In 1990, a diverse group of historians in Japan came together to rethink the nature of early modern Japanese society. Calling their approach “Social Groups and Marginalities” (mibunteki shūen), their immediate aim was to deconstruct the then-dominant view of early modern Japan as a static caste hierarchy. Their method was to focus on peripheral groups like beggars, itinerant performers, and day laborers to reveal the logic by which such groups self-organized and related to state authorities. In the process, they broke down the earlier ahistoric model of early modern society and replaced it with one that was governed by a fluid logic of give and take between various occupational groups and the ruling warrior class. In the 2000s scholars in Europe and North America began to take notice of this method and its potential for comparative history. Because of Japan’s unusually rich source base for the early modern period, Social Groups and Marginalities scholars have been able to recover the lives of those on the margins of the early modern world, and illuminate processes like the development of capitalism and protoindustrialization in great depth.

While Social Groups and Marginalities has had tremendous impact in Japan, it remains relatively unknown in the American academe. This panel brings together scholars working in both Japan and the United States to discuss how the insights of this historiographic movement can be applied to the study of the early modern world more broadly. While keeping in mind the historical particularities of Japan, we aim to highlight the “early modern” character of its society. We will provide a broad overview of the methods and contributions of Social Groups and Marginalities before starting a conversation on the applicability of its insights outside of Japanese history.