1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910495955503321

Autore

Ooms Herman

Titolo

Tokugawa village practice : class, status, power, law / / Herman Ooms [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Berkeley, : University of California Press, 1996

ISBN

0-585-13144-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xviii, 424 p. ) : maps ;

Disciplina

306/.0952

Soggetti

Social classes - Japan - History

Villages - Japan - History

Villages - Law and legislation - Japan - History

Villages - History - Law and legislation - Japan

Sociology & Social History

Social Sciences

Social Conditions

History

Japan Social conditions 1600-1868

Japan Politics and government 1600-1868

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"A Philip E. Lilienhal book."

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. "Mountains of Resentment": One Woman's Struggle Against Tokugawa Authority -- 2. Class Politics -- 3. Status Power -- 4. Village Autonomy -- 5. Status and State Racism: From Kawata to Eta -- 6. The Tokugawa Juridical Field and the Power of Law -- App. 1. Settlement of a Dispute Between Kumi Heads and Small Peasants, 1760 (Iribuse, Kita-Saku District, Shinano) -- App. 2. Goningumi Rules, 1640 (Shimo-Sakurai, Kita-Saku District, Shinano) -- App. 3. Goningumi Rules, 1662 (Shimo-Sakurai, Kita-Saku District, Shinano) -- App. 4. Regulations for the Villages of All Provinces -- The Keian Edict, 1649 (and 1665) -- App. 5. Regulations for Outcastes in Various Jurisdictions in Shinano.

Sommario/riassunto

In contrast to Japanese citizens today, villagers in the Tokugawa period (seventeenth through mid-nineteenth centuries) frequently resorted to lawsuits to settle conflicts, leaving a vast but hitherto untapped record



of power struggles between villagers and the network of administrators above them. Through colorfully narrated and skillfully analyzed case studies of their lawsuits and petitions, Herman Ooms traces the evolution of class and status conflicts in villages during this feudal era. Inspired by the work of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, the author links detailed village analysis to a broader discussion of societal power fields and juridical domains.

Opening with an angry woman's lifelong struggle against village authority, Ooms's study examines how obscure historical actors, local elites, commoners, women, and outcastes manipulated the distinctions of class and status to their own advantage. The case studies offer a penetrating view of legal practice, including the position of women, inheritance customs, and particular forms of village justice. In a significant contribution to the legal history of outcaste populations, Ooms also studies the origins of discrimination against the ancestors of the burakumin population, a group that even now is struggling for equality in Japanese society.