Journal of Rural Studies
Online ISSN : 2187-2627
Print ISSN : 1882-4560
ISSN-L : 1882-4560
Volume 27, Issue 1
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
ARTICLE
  • : A Case Study of Rural Communities in Shandong Province Focusing on the Influence of the Reproduction System
    Meifang YAN
    Article type: research-article
    2020 Volume 27 Issue 1 Pages 1-12
    Published: October 25, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: September 09, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

       In rural areas of China where the social security system is not well established, people have continued to depend on “raising children as insurance for old age” in which support in old age is provided by the son of the family (feedback model of support). It was the cultural apparatus of the reproduction system that supported the continuance of rural communities and farming families.
       However, by reinterpreting the values of their parents who had internalized this reproduction system to suit their own purposes, young people who were born in compliance with the one-child policy after 1980 (post-80s, post-90s)and are now living in cities have made their parents’ generation invest the wealth accumulated in rural communities for their own benefit. In this process, urban migration of the youth under the one-child policy has been hastened by the reproduction system of China.
       This paper clarifies that the reproduction system of China after the establishment of its one-child policy has failed to act as a bulwark against the urban migration of young people and collapse of agricultural communities. This is because the ties between the people in agricultural communities and their land in the villages are not strong and the reproductive system is confined to the framework of a matter among family or clan members rather than as a principle directly concerned with ensuring sustainability of the village.

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  • : Those Historical Nature and Contemporaneous Meaning
    Shinnosuke TAMA
    Article type: research-article
    2020 Volume 27 Issue 1 Pages 13-24
    Published: October 25, 2020
    Released on J-STAGE: September 09, 2021
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

       The aim of this paper is to consider historical nature and contemporaneous meaning of Japanese multiple jobholding farming(MJF). In Japan, MJF have been considered as a transient existence. This is because a paradigm that regards progress and development of market economy as a universal law was dominated in social sciences after World WarⅡ. In contrast, this paper argues that the MJF is rather a universal form of farming by recognizing the essence of agriculture seen historically from the concept of subsistence. Japan's historical research has recently developed the concept of subsistence. Family sociology is also doing new research on the Japanese Ie(family). Those latest researches and various facts show that Japanese agriculture still maintains the Ie(family) and Mura(community) structure as the foundation. In fact, Japanese agricultural administration has also used the Mura(community)function in various policies. The important thing in these cases is the fact that the Mura(community) function has been fulfilled by the participation of multiple jobholding farm households as normal members. On the other hand, the globalization of the economy and the depopulation have dramatically reduced the number of Japanese farm households. Therefore, an important question today is the evaluation of MJF in Japanese agriculture. This paper reviewed the controversy of Nakajima and Sakamoto in the 1980s on this question. In that controversy, Sakamoto suggested that MJF have important roles in multiple functions of agriculture for the local community. In conclusion, this paper insists that the basic structure of Ie and Mura still continues despite of modifications by its surrounding, and calls on academicians and agricultural policies to change the view of MJF more positive based on Sakamoto’s evaluation of MJF.

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