Clothing consumption and the concepts of flow and stock : an analysis of late-Meiji village surveys in Ibaraki prefecture

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  • フローとストックの被服消費 : 明治後期の茨城県「町村是」による分析
  • フロー ト ストック ノ ヒフク ショウヒ メイジ コウキ ノ イバラキケン チョウソン ゼ ニ ヨル ブンセキ

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This article argues that before World War I rural clothing consumption cannot be understood as a 'flow' concept alone. An analysis of extant sonze (village surveys) in Ibaraki prefecture reveals, firstly, that there were two different concepts of 'consumption', and hence two different words and measures for it: seisan (production) consumption and seikatsu (living) consumption. The former consisted of the purchase of an item as well as home production, and was measured from output data. The latter meant the daily use of an item which was in stock. In this case the estimated use value was probably calculated from the total amount of clothes in stock, and it never corresponded to any 'flow' measures of clothing consumption. Secondly, it seems that people at that time applied the concept of depreciation to the household's clothing stock too. These findings have considerable implications. First, we cannot estimate the peasants' standard of living from 'flow' measures alone. Second, if the peasants' chief motive in purchasing new clothes was to replace worn-out traditional kimono, then it would not have been easy for western-style clothing to penetrate the Meiji rural market. This interpretation is consistent with recent studies in textile history.

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