<論文>林業従事者の生活史的考察 : 生業・生活・自発的行為からの山村生活の再検討

Abstract

Rural sociology in Japan has studied rural mountainous societies mostly from the viewpoint of political economy. To understand the reality of people's life in a forest village, the introduction of the life history method should be helpful. In this article, the situation of people in mountainous societies in Japan will be examined by focusing on life history. It will be argued that their everyday activity and their life plans (to drift off from wage work and/or to move away from big cities) cannot be explained from the perspectives of political economy. They should better be understood as active commitments of each individual. I have conducted my research mainly in Yunotani, Mie prefecture. Yunotani is a forest village with a small population of about 30. Many of my informants, now aged over 65, have experienced working as forest workers, and now live on pension. In my interviews with them, I have asked what they actually did as forest workers, why they chose that job, and why they continued to live in Yunotani even after retirement. From these interviews, three dimensions of their everyday life became delineated: "occupation", "existence" and "voluntary acts". "Occupation" means earning their bread as forest workers. "Existence" means maintaining their everyday life. "Voluntary acts" are the skills that inhabitants in mountainous villages have developed to maintain their environment. In other words, they are the skills to enrich their environment. Each activity is indispensable to village life, and they are related to one another very closely. In recent years, however, the category "occupation" has become detached from the other two. This isolation is caused mainly by the decline of forestry in general, and it had direct impact upon the life of Yunotani villagers. The inhabitants call it "collapsing forest villages". In conclusion, I have argued that the key to revive "occupation" should lie in the two remaining activities, "existence" and "voluntary acts".