著者

西田 芳正

出版者

社会学研究会

雑誌

ソシオロジ (ISSN:05841380)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.37, no.2, pp.3-19,182, 1992-10-31 (Released:2017-02-15)

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This paper examines the identity of young people in a Buraku community where the liberation movement has been actively engaged. For this purpose their life histories are analyzed. Young people in such an active Buraku community hold positive identity because they have received since their childhood such messages as "the outer society is to be blamed" and "Buraku people should fight discrimination and form forward-looking identity." However, as they grow up and face discrimination in the outer society, their once-acquired positive identity is likely to be destabilized. The concept of identity politics refers to an aspect of social movements among the discriminated-against minority groups that becomes more visible as they seek to repudiate forced negative identity and to create positive identity for themselves. The Buraku liberation movement has such an aspect. However, the moral career of young Buraku people suggests a difficulty of identity politics. We can develop two hypotheses as follows from the observations of the destabilization process of their identity.1 ) Because the success in struggle over competing social definitions, namely, stigma contest is confined within in-group, the conventional definition of Buraku people continues to prevail in the outer society.2) Younger generation of Buraku people growing up in the environment of institutionalized liberation movement acquire positive identity within a protective capsule. Therefore, their identity becomes more vulnerable to discrimination as they are placed outside the capsule.