Japanese Journal of Human Geography
Online ISSN : 1883-4086
Print ISSN : 0018-7216
ISSN-L : 0018-7216
Volume 49, Issue 3
Displaying 1-5 of 5 articles from this issue
  • A Case-study of the Chonju Ryu Clan Villagers
    Hee-Sook LEE
    1997Volume 49Issue 3 Pages 201-221
    Published: June 28, 1997
    Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Since the 1970s dam construction in the rural areas of South Korea has formed a major part of government works. This has contributed greatly to the control of water resources, but has also resulted in many involuntary or forced migrations of people from inundated areas. In many studies of the villages lost to dam construction, whether undertaken by geographers, cultural anthropologists, or folklorists, the central concern has been on the ethnology of the former settlement and on the pattern of removal. Other important aspects such as the process of re-settlement, adaption and acculturation of the migrants to their new homes have so far tended to be overlooked.
    This paper explores the re-settlement process, adaptive strategies, and acculturation of a migrant clan in South Korea. Steward's (1955) cultural core model is applied with respect to the adaptation of migrants to their new communities. The study area is the village of Ilsun-ri in Heapyung-myun, Sunsan County, Kyungpook Province. This village was occupied by migrants from the Chonju Ryu clan in 1987, with most of them coming from several clan villages which were lost in the course of construction of the Imha Dam. Particular attention was paid in this study to villagers from Musil, a native place of the Chonju Ryu clan. Fieldwork took the form of participant observation during January and February, 1991. At that time there were 66 households in Ilsun-ri, and the population was 192.
    In Section II the cognative structure of the villagers is outlined, followed in Sections III-IV by an examination of villagers occupations, customs, and their adaptive mechanism to their new environment. The main features of this adaptation process can be summarized as follows:
    These migrants made a collective decision to move in the hope that cultural shock would be lessened and the homogeneity of the clan would be maintained. Since the family heads were mostly middle-aged, and ranked in economic terms in the 'middleclass', the group adapted well to their new milieux.
    Before migration the Chonju Ryu villagers depended on subsistence agriculture, using manual labour and farm animals, for their livelihood. After migration, the villagers had to cope with many changes in agricultural environment, including climate and quality of arable land. They were also introduced to farm mechanization and improved methods of transportation. It was therefore necessary to switch to production of commercial crops in order for them to remain economically self-reliant. Accordingly, the traditional pattern of labour exchange transformed into one of functional cooperation. Also, some villagers became free to seek employment at the nearby Kumi industrial complex. As a result, the life style of the villagers has become more varied after the migration.
    Despite these changes, the villagers were able to maintain their traditional ancestral worship practices and Confucian value system. For example, the villagers brought with them symbolic buildings and structures, such as Chongga, Sadang, and Chongja, to set up in the new village. These structures were re-erected in the same spatial arrangement as in the old village, giving full regard to the geomantic traditions of Pung-su and their positions relative to the surrounding mountains and rivers. All this can be viewed as a kind of defensive reaction to new external influences and surrounds, but it is also clear that a necessary part of the villagers adaptive strategy was affirmation of their common ancestral heritage.
    Finally, it is clear that while the migrants accommodated rapidly the new agricultural technologies and methods of cooperative organization, they maintained many cultural factors related to clan identity. Although the former spirit of cooperation and internal cohesion outwardly appears to have weakened in the village, the migrants have displayed an adaptive mechanism of selective acceptance of new things
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  • 1997Volume 49Issue 3 Pages 222-275
    Published: June 28, 1997
    Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Daisuke NOGI
    1997Volume 49Issue 3 Pages 276-288
    Published: June 28, 1997
    Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper considers the relationship between recent changes in the central business district of Naha City, Okinawa Prefecture, and major socio-economic developments in Okinawa during the post war period. The study area comprises 15 street blocks (chome) in central Naha, and data for the years 1954, 1964, 1974, 1984, and 1991 are utilized.
    The main conclusions can be summarized as follows:
    1. The CBD is generally limited to the officially designated Land Adjustment Project Area in Naha City. This area offers well-ordered plots of land, with good access to the arterial road system via Route 58. These are two major factors explaining why offices are attracted to locate in this part of central Naha.
    2. Following the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in 1972 the Naha central business district experienced substantial change with regard to the range and type of business function. This was largely due to the fact that many companies based on the Japanese mainland set up branch offices in Naha City, thus broadening and diversifying local business activity.
    3. Diversification of business activity was accompanied by increased local area specialization of business function. Such functional specialization is revealed by a comparison of the locations of 'branch offices' and 'business outlets'. The former tend to concentrate along Route 58, while the latter concentrate in the core, northern, and western areas of the business district.
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  • a case-study of Yamagata Village, Iwate Prefecture
    Shin KAJITA
    1997Volume 49Issue 3 Pages 289-302
    Published: June 28, 1997
    Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This study looks at how changes in the public finance system resulting from changes in rural development policy since 1965 have had an impact on local developments in Yamagata Village, Iwate Prefecture.
    By noting major changes in the fiscal resources of Yamagata Village, and in particular the ratio between external subsidies, borrowing, and local taxes, the study can be divided into three distinct periods. In the first period, from 1945 to 1964, depopulation in Yamagata Village caused a steady lowering of the local tax base. Essential services and other expenditures could only be met by local allocation tax (Chiho Kofuzei), a fiscal equalization system like Rate Support Grant. In the second period, from 1965 to 1982, programmes initiated under, for example, the Law for the Promotion of Mountain Districts, and the Emergency Measures Law for Areas of Severe Rural Depopulation, brought in substantial sums of direct subsidy from central government to help implement rural development policies. There was strong investment in particular in road construction projects. In the third period, from 1983 to the present, national government cut the amount of grants and subsidies to local governments. Instead, earlier restriction on the purpose of borrowing were eased, and joint projects with private investors encouraged under what is known as the 'muraokoshi' campaign. Yamagata Village invested in a new ski-resort in this period, and also in improvements to agricultural facilities. In the latter case a consumer group in Tokyo (known as Daichi-wo Mamoru Kai) joined in partnership with the Village.
    In summary, two important impacts of these changes in fiscal policy on the development of Yamagata Village can be identified. First, the increases in fiscal expenditure led to a sharp increase in the number of employees in the public services and construction sectors. These are now the leading occupational groupings in the Village. Second, many of the new public facilities financed under these programmes for rural development have been located in the central setlement of Yamagata Village, called Kawai. The overall economic impact of this has been to maintain the population of Kawai at a relatively stable level.
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  • 1997Volume 49Issue 3 Pages 303-309
    Published: June 28, 1997
    Released on J-STAGE: April 28, 2009
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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