Les Japonais et la mer

The Japanese and the Sea. The dominant representation of Japanese identity since the origin the nation up until the 19th century has been that an agrarian state founded upon the cultivation of inundated rice paddies. Thusly, they have ignored the importance of the sea and of the populations which lived off of it. However, the "sea people" constitute an element central to the social life of the archipelago. They have constantly been underestimated historically and dominated politically because they did not fit with the structure of seigneurial domination which considered agriculture the essential element. The supremacy of the sedentary peasant over the nomadic merchant functioned as one of the main elements of social control in the framework of confucian society. Under these circumstances written sources have deliberately favored the land to the detriment of other non-agricultural activities. These "sea people" often in rebellion against the agrarian states, are nevertheless at the origin of the development of commerce and industry. They played direct role in the process of modernisation of the country.Amino Yoshihiko, Souyri Pierre-François, Siary Gérard, Siary Mieko. Les Japonais et la mer. In: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 50ᵉ année, N. 2, 1995. pp. 235-258