Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This book tells the story of Kaminoseki, a small town on Japan's Inland Sea. Once one of the most prosperous ports in the country, Kaminoseki fell into profound economic decline following Japan's ...
More
This book tells the story of Kaminoseki, a small town on Japan's Inland Sea. Once one of the most prosperous ports in the country, Kaminoseki fell into profound economic decline following Japan's reengagement with the West in the late nineteenth century. The book reconstructs the lives of households and townspeople as they tried to make sense of their changing place in the world and provides important new insights into how ordinary people shaped the development of the modern state. The book describes the role of local revolutionaries in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ways by which townspeople grasped opportunities to work overseas in the late nineteenth century, and the impact this pan-Pacific diaspora community had on Kaminoseki during the prewar decades. These histories amplify the book's analysis of postwar rural decline—a phenomenon found not only in Japan but throughout the industrialized Western world. The climax comes when, in the 1980s, the town's councilors request the construction of a nuclear power station, unleashing a storm of protests from within the community. This ongoing nuclear dispute has particular resonance in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis. The book gives voice to personal histories otherwise lost in abandoned archives.Less
This book tells the story of Kaminoseki, a small town on Japan's Inland Sea. Once one of the most prosperous ports in the country, Kaminoseki fell into profound economic decline following Japan's reengagement with the West in the late nineteenth century. The book reconstructs the lives of households and townspeople as they tried to make sense of their changing place in the world and provides important new insights into how ordinary people shaped the development of the modern state. The book describes the role of local revolutionaries in the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the ways by which townspeople grasped opportunities to work overseas in the late nineteenth century, and the impact this pan-Pacific diaspora community had on Kaminoseki during the prewar decades. These histories amplify the book's analysis of postwar rural decline—a phenomenon found not only in Japan but throughout the industrialized Western world. The climax comes when, in the 1980s, the town's councilors request the construction of a nuclear power station, unleashing a storm of protests from within the community. This ongoing nuclear dispute has particular resonance in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima crisis. The book gives voice to personal histories otherwise lost in abandoned archives.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter argues that the significance of Kaminoseki's transnational era was not merely institutional—the demographic effects of emigration spread across two or sometimes three generations. ...
More
This chapter argues that the significance of Kaminoseki's transnational era was not merely institutional—the demographic effects of emigration spread across two or sometimes three generations. Furthermore, thanks to the “success” of their overseas compatriots and the pride engendered thereby, those villagers who stayed at home would also have been aware of the impact of the Japanese diaspora in the social and economic routines of their daily lives. The shrines and temples at which they gathered, the schools, the two-story houses around the town: these are just some of the transnational legacies of the Kaminoseki diaspora, and to study them is to understand an important and often ignored everyday aspect of Japan's modern transformations.Less
This chapter argues that the significance of Kaminoseki's transnational era was not merely institutional—the demographic effects of emigration spread across two or sometimes three generations. Furthermore, thanks to the “success” of their overseas compatriots and the pride engendered thereby, those villagers who stayed at home would also have been aware of the impact of the Japanese diaspora in the social and economic routines of their daily lives. The shrines and temples at which they gathered, the schools, the two-story houses around the town: these are just some of the transnational legacies of the Kaminoseki diaspora, and to study them is to understand an important and often ignored everyday aspect of Japan's modern transformations.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter looks at how the completion of the Kaminoseki Great Bridge has been perceived as a symbolic act in the healing of intratown divisions. The editors of the Town News reported that the ...
More
This chapter looks at how the completion of the Kaminoseki Great Bridge has been perceived as a symbolic act in the healing of intratown divisions. The editors of the Town News reported that the realization of this bridge, directly connecting Nagashima to the mainland, is both a historical achievement and a crucial factor in advancing the economy and culture of every district in the town. However, the chapter argues that the emphasis on “advancing” (zenshin) the town's economy grew out of a shared sense that Kaminoseki was in fact lagging behind the rest of the country. Although standards of living did improve during the 1960s, the hyperbole of Town News editors could not hide the fact that there remained a divide between the Kaminoseki and national economies.Less
This chapter looks at how the completion of the Kaminoseki Great Bridge has been perceived as a symbolic act in the healing of intratown divisions. The editors of the Town News reported that the realization of this bridge, directly connecting Nagashima to the mainland, is both a historical achievement and a crucial factor in advancing the economy and culture of every district in the town. However, the chapter argues that the emphasis on “advancing” (zenshin) the town's economy grew out of a shared sense that Kaminoseki was in fact lagging behind the rest of the country. Although standards of living did improve during the 1960s, the hyperbole of Town News editors could not hide the fact that there remained a divide between the Kaminoseki and national economies.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter considers how, in the three decades after the nuclear plan was first introduced, Kaminoseki finds itself at the center of national and international attention. As a “green” nuclear site, ...
