抄録
During the Second War period, a field study called "Rural Customs Research" was carried out in the northern part of China then occupied by imperial Japan. It was organized and led by some leading Japanese socio-legal scholars now generally regarded as founding fathers of the Sociology of Law in Japan. And this research was also supported by governmental or semi-governmental organizations strongly interested in the management of the colonies and occupied areas abroad.
This paper critically reviews how this fieldwork and so the socio-legal involvement of the first generation with the colonial management have been discussed in the post war period. And the question whether and how those Japanese sociological lawyers had any "war responsibility" is to be considered, which, in the writer's view has not yet fully examined. In so doing, the paper shows this problem is not a matter of the past but has to do with the present sociological studies of law in Japan and, more generally, with the relation between academic activities and political power, and between "scientific" attitude and political responsibilities.
