Cities and ""Villages"" in the Movement for the Improvement of Living in the Later Taisho and the Early Showa Era : the discourses about the targets of the movement and their transition

The current studies on the movement for the improvement of living before WWII in Japan mainly referred to cities, or to farming villages only individually. I think it is necessary to examine the mutual relation between the cities and villages in this movement. In this paper I investigate the discourses on the journal of Seikatu-Kaizen-Domeikai (The League for the Improvement of Living) and Seikatu-Kaizen-Chuokai (The Central Association for the Improvement of Living) From early 1930s, Domeikai and Chuokai tried to expand its activities into rural districts, especially farming areas. On the journal of Domeikai and Chuoukai (Seikatsu-Kaizen or Seikatsu), many articles about farming villages can be found in the end of 1920s and 1930s. But, as a whole, the activities of Domeikai and Chuokai, and the articles on this journal were aiming mainly at the inhabitants of cities. We can find two features in the discourses of these articles. First, the dichotomy of ""city"" and ""village"" can be found. This structure of discourses consisted of gaudy and frivolous ""cities"" and thrifty and steady ""villages."" Second, though in early 1920s the new middle class was regarded as the leader for the improvement of living conditions, the discourses that regarded villages as the models of life-style were dominant on the journal in the end of 1920s and 1930s. These discourses about ""villages"" played a role to clarify the problems of the life-style of ""cities."" But the number of articles that referred to farming villages rapidly decreased in the end of 1930s. The image of ""villages"" as the opposing life-style to ""cities"" could exist on the basis of the extreme differentials of living condition between cities and villages. These differentials became unclear under the war, and the discourses which had related ""cities"" and ""villages"" lost its basis