Los burakumin, en la sociedad japonesa

Abstract

This article based on a field study conducted on the Japanese island of Honshû, more specifically in the regions of Osaka, Nara and Kyoto, deals with the question of the burakumin. This minority, because of very concrete historical and social reasons, suffers strong discrimination within the society. The nature of the social structure of Japanese society, profoundly hierarchical and stratified, allows us to present as hypothesis for explaining this discrimination the need of Japanese society for having an ideational elaboration for justifying the internal separations within its social pyramid.