Social Space and Nonprofane Places in a Japanese Village

Abstract

In recent years, social geographers have dealt with problems regarding the social construction of space. Their studies, whether explicitly or implicitly, separate society and space conceptually. From this perspective the author focuses on the structuring of rural space by social subjects (territorial social groups and the political powers ruling them). While ‘social space’ in the title is here defined as subjective space occupied by territorial social groups and expressed symbolically by them as their own, ‘nonprofane place’ includes liminal places, sacred places and places of fear (places said to be haunted and graveyards) constructed by social subjects. This paper aims at: 1) reconstructing how the rural space is structured by social spaces and nonprofane places and 2) interpreting the meaning of the rural space as a structured whole. A case study was made in Shimosagawa, a village on the Yamato Plateau, Nara Prefecture. Shimosagawa as a social group is divided into six shōshūrakus (small settlements) given proper names. Moreover, shōshurakū are divided into kinrinshūdans (neighborhood groups). Subjective social spaces of these groups can be detected only through overt group behavior interpreted as bounding and expressing those spaces. Most shōshūraku formerly performed the mushiokuri (an evil-exorcising ritual) in each specific place (mushiokuri-ba), which may be interpreted as the liminal place symbolic of shōshurakū's social space. And each shōshūraku is in charge of its own network of paths, which is considered a visible manifestation of the group's social space. On the other hand, neighborhood groups are reorganized into many groups performing the tondo (a ritual seeing off of the deity). The place where the ritual is performed (tondo ba) symbolizes a tondo group's social space. Thus, subjective social space is symbolically expressed rather than territorially defined. Besides mushiokuri-ba and tondo-ba, various types of nonprofane places were constructed by shōshūrakus. But neighborhood groups are hardly concerned with the construction of such places. In terms of the distribution of social spaces and nonprofane places, the structure of Shimosagawa space is interpretatively reconstructed as in Fig. 9. The relationship between shōshūraku's social space and tondo group's is not hierarchical, but the latter constitutes the ordinary part of Shimosagawa space on a level different from the former. Most shōshūrakus have performed the fujigoritori (a ritual praying for the group's safety in the river) in each specific sacred place on the riverbank, where, in addition, are located some other sacred places. Therefore, the riverbank in Shimosagawa can be regarded as a space able to produce sacred places and is here called ‘sacred space’. Sacred places are also located outside the space. Graveyards are in the periphery of Shimosagawa space, and in gaps between shōshūraku's social spaces are the places said to be haunted. These places of fear are all in a dim, deserted space, here referred to as ‘wilderness’, which is a contextual space productive of the former. Shimosagawa space as structured in this way is not a social space subjectively bounded and expressed. Rather, the space has the meaning as an ‘institutionalized region’ in Paasi (1986)'s sense, constructed by the political power of a medieval lord. © 1989, The Human Geographical Society of Japan. All rights reserved.