<論文>「満洲」経験の歴史社会学的考察 : 「満洲」同窓会の事例をとおして

Abstract

Many colonial studies have been described by the terms of political economy. The historical studies about Manchuria in the postwar Japan follow suit: they mainly deal with the side of puppet state with regard to the past colonial situation of Manchuria. Consideration of everyday life in colonial situation has been neglected. My purpose in this paper is to address that side. As the first step in this paper, I discuss the "Manchurian Dousou-Kai (reunion), " postwar spontaneous associations composed of Japanese colonizers to Manchuria. In 1997, I conducted a survey. I sent a questionnaire to 119 Associations and received answers from 53. The answer rate was 49.6%. According to the results, these associations are roughly divided into three types. The first group includes 39 associations composed of members who graduated from the same school in Manchuria. The second type has 8 associations composed of members that had been employed at the same place. The third group has 3 associations which are composed of members who lived at the same place in Manchuria. These three groups have similar activities. According to the responses to the questionnaire, their purposes are (1) to cultivate the present friendships, (2) to relive their past lives by making a list or a map in those days, and (3) to satisfy their nostalgia by visiting to China or the school they attended. These activities apparently show "the optimistic nostalgia" and resemble other popular "Dousou-Kai" which cultivate the present friendships through remembering their past. But when we consider the tendency of their narratives (which are limited on the side of everyday life) against the postwar context of the discourse concerned with colonial Manchuria, we will find these activities of "Manchurian Dousou-Kai" have another way to make sense of their personal Manchuria Experience. Even after war and the colonizers return from Manchuria, the stories to idealize Manchuria State as a big state founding history has been told among Japanese colonizers to Manchuria. On the other side, the act of remembering personal experiences within his/her everyday world passively denies contextualizing his/her personal experiences into the overall history. This is an attempt to preserve his/her inner place to recognize his/her colonial life.