‘Mura’ is the basic community for the cooperation of small farmers in Japanese rural society. Taking notice of autonomous character of this community, Japanese rural sociologist call it ‘natural village’. Are there natural villages in other Asian societies？
　　　As for Java in Indonesia, two famous anthropologists, C. Geertz and C.Nakane pointed that personal ties among Javanese villagers are very weak, and that there are no any organaized forms or institution in villagers’ lives. Nakane insisted that the units of society are individuals, and that even family has no concrete form. I discovered there are tightly organized family and natural- village-like mura. The two anthropologists made a mistake in this regard .
　　　In Japanese main land , ‘Ie’(the compound family institution) is a unit of Mura. The formal member of Mura is Ie, not individual. Mura impose taxes and work forces necessary for the joint activities to each Ie . In Okinawa , in contrast to the main land, Mura imposes them to each individual. Mura reject the selfish egoism of Ie as group, and Mura seizes each individual directly here.
　　　In China, before revolution, the cooperative activities were very weak. By law, nowadays, it is a self governing body, but, the orders and controls of government are very strong. I hope Chinese Mura would grow the ability of self governing and cooperation from the grass roots lives of farmers.
　　　As for Japanese Mura, in contrast to the weighty Ie theory which emphasizes the Ie relations to study Mura. I have insisted the importance of joint activities of the Mura organization as unity.

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　　　This paper examined the relationship between a household fee ranking system and the clans’ social order in a Japanese rural community in Suwa Basin in Nagano Prefecture. The author investigated this relationship by using the neighborhood association’s annual financial reports and proceedings from 1905 to 1965.
　　　In this village, a household fee ranking system was used from the 1910s to the beginning of the 1960s that effectively demonstrated not only the prestige of upper class households but also showed the social order in nine clans. During the prewar period, the ranking system based on the households’ income and land ownership matched the traditional order of head and branch relations within each clan. However, during the postwar period, the political status of households also became important in the ranking system. In addition, agricultural land reform changed the economic status of households. Within some clans, the traditional social order observed in the household fee greatly changed.
　　　During the high economic growth period (1955-1973), this ranking system was abolished under a thought of social equality and economic reversal among head households of the old upper class, non-farming former middle and lower classes, and inflow households to new residential areas.

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　　　The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of the settlement in “Shirakawa Houtoku” from the viewpoint of how settlers reacted to their leader.
　　　The Leader KATO Kanji, who was one of influential advocators of Manchuria emigration project in prewar Japan, settled in Shirakawa Heights in Fukushima prefecture with other settlers, who were his followers, soon after the end of the war. They started farming in October 1945. Based on his own thought he instructed them a collective farming for their self-sufficiency. But as the crop was further worse than expected, it caused a mass leaving of the settlers from “Shirakawa” . As the number of leaving reached the peak in 1952, KATO Kanji was forced to retire from the head of cooperative association and he also soon left there. KATO Yasuhiko, a new leader, changed former farming policy dramatically. He introduced dairy farming based on individual management. This new farming, having brought about a rapid development of “Shirakawa Houtoku Reclamation Agricultural Co-op”, made the life of settlers become stable. However, this means that the KATO’s initial farming thought was, even if not entirely denied, really eviscerated.
　　　Therefore we cannot regard the development of “Shirakawa Houtoku Reclamation Agricultural Co-op” as a successful example of postwar Japanese agriculture policy. But we must pay attention that there are many settlers who have evaluated Kato Kanji very high, even if not as their leader, as superior educator for peasants. They have found his idea an important factor which enabled to continue their settlement, although facing the serious crisises repeatedly. In contrast to former studies on postwar agricultural settlement from the viewpoint of either agriculture or social policy, we emphasize that it had simultaneously an educational function.

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　　　There are numerous unique socio-cultural phenomena exhibited in Aomori Prefecture, a highly peripheral area located at the northern extent of Honshu Island. An example of such a peripheral phenomenon is the rapidly-aging Aomori population over the last ten years. This study examines the multi-dimensional mechanism of the rapid aging phenomenon in Aomori, identifying this as a demographic feature of peripheral areas of Japan. The study concludes by emphasizing the significance of the so-called Showa single-digit generation, that born between 1925-34. This generation sustained the traditional Japanese family, agriculture, and rural community, in a manner not to be expected by the postwar baby boomer (born 1947-49) or the echo boomer (born 1972-74) generations. Although hidden in most national demographic statistics, the Showa single-digit generation is the most important generation in peripheral areas of Japan at present. As this generation exceeded the 65-years-age-threshold as of 1990, this demographic aging is increasingly serious for peripheral areas, such that rural sociology must account for the attitudes of this generation.

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　　　The Tsugaru area of Aomori prefecture in northern Japan has supplied the largest amount of migrant workers to the megalopolis areas since 1970’s, the period of Japan’s rapid economic development after the World War Ⅱ. Living away from the homeplace to seek work in major cities is called Dekasegi and the migrant worker is called Dekasegi-sha. Most of them have been engaged in construction industries to support Japan’s economic growth. People in Tsugaru have embedded Dekasegi into their lifeworld as one of the possible channels for their livelihood in everyday life or for their resource in trying times.
　　　The purpose of this paper is to argue that Dekasegi has prevented the outflow of population and contributed to forming a definite local identity in the Tsugaru area. I referred to the factor in keeping them back in their homeplace as a “hold” and proposed to incorporate it into the push-pull.
　　　I conducted a research based on the life story method in a village to examine Dekasegi as a hold factor. I interviewed 28 male informants and found that they tend to utilize their network and connection in their homeplace when hunting a job and to choose a workplace where some Dekasegi-sha from their own homeplace have been working. Furthermore, the case study focused on informants’ narratives shows that the construction work gives them more room for their discretion than the factory work, and that Dekasegi was incorporated in their future perspective on their life cycle. Dekasegi-shas work at familiar workplace away from their homeplace, keeping and forming the networks and life perspective related to the local community. Dekasegi in Tsugaru can be considered as a hold factor in the sense that the practice of Dekasegi keeps on locating Dekasegi-sha in the local community and perspectives of local life, and prevents them from being faceless labor force.

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