The purpose of this study is to clarify searches of rural families in sociology in Japan, and follows their genealogy from 1900-2014. It is focusing on the viewpoint of changing the theory regarding rural family research. It also plans to explore what future studies are needed in Japanese rural family research today.
　　　As for Japanese rural families, there are two related areas of study, which are “rural in family ” and “rural and family.” The reference listed here is part of the domain relevant to the “continuation and change” of Japanese rural families. Rural family research will always examine the relationship between the rural and family situation.
　　　Consequently, many family system theories were found from 1900 to 1950. There was a fundamental study of Japanese social research when the postwar period came and the modern family relation was debated in “family institution theory”. Sociological theory was progressing, and Japanese rural family study was changing from the institutional study into the group theory as the Japanese economy experienced high economic growth. As for research, many results from demonstrative studies came to be published along with this economic growth.
　　　In the 1980s, studies were diversified and both the micro and macroscopic concerns appeared. Theories of conventional study and conceptual arrangement were carried out, and the methods of research came to be developed much more minutely.
　　　In 1990 to 2014, family research was accomplished by the modern family theory, the gender theory, the rural community, and “Mura” research, environmental research, circulation, promotion of enterprise, and community activism. Studies on the rural family have gradually decreased.
　　　At present, the rural family research itself has been changing. As for the method of rural family research, empirical study has appeared mostly. Rural family research has both continuation and change. In spite of less concern about rural family than before, the change in the rural family is still an important subject in Japanese sociology.

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　　　Hitoshi Saito argued that Asian countries except Japan could not develop agricultural cooperatives because their rural societies do not have the inheritance of autonomous community. But, the facts of Vietnam and China are contrary to Saito's theory. Vietnam has not yet developed agricultural cooperatives in spite of the inheritance of autonomous community. On the other hand, China has developed agricultural cooperatives without the inheritance of autonomous community.
　　　The purpose of this paper is to examine these facts through comparative research of Japan, China and Vietnam on history and social structure. Japanese autonomous villages have established their integration units and developed cooperative relationship with outside. Chinese villages do not have autonomous function. But, market economy has permeated Chinese rural society over many years, and many Chinese people have personal connections outside their villages. Many Vietnamese people have not personal connections outside their villages.
　　　The author concludes that the requirements for development of agricultural cooperatives are strengthening of market economy and the networks beyond each village.

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　　　This study aims to explore the activities by older generation which attempts to embrace younger generation into their imagined “community” in order to let them be custodians of “memories of life” of the elderly. The study is based upon the data collected by the two-year-fieldwork conducted in a village, located in a mountainous area in the west side of Kanagawa prefecture in Japan. In the village called “X”, in which the author conducted his fieldwork, ageing and depopulation became drastic in 1990s. The village shares the similar problems with other hilly or mountainous areas such as lack of successors of farming and increasing abandoned lands for farming. Referring to Bauman's sociology of anxiety, the author would argue that ageing, depopulation and individualization cause anxiety of elder residents that they might not have a space for their “memories of life” to be kept in the village where they have lived. An apparent reaction to this anxiety is an attempt to imagine and reconstruct a “community” where the younger residents are assumed to serve as the custodians of their “memories of life.” These activities, which they regard themselves as the coming of a new “community”, however, have to face a problem: the elderly have to create what is durable from what is not durable. The younger residents have no or very little sense of anxiety of the older residents and tend to think that those activities are voluntarily organized for a temporary purpose. For the elderly, however, this situation cannot be acceptable because they are pursuing “involuntary” associtation which is expected to sustain after their death.

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　　　Here I introduce a hitherto unpublished manuscript by Eitaro SUZUKI（1894-1966）entitled “Essay on Sociological Studies, Part 2”. Written in 1950, while Prof. SUZUKI was convalescing in the University of Hokkaido Hospital, it consists of two parts. Part 1 deals with his general conceptions of sociology. Here I present only Part 2, which describes his early career as a rural sociologist and is of more immediate interest to our association.
　　　Keisuke SUZUKI（1933-2011）, Eitaro's son, preserved a voluminous collection of his father's research and personal materials. These include manuscripts, diaries, notes, letters, and photos, most of which were discovered after his death. They are owned by the UESAKI family and currently managed by Robert Ricketts, a professor at Wako University, Tokyo and former colleague of Keisuke SUZUKI. Since 2013, pending a final decision on the disposition of these documents, I have been given preliminary permission by the UESAKI family and Prof. Ricketts to edit these materials.

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