Japan oral history review

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This paper describes the manufacturing practices of people in the Nishimikawa region of Aichi Prefecture, Japan, from the life history of their “workplace”. The manufacturing of small factories (Machi Kōba) in the Nishimikawa region is characterized by small-lot production, known as “Tanpin Mono”. However, those factories are shown as a buffer for the automobile industry, and their actual situation has not been clarified. In light of such issues, this paper focuses on the “workplace” in order to clarify manufacturing of small factories (Machi Kōba). The “workplace” is not merely a background, but a place that reflects the way of life of the people involved in factory manufacturing. In this paper, we clarify the process of trial and error by which people organize and deploy machines, tools, and people to remake the “workplace”. By doing so, we propose that the “workplace” life history method is effective in examining factory manufacturing.

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This paper is a study of the life story of a Vietnamese former technical intern trainee. It analyzed her narratives from the perspective of “investment” and revealed how the value of Japanese language learning and technical training experience for her is told. The paper also examined the “story of enduring difficulties, making efforts towards achieving goals, and succeeding”. As a result, the paper pointed out that the capital of the Japanese language ability for workplace participation had lost its value due to discrimination. On the other hand, because of her desire of returning to Japan as an international student in the future, she “invested” her Japanese learning. Her life story was told as a “story of enduring difficulties, making efforts towards achieving goals, and succeeding” and the paper pointed out the danger of reproducing it.

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the role played by fictional narrative works in the inheritance of war experience, based on a play in which the model of the main character is an actual air raids survivors. As a result, the following facts were clarified. First, through the “margins” of interpretation set in the work, fictional stories have the function of reconsidering the framework for understanding historical events and personal experiences that the audience has on a daily basis, and encouraging its reconstruction. Second, by re-questioning the framework of understanding experiences in this way, and supplementing it with appropriate historical materials, we can enrich the context of understanding actual experiences and have the potential to revitalized interest in narratives in preceding generations.

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