PHISICALITY OF EVERYDAY LIFE OBJECTS...THE CASE OF SHOES AND SUMPTUARY LAWS

Historians of economic thought, giving a lecture or partecipating in a discussion on so-called pre-scientific economic thinking, feel the need to refer to physical elements of the society that is the subject of their discourse. The ideas embodied in a specific object have been used by social groups as a means to spread and transmit their ways of living and conceiving actions, practices, and customs within their own geographic area for posterity. I am convinced that deepening the knowledge of the role of any specific objects that are characteristic of a portion of land or a group of people we are unfamiliar with, may give a substantial help to us as historians of economic thought in understanding how to approach a culture that is new for us, and about which we are partially or totally ignorant. Shoes are definitely one out of the most useful material sources for a hiostorian of Japanese economic culture.