Groups, Relationships, and Space: On the Research Strategies of “Social Groups and Marginalities” Scholars

This paper introduces the analytical strategies used by historians of the “Social Groups and Marginalities” movement for reconstructing social groups and deepening early modern Japanese history beyond the perspectives of the elites. The project is rooted in an empirical interest in the diverse array of social groups that populated early modern Japanese society, from confraternities and guilds to village communities, town neighborhoods, and vassal bands. For each group, researchers attempt a detailed portrayal of its inner structure, social relationships, relationships to physical space, and changes over time. A network of research collaborators produced a large pool of interconnected case studies that illuminated social structures among common (and often illiterate) people in far greater detail than hitherto thought possible.

The paper also outlines how scholars have rethought the character of early modern Japanese history on the basis of this research. It explains how representatives of the movement have used local history as a method for studying intersections and relationships between groups, and highlights so-called “patterns” (ruikei) and “segmental structures” (bunsetsu kōzō) scholars have identified to compare between regions and across national boundaries. The paper ends by discussing the most recent historiographical trends within the movement such as an emphasis on gender and processes of integration and exclusion in the course of Japan’s modernization.