2020 Volume 13 Pages 116-134
In Japan more and more local areas are facing depopulation problem. Meanwhile there strongly inhabits gender discrimination all over the place. Many sociologists discuss about the sustainability of marginal hamlets. The scholars also appeal to improvement of local women’s status. In this academic scene the study on women’s entrepreneurship attends and attracts the researchers. It regards local entrepreneurship as a social trigger for women’s status-uplifting as well as village durability.
This paper has two aims. One is to examine the effectiveness of the local women’s entrepreneurship. The other is to probe another plot about the moment of sustainability of marginal hamlets and improvement of local women’s status other than the entrepreneurship scenario. Firstly, reviewing the texts about women’s entrepreneurship we come across a dead end in the entrepreneurship itself. It means that the local women’s entrepreneurship sides not with the breaking of gender role system but with the reinforcing the system in local societies. Secondly, referring to some ideas of settlement population study, we effort to clarify another route on the making of the local sustainability/gender equality. As an attempt beyond the puzzlement in the women’s entrepreneurship, this paper focuses ever unspotlighted thing suitable for new scenario: gift economy.
We investigate the interview data about the daily life of an octogenarian woman living in Iga district, Mie prefecture and then focus on the gift-exchange network she has been embedded. According to the concepts of village modification, this paper concludes that the gifting-gifted network can be a momentum proceeding the dignity of the women as well as tightening the social bond between older village people and younger out-migrants. In the end of the discussion it finally proposes a new approach relating to contemporary issues on rural society in Japan.
https://ror.org/04kc6x746 