Burakumin at the end of history - history of social class in Japan

Social Research, Spring, 2003 by Ian Neary

Although the BLL in the 1970s and 1980s adhered to a fairly simple early modern political origin theory to guide its activities, academic research, especially studies on local history, showed that the process of historical development was much more complex. Between the late Middle Ages through the start of the early modern period, discrimination against kawata and similar groups was varied geographically but gradually homogenized to form a national system of discrimination by the second half of the seventeenth century (and was finally tidied up in the mid-eighteenth century). But regional differences still continued (Okiura, 2000: 216, 308). Moreover, historians like Okiura have insisted that discrimination was not simply imposed by violent means but acquired, over the long term, intellectual and moral legitimacy, which was provided by religious groups. Thus, in addition to creating a legal basis for a status system in the mid-eighteenth century, it was also necessary for the state to build up control over the Buddhist sects and Shinto shrines to form a "structure of consent" such that it became difficult to tell whether discrimination came from the state, top down, or from the local community, bottom up (Okiura, 2000: 286).

From the 1980s into the 1990s, approaches to burakumin studies diversified. Research on local issues matured, and comparative studies developed--both comparative within Japan and with the role of pariah groups in Japan with those in other Asian countries--Korea, China, and India--and even premodern Europe. The dominance of Marxist method ended, although the vocabulary and style still persisted. The debate between the Middle Ages social origin thesis and early modern political origin thesis was resolved; both have been found to be too simple to account for the patterns revealed by the research that has accumulated over the last three decades. This mass of material has yet to be assimilated into a single coherent account (Okiura, 2000: 323-5).

For some, however, the problem is not the quality of the historical research but failing to realize that understanding the past does not help us to understand the present. Indeed, an excessive concern with the past may actually sustain awareness of a phenomenon whose significance is now slight. In this sense some argue that not only are we at the end of buraku history in that the problem is almost resolved, but that we have also reached a time when it is no longer useful to know about buraku history. Hatanaka's writing is an example of this.

Hatanaka Toshiyuki and the End of Buraku History

Hatanaka Toshiyuki (b. 1952) is a generation younger than Okiura. While Okiura is (or was) closer to the political line of the BLL, which was close to the JSP, Hatanaka accepts the JCP line on this issue. He summarizes his position as follows:

   Buraku discrimination is status discrimination which was
   formed within the social structure of the modern emperor
   system and systematically supported and re-created within
   t. At the stage of its formation it was modeled on early modern
   status discrimination but this was qualitatively different
   to the discrimination characteristic of modern Japan. The
   buraku problem is buraku discrimination and structural
   social problems closely related to buraku discrimination.
   Post-war the social structure which supported and re-created
   this kind of discrimination was dismantled but social
   problems nevertheless remain for a variety of reasons (as
   remnants of the modern buraku problem) and amount to
   the buraku problem, for which a resolution is now in sight
   (Hatanaka, 1998: 190-1).