Negotiations about Renewing Agricultural Indentured Servants’Contracts

:Case Studies in the Shonai Region, Yamagata Prefecture in the Post World War II Period

Abstract

　　　In Japanese family farming, farmers often hired“servants”as agricultural hired labor, even after the postwar agrarian reform was introduced. In this paper, I explore indentured service, which was the most popular form of service from the Edo period onward. The purpose of this research is to clarify how servants and farmers renewed their contracts based on micro-negotiation processes. In previous research, some researchers have mentioned that indentured servants were controlled by the patriarchal“Ie”order, while other researchers have argued that they were in the transition to modern wage labor. By focusing on renewing contracts, we can observe the conflicts between these characteristics. To analyze the servants’ experiences, informants were both former servants and farmers. Specifically, I interviewed the former servants about their choice of employers and their experiences in renewing contracts; employers about negotiations held amongst farmers in relation to“recruiting activity.”The former servants were live-in agricultural servants during and after World War II in the Shonai region, which is a typical rice-producing area. The following facts were revealed as a result of this investigation. Servants changed their employers quite frequently, and were very often headhunted. For servants, changing their employers was an opportunity to improve their working conditions. Additionally, a farmer poached servants from another farmer if he felt that another farmer already had sufficient help. This led to a redistribution of the young labor force in the Shonai region.