現代民俗学会The Society of Living Folkloreは民俗学に関心をもつ多様な人々で構成され、定期的な研究会の開催と『現代民俗学研究』誌の刊行を主な事業として民俗学の尖鋭化･実質化･国際化に取り組んでいます

pp. 1-18.

　What kind of framework do folklorists need to discuss the future? Predictive performance concerning the future is condition of a practical discipline. For “Living Folklore,” this question is essential.
　Until now, folkloristics has objectivized folk culture in three ways: as “object,” “institute,” and “act.” However, these representations cannot inquire about the “generation of history.” Therefore, this paper proposes “routine” as a framework. “Routine” indicates periodic activities that are developed at various scales. This paper argues that routine possesses the following two lines of logic that have power to create history: (1) Routine necessarily creates feedback of experience for actions, technologies, and systems; (2) routine creates accumulations such as increase in the number of objects and expansion of networks. In other words, routine renews itself while carrying on iteratively. It is the engine for generating history.
　The above view presents two future challenges. The first is to clarify the logic of change in routine. It is necessary to elucidate the mechanisms by which a change in one routine creates a ripple effect that causes change in other routines. The second is to model historical processes based on accumulations. It is necessary to clarify the logic by which accumulations created by routine emerge as historical events in the long term. Routines function by traversing across a variety of scales as well as being closely connected to one another, so an attitude that grasps parts and overall structure together is required in researchers.

pp. 21-36.

　This paper takes as its subject one of the features of the Japanese economy, the people who manage small- and medium-sized businesses, especially as family businesses, and sheds light on the kind of strategies they employed to stand their ground, or at times be mercilessly buffeted by, the large economy of modern and contemporary times. The historical and cultural aspects of traditional commercial practices in store management in Yanagawa City, Fukuoka Prefecture are considered.
　Two points can be indicated as a result. One is that traditional commercial practices have been chosen as a business strategy. The other point is that it is not necessarily the case that these traditional commercial practices have been actively chosen, but have been chosen due to the limited conditions prevailing. At the same time as clarifying how this “traditional” economy was constructed within regional society, this is also a new attempt at the economic research of folkloristics.

pp. 41-56.

　Taking the example of the annual Kurayami Festival at the Ookunitama Shrine in Tokyo’s Fuchu city, this thesis will consider the handling of conflicts that arise at the festivals, and also the “rules” of festivals which can be seen from that example.
　Although various conflicts may arise at festivals, these are handled according to different rules than those applied to conflicts that arise in everyday life. Kurayami Festival, which is also sometimes called the “Argument Festival” , is known for its frequent conflicts. This thesis takes as examples conflicts that have arisen at the Kurayami festival , and clarifies the reasons for the conflicts, how they were handled, and according to which “rules”.
　In addition, by posing the question “why was he hit?”, this thesis aims to offer a new viewpoint on the issue of the conflicts that arise at festivals.

pp. 57-70.

　From the 18e century collections of curiosities to modern days ethnographic endeavors, material culture has offered insights into people’s life and customs and, as such, has been part of the academic world.
　Mostly used as a tool to support researches with a larger spectrum and a different focus, material culture has seldom been studied for itself. The fear of fetishism contributed to this avoidance of objects as the central preoccupation of research, and still remains sometimes an obstacle to a positive approach of material culture as a deserving area of academia.
　A renewal in the academic interest towards material culture, rising since the mid 90’, seems to be changing this tendency. Breaking away from the once common Marxist-oriented approaches as well as the semiotic analyses, material culture studies have started to embrace a more cultural and ethnographic approach. In this new turn of event, objects are not understood as mere commodities or symbols anymore, but as counterparts and expressions of social and personal life.
　With the will to call attention to the need for a non-reductionist approach of material culture, this article first focuses on the evolution material culture studies have gone through, and the ever changing relationships between researchers and material culture. It then describes a new and encouraging trend in these studies, using Daniel Miller’s Material Cultures: Why some things matter as an example of material culture studies freed from the weigh of academic boundaries.

pp. 71-80.

　Stories of Goddess I collected during my field research in Thar Desert have a good deal of varieties. The stories that people of the desert share, inherit, and “invent” deeply reflect their surrounding world and social relationship. This paper aims to reveal the dynamics, both for inclusion and exclusion, of their social relation they are constructing, by remarking the varieties such local tales subsist in. This paper also tries to indicate the shortage of Japanese folklore studies concerning the research on relationship between folktales and sociological aspects, reviewing brief genealogy of folklore study on oral tradition.

pp. 81-90.

　The purpose of this paper is to delineate what the community was like at Hashima Colliery, a.k.a. Gunkanjima, by focusing on vegetable peddlers from Takahama, a village located opposite the colliery, to shed light on the periphery of this community. Through their peddling, there were various interactions between Hashima and Takahama involving money, goods, people, “culture,” etc.
　This paper takes up their personal experiences and narratives. A perspective from the periphery of Hashima reveals that the mining community comprised not only miners but also many others including those in indirect jobs. Coal mining communities should be diversely portrayed by listening to individuals’ micro history without reducing them to a simplified national history or stereotypical images and narratives.

pp. 91-101.

　Until now it has principally been thought that the Kakure kirishitan faith has derived from European Christianity which was passed on to Japan in the 16th and 17th centuries after which it changed heavily during the era of Christian prohibition and continued in that shape until modern days. Therefore, even within the studies of Kakure kirishitan, there has hardly been any research in connection with the historical forms of the Kakure kirishitan faith.
　This paper aims to place the Kakure kirishitan faith in a historical context by focusing on the situation of the organisational structures of the Kakure kirishitan faith and researching the roots of the organisational structures during the period in which Christianity was allowed in Japan.