Local influential merchant as main actor in making of modern Japanese port region

Tsuruga and Shoshichi Owada

Abstract

What or who was the real maker of a region? This paper focuses on solving the problem. The different actors should have worked on the making process of various regions. However in this study, it is supposed that the special human agency played the influential role on the changing process of a locality. The hypothesis is based on the structuration theory and tested by the exploration of the influential person’s career. Shoshichi Owada, the local businessman in Tsuruga port. We can understand the relationship between structure and special human agency in the modernization process of the port.