Urban Culture Research Center, Osaka City University
Since the second half of 1990’s, in many formerly industrial cities, attempts at urban regeneration have been launched by local governments, both by mobilizing cultural policies and by developing creative industries. Policies for urban regeneration centered on cultural policies have dual aspects : on the one hand, a convergence toward “urban entrepreneurialism,” and on the other an aspect that gives consideration of social inclusion which is opposed to that. Many authors have taken a critical stance towards the former, but there are few that have examined the latter.
In this situation, France actually has following two movements : One is that of urban regeneration through cultural policies and nurturing creative industries, and the other is that of emphasis on social inclusion that promotes a social and solidarity economy.
This paper will consider how the strategy of urban regeneration and social and solidarity economic policy are progressing in Roubaix, a city with significant problems of unemployment and of poverty caused by the decline of the textile industry. Over the past three decades, French urban policy has tried to solve social problems through urban development, however, the improvement of economic and physical conditions has been receiving more emphasis than that of social conditions in recent years. We would like to clarify how, in a new trend of French urban policy, urban development and the solution of socio-economic problems are being advanced in Roubaix by focusing especially on the social and solidarity economy.
The main points of the paper are :
First, the strategy of urban regeneration through a shift to fostering and attracting creative industries and to large-scale urban development, which was started in the middle of 1990’s and conforms to the recent trend of national urban policy, has to some extent achieved results in the economic dimension through the creation of new jobs and establishment of new enterprises.
Second, that strategy has however not been able to solve the problems of unemployment and social integration faced by former textile factory workers and their families, and these remain as major unsolved problems for the city of Roubaix.
Third, in order to solve such social as well as economic problems, urban regeneration policy in Roubaix since the year 2000 has also been centered around a social and solidarity economy. Specifically, the activities of associations are being endorsed as a positive tool for job creation and social integration for unemployed people, and they are being deliberately linked to changes in the city’s spatial infrastructure and to providing access to employment for former residents. In other words, they are attempting to create pathways which link urban development to the solution of social problems like unemployment or social integration, instead of just expecting indirect improvement through trickle-down effects.
Key words: urban regeneration, social and solidarity economy, urban development, association, Roubaix
Differences in the Importance of Shifting Cultivation among Villages in Northern Laos : A Case Study of 14 Villages in Xieng Ngeun District, Luang Prabang Province
NAKATSUJI Susumu
Faculty of Letters, Konan University
This paper examines the differences in the importance of shifting cultivation of dry rice among villages of Northern Laos and addresses why they emerged, especially focusing on the role of village boundaries. We chose 14 adjacent villages as our study area and compared the land use and the livelihoods of each one. The following are the findings of this paper :
The percentage of households engaged in shifting cultivation is closely related to the population density of each village. Many inhabitants have given up shifting cultivation in small-sized lowland villages whose population density has rapidly increased （up to 87/km2） by the resettlement of highland populations and migration from other areas. On the other hand, in other lowland villages, there are more than 60% of households engaging in shifting cultivation in spite of population increases. This is because the impacts of population increase in these villages have been alleviated by absorption of the lands of the nearby highland villages that were resettled. There are two villages remaining in highland areas of the study area. In these villages, population pressure is the lowest （12/km2）, and more than 85% of households are still engaged in shifting cultivation.
The findings of this paper question the conventional assumptions about the effects of the Land Use Planning and Land Allocation program. This program involves three main processes : delineation of village boundaries ; zoning of the village territory into different land use types （e. g. residential, agricultural and five categories of forested land） ; and allocation of agricultural plots to individual households. Previous studies have often explained that it was the latter two processes that made the practice of shifting cultivation unsustainable by confining agricultural activities of a household to a few plots of land. Within our study area, however, villagers cultivate other lands in addition to those allocated by the program, and they continue to cultivate lands that were zoned as protected forest.
Rather, the boundary delineation has more strongly affected the practice of shifting cultivation in the study area. Before the program, there had been no clear boundaries between villages, and villagers were not castigated if they cultivated lands near neighboring villages. After the program, however, villagers came to be conscious of their own territories and have prohibited the inhabitants from neighboring villages from cultivating in their territories. Today, it is village boundaries that truly act as limiting lines for cultivation in each village. This is why the practice of shifting cultivation is so closely linked to population density in each village in the study area.
Key words : shifting cultivation, village boundary, territory, migration, Land Use Planning and Land Allocation program, Laos