More
This chapter considers how, in the three decades after the nuclear plan was first introduced, Kaminoseki finds itself at the center of national and international attention. As a “green” nuclear site, the town has become a test case for the future, post-Fukushima direction of Japanese energy and environmental policy. The chapter also notes how the apparently counterintuitive experiences of ordinary Kaminoseki townspeople offer an important additional perspective to the understanding of “Japan.” In particular, there are three story lines that throw new light on the study of modern Japan: one concerns the economic transformations that accompanied Japan's modernization, a second story involves how ordinary townspeople experience the world beyond Japan, and the final story is about the actions of ordinary people in the making of modern Japan.Less
This chapter considers how, in the three decades after the nuclear plan was first introduced, Kaminoseki finds itself at the center of national and international attention. As a “green” nuclear site, the town has become a test case for the future, post-Fukushima direction of Japanese energy and environmental policy. The chapter also notes how the apparently counterintuitive experiences of ordinary Kaminoseki townspeople offer an important additional perspective to the understanding of “Japan.” In particular, there are three story lines that throw new light on the study of modern Japan: one concerns the economic transformations that accompanied Japan's modernization, a second story involves how ordinary townspeople experience the world beyond Japan, and the final story is about the actions of ordinary people in the making of modern Japan.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses the significance of studying the town of Kaminoseki. For one, the town's location highlights an imbalance in the historiography of modern Japan. Not only did Kaminoseki ...
More
This chapter discusses the significance of studying the town of Kaminoseki. For one, the town's location highlights an imbalance in the historiography of modern Japan. Not only did Kaminoseki straddle key trade and diplomatic shipping routes, as indicated by the Silk Road sign, but in the mid-nineteenth century it was also situated in one of the nation's most important political domains. Another reason for focusing on Kaminoseki is because of its everyday hometown atmosphere, which is crucial in understanding the motivations and values of ordinary people in modern Japan, and because of the extraordinary range of sources that the town offers to historians of everyday life. In the course of the study, the book draws on two sets of documents: the Bōchō fūdo chūshin'an, and the Murotsu collection.Less
This chapter discusses the significance of studying the town of Kaminoseki. For one, the town's location highlights an imbalance in the historiography of modern Japan. Not only did Kaminoseki straddle key trade and diplomatic shipping routes, as indicated by the Silk Road sign, but in the mid-nineteenth century it was also situated in one of the nation's most important political domains. Another reason for focusing on Kaminoseki is because of its everyday hometown atmosphere, which is crucial in understanding the motivations and values of ordinary people in modern Japan, and because of the extraordinary range of sources that the town offers to historians of everyday life. In the course of the study, the book draws on two sets of documents: the Bōchō fūdo chūshin'an, and the Murotsu collection.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter explores how the people of Kaminoseki and Murotsu saw, in the “beautiful” harbor that formed to the west of the straits, an opportunity. Their landscape could generate money, and by the ...
More
This chapter explores how the people of Kaminoseki and Murotsu saw, in the “beautiful” harbor that formed to the west of the straits, an opportunity. Their landscape could generate money, and by the time of Scottish botanist Robert Fortune's visit in 1860, the villagers had perfected a complex money-making system. The chapter then notes how the nascent decline of Kaminoseki and Murotsu as a port of trade and commerce was further aggravated by the impact of domestic political reform and international trade on the local economy. It is safe to say that the beginning of the ports' decline resulted from the fact that kitamae-ships were in terminal downtrend by the late 1880s. The phrase “backwater Japan” had been coined to describe the Japan Sea prefectures in which ship ownership had formerly been concentrated.Less
This chapter explores how the people of Kaminoseki and Murotsu saw, in the “beautiful” harbor that formed to the west of the straits, an opportunity. Their landscape could generate money, and by the time of Scottish botanist Robert Fortune's visit in 1860, the villagers had perfected a complex money-making system. The chapter then notes how the nascent decline of Kaminoseki and Murotsu as a port of trade and commerce was further aggravated by the impact of domestic political reform and international trade on the local economy. It is safe to say that the beginning of the ports' decline resulted from the fact that kitamae-ships were in terminal downtrend by the late 1880s. The phrase “backwater Japan” had been coined to describe the Japan Sea prefectures in which ship ownership had formerly been concentrated.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that ...
More
This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that the village leaders and the men who drafted that constitution, hitherto unknown to history, were family men—in other words, “commoners” with deep ties to the life of the people. Irokawa's discovery and subsequent book Meiji no bunka (The Culture of Meiji Japan) propelled “the people” to the fore of postwar historiographical debates in Japan. The chapter also shows how the rediscovered village records of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki offer a different portrait of the political culture of the Meiji period than that suggested by the Fukasawa storehouse documents.Less
This chapter looks at how historian Irokawa Daikichi discovered a set of late-nineteenth-century documents, including a draft of a people's constitution. These materials led to the revelation that the village leaders and the men who drafted that constitution, hitherto unknown to history, were family men—in other words, “commoners” with deep ties to the life of the people. Irokawa's discovery and subsequent book Meiji no bunka (The Culture of Meiji Japan) propelled “the people” to the fore of postwar historiographical debates in Japan. The chapter also shows how the rediscovered village records of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki offer a different portrait of the political culture of the Meiji period than that suggested by the Fukasawa storehouse documents.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter focuses on the connection between livelihood and ritual, and between ritual and politics. “Politics” in modern Kaminoseki was never simply a matter of bureaucratic administration, ...
