2014 年 44 巻 2 号 p. 137-150
Today, Japan is experiencing significant changes in social structure and lifestyles, and amid such changes, tangible folk cultural properties that were produced out of necessity for people’s daily lives have been passed down to the present while undergoing constant evolution. With changes in industrial structure and lifestyles, many of the surviving tangible folk cultural properties are on the verge of extinction. This present state is said to be due to the improper preservation and use of these properties.
At a convention in 2010, I presented the results of an actual survey targeting tangible folk cultural properties that aimed to understand the state of the collection and preservation of those properties. In a period of high economic growth in Japan, drastic changes in industrial structure and social lifestyles resulted in the loss of many tangible folk cultural properties that were deeply rooted in local communities and helped shape regional identities. These findings were based on a survey that was conducted in areas with high population mobility and considerably affected by urbanization, such as the Tokyo Metropolitan and Kanto area. Considering the importance of a national-level survey for conducting further comparisons of the influences of urbanization, I conducted a similar survey for three Tokai Prefectures in 2011. Approximately 130 tangible folk cultural properties were considered in the survey. While many tangible folk cultural properties created in and after the Meiji period were used throughout the three periods from Meiji to Showa, the use of tangible folk cultural properties created during the Edo period were limited to the Edo period. Furthermore, the situations in the three Tokai areas is similar to that of the Kanto region in which tangible folk cultural properties used until the modern high economic growth period in Japan have nearly fell out of use. However, unlike the Kanto region, cultural properties from numerous genres in the three Tokai areas have been used for a long time. While in the Kanto region many tangible folk cultural properties designed for production and livelihood have been used for a long time in some genres, the long-term use of cultural properties can be observed in all genres of the three Tokai Prefectures. Having analyzed these results to determine whether this can be attributed to the Tokai Region’s spiritual climate symbolized by a conservative nature of its citizens and careful use of things for a longer duration, or to a difference in the changes in economic and social conditions, I present the analysis results along with indices of changes in social and economic conditions that cause differences in social changes.
JEL Classification: H54, R51, R53, Z11
