Geographical Review of Japan
Online ISSN : 2185-1727
Print ISSN : 1347-9555
ISSN-L : 1347-9555
Volume 78, Issue 14
Displaying 1-6 of 6 articles from this issue
  • From the Perspective of Microscale Geographies
    Ryogo ABE
    2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages 951-975
    Published: December 01, 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In Japan, the number of women entertainers from the Philippines has been increased remarkably vis-à-vis other Asian newcomers entering the country since 1980s. They are an ethnic group permitted to enter and work legally in spite of Japan's strict immigration policy against foreign migrant workers.
    In this paper, I explore the politics of situating entertainers as “others” at microscale, under the systematized immigration today in Japan. I selected a Philippine Pub in Nagoya City for a case study. I focused on the relationships between entertainers and pub owners, and between them and pub customers. Particularly I paid attention to performances of entertainers. What types of performances expected of entertainers by both pub owners and customers are described, here? So, I manifested three points below.
    First, pub owners expected entertainers to perform as hostesses rather than as legitimate performing artists defined by immigration law. Pub owners also manage them spatially not only at the workplace but also in their residence to derive the maximum benefits from hostess performance.
    Second, the expectations of pub customers were the gaze that entertainers have gender, ethnicity, and social economic differences. It was mutually constitutive, with sexual imaginative geographies working against the Philippines at both representational and material level.
    Third, politics of management by pub owners and of the gaze of pub customers not only operated at microscale of a Philippine Pub, but also had a close connection in the national/international scale as the institutional and legal context of systematized one-way migration from the Philippines to Japan today. Politics at such multiscale operate upon entertainers at the same time and fix them as “others”. That's why Philippine Pubs is the microscale space which multi-scale politics operate upon. So, I conclude that Philippine Pubs in Japan play an important role in fixing entertainers as “others”.
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  • Kumiko TOMIKAWA
    2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages 976-986
    Published: December 01, 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Since the “holiday on the farm” policy was put into effect in Germany in the early 1970s, studies of farm accommodations have developed. Their purposes are mainly to clarify the method of management and regional conditions for the development of farm accommodations. As farm accommodations have been developed in many areas, studies on their present circumstances are needed.
    The purposes of this study is to clarify the recent trends in farm accommodations, especially diversification, and to investigate the factors in a region where farm accommodations have been developed. The author did field research in Bad Hindelang in the southern part of Bavaria, Germany. In Bad Hindelang, farmhouses were used as accommodations by hotspring bathing guests in the 17th century. From the end of the 1960s until the beginning of the 1970s, farm accommodations increased rapidly.
    The trends in farm accommodations between 1985 and 2003 in Bad Hindelang were clarified. Until the middle of the 1990s, the majority of farm accommodations were bed-and-breakfast (B&B) types, and then they decreased sharply, while flat-type accommodations markedly increased. Operators who gave up farming also increased in the latter half of the 1990s. Farm accommodations were diversified into three types: B&B, both B&B and holiday flat, and holiday flat.
    The author attempted to investigate the actual situation of farming and managing accommodations and the factors in diversification, mainly by interviewing the operators of each type of farm accommodations. The results were as follows. A farm family who continues operating a B&B has a sufficient workforce for farming, allowing the wife engage in the operation. Another reason why such families keep a B&B is the absence of successors to the operators. Shifting from a B&B to a holiday flat enables the operators to reduce their working hours. Because of the greater demand for holiday flats than for B&Bs, operators tend to invest in holiday flats. The main factors in the diversification are the amount of labor force in the family, existence of successors, and changes in demand.
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  • A Study in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
    Kentaro TAKAHASHI
    2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages 987-999
    Published: December 01, 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to describe the characteristics of visitation to Islamic sacred shrines (gongbei) and the role of the jiaofang, a local community constituted around one mosque, in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region (NHAR), China. The intensive research was carried out in Shanmen Village, Haiyuan County, from August to September in both 2001 and 2002.
    The sacred shrines in the southern district of the NHAR are classified into two categories: those built before the 18th century, in which qutb, preachers of Islam from Central and West Asia were buried; and those built in the 19th and 20th centuries, in which “sacred persons” of Sufi orders such as Khufiyya and Qadariyya were buried.
    Even though Islamic doctrine essentially prohibits worshipping persons, Islamic sacred tombs and shrines are distributed around the study area. According to the author's interviews in Shanmen Village, the Hui residents of the village visit the total of 21 sacred shrines, which comprise five of the qutb, and 12 of the Khufiyya and four of the Qadariyya orders. The visitation is mostly carried out in groups, which are comprised of the local community members. The qutb shrines do not belong to any Sufi order and attract large numbers of visitors on the memorial days of the person. The believers in the two Sufi orders, Khufiyya and Qadariyya, visit the shrines of both orders. Owing to the frequency and the interrelationship between the Sufi orders, visitation to the shrines is very important to the religious life of the Hui people in the study area. The purposes of visitation are complex and varied, including gaining temporal benefit, approaching the spirits of sacred persons and praying for peace in the world beyond. Visitation as a form of recreation also occurs.
    Since Islamic knowledge is necessary to perform the commemorative rituals in the sacred shrines, some of the male participants who can recite the Qur'an play a central role in the rituals as representatives of the local community. Other community members participate in the rituals led by them. It is believed that the purpose of visitation can be achieved by participating in the rituals.
    Since the local community plays an important role through the whole process of visitation such as the provision of transportation to the shrines by a community member and the performance of the rituals, social relationships among local community members are intensified through visitations. In addition, some of the participants, mostly men, improve their social position in the community by demonstrating their religious knowledge and devoutness and their economic contribution to the community in the visitation.
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  • 2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages 1000-1002,i
    Published: December 01, 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages e2a
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Download PDF (68K)
  • 2005 Volume 78 Issue 14 Pages e2b
    Published: 2005
    Released on J-STAGE: December 25, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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