The Tokyo Imperial University Settlement House: Challenging Social Inequality in Interwar Japan

1923年，一群来自东京帝国大学（Tokyo Imperial University）的左翼学生和进步教授联合起来，在东京市中心的一个工人区成立了该大学的“定居之家”。这所房子里有供学生与无产阶级生活在一起的房间，它的活动包括为工厂工人开设一所劳动学校，提供由教授和学生授课的夜校，培养了几位杰出的劳工领袖和未来的国会议员。安置方案还包括成人和儿童课程、儿童保育、一个消费者合作社和一个由大学医生管理的免费诊所。在两位日本最有影响力的法学教授的指导下，它还提供法律咨询。由于其创始人的突出地位及其活动的范围，该解决方案是这一时期进步主义者更广泛努力的最具影响力的例子，该努力赋予工人权力，以夺取工人运动的领导权，并克服被认为是根本不平等的社会经济制度。这个项目的目标是重建东京帝国大学定居屋的理论概念和实际工作。为此，本项目分为三个子项目：1)劳工运动，2)福利，3)社会科学和高等教育。首先，殖民地受到劳工运动的影响，但它也促成了两次世界大战之间和战后日本劳工运动的形成。包括马克思主义者在内的进步主义者的理论工作与实践努力之间的这种联系，在两次世界大战之间的日本没有得到充分的研究。第二，通过提供保健和法律服务以及儿童保育，定居点成为福利服务的提供者。鉴于对日本福利史的研究一直严重倾向于国家，民间社会行动者在直接对抗不平等方面的作用以及这些努力对他们思想的影响值得更多的学术关注。最后，日本社会科学在两次世界大战之间的崛起为殖民地的活动提供了信息，并反过来影响了高等教育领域的新教学理念和大学教授与学生之间的互动。通过将东京帝国大学安置所置于20世纪上半叶日本劳工运动、福利政策、社会科学和高等教育的更大历史中，我们希望阐明这些领域的相互联系，在这些背景下工作的国际联系，以及进步社会运动中理论与实践之间的关系。最终，这个项目将成为一部更宏大、更雄心勃勃的关于现代日本平等与不平等的专著的重要组成部分。

In 1923, a group of left-wing students and progressive professors from Tokyo Imperial University banded together to form the university’s Settlement House in a workers’ district in downtown Tokyo. This house contained rooms for students to live among the proletariat, and its activities included a labour school for factory workers providing night classes taught by professors and students, which produced several prominent labor leaders and future Diet members. The settlement programme further included courses for adults and children, child care, a consumer cooperative, and a free medical clinic administered by university doctors. It also offered legal counseling, supervised by two of Japan’s most influential law professors. Due to the prominence of its founders and the range of its activities, the settlement was the most impactful example of a broader effort among progressives during this period to empower workers to seize leadership of the labour movement and overcome what was perceived to be a fundamentally unequal socio-economic system. The goal of this project is to reconstruct the theoretical conception and the practical work of the Tokyo Imperial University Settlement House. In order to do so, the project is divided into three subprojects: 1) labour movement, 2) welfare, 3) social science and higher education. Firstly, the Settlement was shaped by the labour movement, but it also contributed to shaping the labour movement of interwar and post-war Japan. This connection between the theoretical work of progressives including Marxists on the one hand and practical efforts on the other has not been studied sufficiently for interwar Japan. Secondly, through offering health and legal services as well as childcare, the Settlement became a provider of welfare services. Given that research on the history of welfare in Japan has been heavily slanted towards the state, the role of civil society actors in directly confronting inequality and the effect these efforts had on their thought deserves greater scholarly attention. Lastly, the activities of the Settlement were informed by the ascent of the social sciences in interwar Japan, and in turn affected new pedagogic ideas in the realm of higher education and the interaction between university professors and students.By situating the Tokyo Imperial University Settlement House in the larger histories of the labour movement, welfare policy and social science and higher education in Japan during the first half of the twentieth century, we hope to shed light on the interconnection of these areas, on the international connections at work in these contexts, and on the relationship between theory and practice in progressive social movements. Ultimately, this project will serve as an important building block within a larger and more ambitious monographic history of equality and inequality in modern Japan.