The Meiji Land Tax Reform freed land holders from the burden of feudal overlords.
　　　Instead of the feudal levies in rice, the Meiji Government required land tax to be paid in cash according to the fixed rate of land price. But how did the old levies in kind give way to the new cash tax？ To throw light on this point, I take Tokuchoo （levies documents of a village in Suwa district）.
　　　For ten years or twenty years just before The Meiji Land Tax Reform land holders of the village had paid two thirds of the feudal levies in cash and labor services, only one third in rice.
　　　The transition from rice to cash had already begun before The Meiji Land Tax Reform. One of its causes must be the growth of goods and services markets in the area.

View full abstract

　　　In Okinawa, since its return to Japanese sovereign in 1972, serious soil erosion has been caused by land improvement projects. In Onna village, fishermen succeeded in preventing the erosion which had done extensive damage to the marine resource. To take up the problem of erosion for discussion and tackle the problem in the community, the fishermen managed to re-organize the community. They didn't claim their fishing right exclusively, because the institution of fishing rights was not yet fixed in the community in Okinawa at that time. So, they admitted marine use to others, including tourism, to intervene in the conflict, and took action to conserve the marine eco-system. At last, they gained the position of adjusting marine use and of controlling marine resource for the communitys’ benefit. This is how they took the initiative in forming some order of marine use. Consequently, ‘The advance negotiation system’ was established, that is, in Onna village, any development plan cannot be executed without check by fishermen whether it is likely to cause soil erosion or not. In this case, the minority victim succeeded in taking up a problem in the community for public discussion about the regional resource management through a community organization.

View full abstract

　　　In the bordering area between city and rural village, farmers are necessarily required to consider and discuss their strategies as they put their products on the market for the possible greatest benefit, and then maintain their farming under the circumstances of urbanization and land-development. The following paper, a result of a case study at Kamiyoden, Natori city, attempts to describe the history of their struggle and its present states, through a series of intensive interviews to the members of a voluntary group to sell their seri （dropworts, or Japanese parsley）.
　　　Their cooperation was founded in 1931 and a “cooperative marketing” for their seri was initiated after an innovative effort of a land-owning leader at that time, but it was forced to close its operation in a few years, because of the dominant power of wholesale dealers. It was in the middle of 1960s, that a new cooperation was established mainly by those who had belonged to the class of land-oweners during the pre-war period. The new cooperation, being independent and managed by the members’ initiatives, developed new marketing channels at Sendai and reached its peak in the 70s and 80s, when the government’s policy to convert the production of rice partly to beans and vegetables was enforced.
　　　Current difficulties that they have to meet are 1) the growing tendency to prefer selling seri individually, rather than collectively, among those farmers in large-scale class, and older farmers, and 2) the growing tendency to prefer selling or renting out their farm fields for off-farm purposes, among those members who think it clever for them to prepare for their life after retirement without successors.
　　　Thus, this study points out, first, the importance of farmers’ initiatives and the role of their cooperative association in marketing farm products, and second, their ambivalent meanings in urbanization.

View full abstract

　　　In this paper, we will study family and inheritance strategy in the northern French rural region, choosing as our research field a community named Chéroy（Yonne）.
　　　Many researchers have analyzed the French family in the pre-industrial period. They have mainly been interested in the southern and western French society where the traditional family and kinship could be easily found out. But, to understand the French rural family totally, it’s necessary to examine northern society.
　　　We will focus the inheritance strategy because the problem of succession is an important issue for family members. In northern France, land was equally divided between children, but to perpetuate the family exploitation, it was desirable to avoid this kind of partition. So, some strategies were requested.
　　　Essentially, the family is the field of a member’s power, we suppose. In some cases, it is possible that succession problems resulted in family break-down. The inheritance problem could be resolved, not automatically, but, only with ingenious strategies, for example, allocation of different properties to children, payment of compensation, etc.
　　　We will clarify the characteristics of the northern French family, by selecting 46 families as samples and categorizing their inheritance strategies.

View full abstract