earticle

영어

This paper seeks to investigate the significance of social change such as modernization, urbanization and industrialization in a Japanese local city along with focusing on the relationship with local culture, especially Japanese local shrine festival.
It might be undeniable that there has been a strong tendency to separate between social and cultural studies, although it has been clearly recognized the relationship of social phenomena and culture is essentially crucial in all spheres of human research.
Therefore it is worthwhile to examine historically changing locality and its effects on local culture. For this purpose of the paper, I deal with Ishioka city situated in the middle of Ibaraki prefecture and Hitachi-no-kuni Sōsha shrine’s main festival which has been transmitted over generations in Ishioka as a case.
It is useful to devide before and after the Meiji period(1868〜1912) and look into each features of Ishioka to have a good grasp of its destiny, which means the process of losing centrality as a economic and transportation core in the vicinity of Ishioka.
In other words, Ishioka had been flourished with a local brewing industry until the middle of the Meiji period. However this status and reputation as a rich business town went downhill under the influence of rapid social changes. During this period Hitachi-no-kuni Sōsha shrine’s main festival has been greatly transformed as well.
As a matter of fact, Hitachi-no-kuni Sōsha shrine was not the very religious central facility of Ishioka's guardian deity before the Meiji period. It was Tennōsha(Gion shrine). Therefore it is assumed that there was no exact festival of Sōsha shrine but mainly a grave Shinto ritual during that period. However the policy of the Meiji Restoration to rank all shrines in the institutional hierarchy upgraded Sōsha shrine to a prefectural shrine contrasting to evaluating Tennōsha just nothing. This historical event enabled Hitachi-no-kuni Sōsha shrine’s main festival to be large scale and enjoyable.
Since the end of World War Ⅱ, Ishioka city, especially old Ishioka since pre-modern times, has rapidly declined in terms of population and economy. However at the same time, it began to form a new residential and commercial core on the outskirts of Ishioka, which means there have been increasing newcomers. These unfamiliar newcomers actively tried to participate in Hitachi-no-kuni Sōsha shrine’s main festival to feel and argue their affiliation as a Ishioka citizen and provide good and precious memory of hometown for their children. This newcomers' participation made the festival open for all Ishioka citizens, old and new. Moreover Ishioka's tourism policy affected its spectacularization.
As a result of this investigation, it should be pointed out that cultural forms and practices are co-related to social and historical context very closely. Additionally it is important to remember that the influence of social change such as modernization is different between metropolitan city like Tokyo and local city like Ishioka.