Changing Labour Relations in Asia – serie

Based on a collection of labour contracts and other documents, this book examines the legal, economic and social relations of labour as they developed in the commercial enterprises of Tokugawa Japan. The urban focus is Kyoto, the cultural capital and smallest of the three great cities of the Tokugawa period, but the data comes from a wider region of commercial and castle towns and rural villages in central Japan.

In seeking to provoke debate, the book reveals the variety of experiences evident in countries and regions marked by capitalist and (post) socialist regulatory frameworks, and contrasting labour regimes, histories and cultures. The contributions show the importance of critically examining both the complex nature of global-local links and the particular ways economic processes are around the themes of labour regimes, labour processes, labour mobility and labour communities, the essays show how economic development is not only shaped by market forces but is also interlocked in systems of meaning.

Based on a collection of labour contracts and other documents, this book examines the legal, economic and social relations of labour as they developed in the commercial enterprises of Tokugawa Japan. The urban focus is Kyoto, the cultural capital and smallest of the three great cities of the Tokugawa period, but the data comes from a wider region of commercial and castle towns and rural villages in central Japan.