More
This chapter focuses on the connection between livelihood and ritual, and between ritual and politics. “Politics” in modern Kaminoseki was never simply a matter of bureaucratic administration, council elections, or aggrieved petitions. Politics seeped into the spaces in which people gathered, the shrines at which they worshipped, the land that they tended, and even the person that they married. Of particular note is the kanmai, a set of rites held roughly once every four years, when priests from northern Kyushu sail to Iwaishima and perform a weeklong program of sacred dances. The cyclical rituals of the kanmai defined and simultaneously reinforced a basic division on Iwaishima between households that owned land and those that did not. As a result, there was a long tradition in Iwaishima of landowning households exerting political power over nonlandowning households.Less
This chapter focuses on the connection between livelihood and ritual, and between ritual and politics. “Politics” in modern Kaminoseki was never simply a matter of bureaucratic administration, council elections, or aggrieved petitions. Politics seeped into the spaces in which people gathered, the shrines at which they worshipped, the land that they tended, and even the person that they married. Of particular note is the kanmai, a set of rites held roughly once every four years, when priests from northern Kyushu sail to Iwaishima and perform a weeklong program of sacred dances. The cyclical rituals of the kanmai defined and simultaneously reinforced a basic division on Iwaishima between households that owned land and those that did not. As a result, there was a long tradition in Iwaishima of landowning households exerting political power over nonlandowning households.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter studies one of the most extraordinary, yet least studied, aspects of Kaminoseki's modern history: overseas migration. From the late nineteenth century onward, hundreds of men and women ...
More
This chapter studies one of the most extraordinary, yet least studied, aspects of Kaminoseki's modern history: overseas migration. From the late nineteenth century onward, hundreds of men and women left the town to earn money abroad. Today, however, only the remnants of Kaminoseki's transnational era remain—objects such as Matsubara Daikichi's monument to his ancestors, erected in 1917 under Iwaishima's Thousand-Year Pine. The chapter uses the rediscovered Murotsu documents to provide a more detailed analysis of some of the causes of Japan's overseas diaspora, particularly by linking the origin of the overseas migrants to the Edo period administrative division of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki villages into port and inland areas. This longer perspective allows for a more accurate measurement of the economic decline of the straits communities in quantitative and qualitative terms.Less
This chapter studies one of the most extraordinary, yet least studied, aspects of Kaminoseki's modern history: overseas migration. From the late nineteenth century onward, hundreds of men and women left the town to earn money abroad. Today, however, only the remnants of Kaminoseki's transnational era remain—objects such as Matsubara Daikichi's monument to his ancestors, erected in 1917 under Iwaishima's Thousand-Year Pine. The chapter uses the rediscovered Murotsu documents to provide a more detailed analysis of some of the causes of Japan's overseas diaspora, particularly by linking the origin of the overseas migrants to the Edo period administrative division of both Murotsu and Kaminoseki villages into port and inland areas. This longer perspective allows for a more accurate measurement of the economic decline of the straits communities in quantitative and qualitative terms.
Martin Dusinberre
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835248
- eISBN:
- 9780824871819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835248.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter focuses on the partnership between the Kaminoseki municipality and Chugoku Electric Power Company. Chugoku Electric's involvement with the town began when mayor Kanō Shin was asked about ...
More
This chapter focuses on the partnership between the Kaminoseki municipality and Chugoku Electric Power Company. Chugoku Electric's involvement with the town began when mayor Kanō Shin was asked about the possibility of constructing an atomic power station in the municipality. The chapter provides two reasons for studying this issue. First, it adds to the understanding of how and why controversial Japanese infrastructure projects have been sited in the postwar period. Second, the nuclear story shows the extent to which Meiji period hometown structures endured into the late twentieth century. Although the dispute over nuclear power in many ways ripped apart the social fabric of Kaminoseki, the ways in which it was first introduced in Kaminoseki nevertheless underlines the survival of older forms of political and social interaction.Less
This chapter focuses on the partnership between the Kaminoseki municipality and Chugoku Electric Power Company. Chugoku Electric's involvement with the town began when mayor Kanō Shin was asked about the possibility of constructing an atomic power station in the municipality. The chapter provides two reasons for studying this issue. First, it adds to the understanding of how and why controversial Japanese infrastructure projects have been sited in the postwar period. Second, the nuclear story shows the extent to which Meiji period hometown structures endured into the late twentieth century. Although the dispute over nuclear power in many ways ripped apart the social fabric of Kaminoseki, the ways in which it was first introduced in Kaminoseki nevertheless underlines the survival of older forms of political and social interaction.
