From the ashes of the Great Kantō Earthquake: the Tokyo imperial university settlement

Abstract:

In 1884, an Anglican clergyman and staff and students from Oxford University set up a ‘settlement house’ in the East End of London. Conceiving poverty in moral and aspirational terms, their goal was to live with the poor to raise their cultural standards, and thus pull them out of the cycle of destitution. The idea soon spread to the United States. That the Settlement movement would travel across the Atlantic is no surprise: there was rich exchange between the UK and US in the late nineteenth century, and the values underpinning the movement were shared. But what is perhaps less expected is that the Settlement movement also travelled to Japan where it was put into practice by a range of governmental and non-government actors including students at Tokyo Imperial University in the wake of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake. The movement then flourished for almost a decade, before coming to an end in 1938. How was it adapted to the Japanese context? What were its goals, methods, successes and failures? And what can this example tell us about the global circulation of ideas regarding social responsibility, the state and welfare in the inter-war period?

Keywords:

• settlement movement
• Taisho Japan
• social work
• student movement
• law
• Shinjinkai

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Helen Parker, Aaron Moore, Joachim Gentz, Hans Martin Krämer, Miguel Cesar, Beth Noble, Olivia Putyer, and the editors and two reviewers for Japan Forum for their invaluable help and advice.

Notes

1 The first private settlement house, Kingsley Hall (Kingusurē-kan) was set up by Katayama Sen in 1897. Other notable settlements include the Kōbō-kan Community Centre, which was established in 1919 by North American missionaries and members of the Japan Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and which is still active today (http://www.kobokan.jp/e_index.htm); the Buddhist Mahayana Gakuen, also establish in 1919 (http://www.mahayana.or.jp/nadeshiko/); and public institutions such as the Ōsaka North Citizens Hall (Ōsaka kita shimin-kan) which was established by Shiga Shinato in 1921 (see Hensō iin kai 2014, 28; Masaharu 1993, 312). Postwar settlements include Tokyo’s Hikawaka Settlement. The first book-length treatment of the Great British and North American Settlement movement to be published in Japan, Settlement Research (Settsurumento [sic] no kenkyū), was written by Ōbayashi Munetsugu in 1922 (Ōbayashi 2008 [1922]).

2 Abbott’s (1985, 318) definition of ‘profession’ is loose enough to encapsulate the Teidai settlement: ‘exclusive groups of individuals applying somewhat abstract knowledge to particular cases’.

3 Key texts on governing the Taishō crisis are Duus (1982), Hanes (2008, 2012), Hastings (1995), Garon (1987), Gordon (1991) and Pyle (1973, 1974).

4 This discussion draws heavily on the 12-year history of the Tokyo Imperial University Settlement (Tōkyō teikoku daigaku setsurumento jūni-nen shi) published in 1937 by the Teidai Settlement workers, and the recollections of settlers collected in Fukushima et al. (1984).

5 Uchimura later changed his name to Ishijima Naoshi.

6 Kagawa’s own analysis of Settlement thought and practice can be found in Friends of Jesus No. 9 (Kagawa 1926).

7 This drive for autonomy was not restricted to students. It is also important to note that since the turn of the twentieth century, Japanese academics had been fighting for autonomy from government ministries (see Marshall 1992).

8 Senki was published between 1928 and 1931 and carried some of the most celebrated stories of the proletarian literature movement, including Kobayashi Takiji’s 1929 story Crab Cannery Ship (Kani kōsen)

9 Settler began publication in 1924 it is unknown exactly when publication finished. Settlement Monthly began publication in 1925; again it is unknown when the publication folded. The Annual Bulletins were a fixture of the Settlement, and were published from 1925–1937 (Fukushima et al. 1984, 477).

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Chris Perkins

Chris Perkins is Senior Lecturer in Japanese at the University of Edinburgh. His research interests include the student movement in Japan, Japanese media, and the politics of borders and boundaries. He may be contacted at [email protected]