At the 8^<th> annual convention, a symposium was held with "The Gender History and the Oral History" as the main theme. Three factors of significance in Gender History studies are pointed out by Western learning so far. The first factor of significance is that the history of women or feminism has been the challenge against the history of men as the ruling view of history. The second factor in the meaning is that the Oral History is viewed as a gender related history. For example, the relationship history between husband and wife is a narrative story by oral history approach. The third factor in the meaning is the application of social constructionism in historical studies. The gender concept is that men and women's history is constructed by the social/cultural background and the time both genders lived in. Therefore, Gender History is soundly based on concrete Oral History. The first presenter at the symposium was Ms. Miyako Orii. She has reported about her activity on the Women's History and Oral History in certain local areas, since the 1980s. The second presenter was Ms. Noriyo Hayakawa, who spoke about her experiences of listening to the Chinese victims of sexual abuse by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1942-43. The third presenter was Mr. Yu Wada. He reported about the history of the movement to build a day nursery at the housing area in Osaka during the 1960s. He described the relationship history between husband and wife from the perspective of Gender History. After the three presentations, Ms. Junko Sakai and Mr. Tomiaki Yamada, commentators of the symposium, helped provide us with a wider context from the perspectives of history and sociology. In the future, I expect the development of the studies on Gender History and Oral History by the younger generation.

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Community Women's History means Women's History, in which the viewpoints focus on the region where we, women, live in. Community Women's Histories in Japan were enthusiastically published by many municipal governments as one of their policies on women between the 1970s and the 1990s, involving women citizens as editors. However, because of the lack of sources, especially historical documents on ordinary women, such publications were mainly based on Kikigaki, which in other words, is listening and documenting living memories, most of which are from the unknown. In this sense, Kikigaki in the publication of Community Women's History can be defined as "the oral documents of the women citizens, by the women citizens, and for the women citizens." Such Kikigaki, in a sense, has been presented as life histories, but, in many cases, they are far behind from Oral History. Masanori Nakamura defined as follows; "The work for historical writing based on Kikitori: listening to living memories, or Kikigaki: listening and documenting of living memories." This goal, as shown by Masanori Nakamura, is being aimed by the Community Women's History from now on, and it seems to be necessary that such achievements by the Community Women's History should be included in the municipal region's histories published by local governments.

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In this paper I intend to describe how a Japanese group has built a confidential relationship with women survivors in China, who have suffered from sexual violence committed by Japanese soldiers in the Japan-China War between 1937 to 1945. A Japanese group visited China and listened to the stories of women survivors in their villages from 1996, twice a year in average. The Group has realized that listening to the survivors implies that they mutually construct a confidential relationship with women survivors and that the Japanese are able to understand the reality and extent of the war damage Chinese have experienced. In addition, members of the group have always asked themselves why they have listened to the survivors. Thus, they have changed their methodology for research on history, etc.

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This report investigates the movement to build a day nursery in Kori-Danchi at Hirakata, Osaka in the 1960s. Through this movement, the participants, both male and female, have come to recognize that "the private is social". This awareness reassesses the idea and the logic behind the gender division of labor, quickly gaining acknowledgement at that time, which emphasized housework as being the responsibility of women. For the male, the movement has provided an opportunity to question what it is to be a "man". Women's history tends to consider movements of establishing day nurseries in postwar Japan as those for working mothers'. However, this case study, written from the standpoints of Gender Studies, clarifies the fact that fathers had played important roles in this undertaking. Men and women have cooperated equally in the neighborhood by bringing up children together. This paper documents the above points by referring to the archives of the era and from the interview of Yoshiko Hashimoto, who has taken part in the movement along with her husband.

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The Symposium for the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Japan Oral History Association dealt with the relations between Oral History and Gender History in Japan. Women's History in Japan based on Oral History has been developed since the 1970s almost in parallel with Women's History in Britain, first by community women's historians. Miyako Orii talked about how much community women's oral historians in Japan accumulated the testimonies and the necessity of establishing archives for the collected historical sources. Secondly, as Women's Oral History in the West has developed as part of a more main stream Gender History, the oral evidences which could be used as academic discussions in history in Japan have been collected, too. Yu Wada talked about the conjugal relationships of some progressive intellectuals in the 1960s, and discovered the gaps between husbands and wives in relation to their consciousness about Ie (Family Household) system and companionship partnerships. Thirdly, Noriyo Hayakawa talked about the unavoidable issue, historical epistemology, derived from the atrocities of Japanese Imperial Army during WWII. In Britain also, Gender History has had to deal with postcolonial issues. Therefore, we probably need more transnational communications with oral historians on gender and discuss frameworks for studying Oral History and Gender History.

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I could find the power of the oral historical research from the three presenters, namely Ms. Miyako Orii, who spoke on recording oral histories of women in various communities in Japan, Ms. Noriyo Hayakawa on the attempt to make interviews with the Chinese victims of sexual assaults in Sino-Japanese War, and Mr. Yu Wada, who presented the historical ethnography of the social movement for building public day care center and nursery school in the 1960's in Osaka from the standpoint of a male involved in this project, From the above, I have discovered that the oral history project of women living in the local communities is a radical shift in writing the official history of the respective communities. This project has indeed challenged the dominant patriarchal view of the history and instead revealed the world of domestic matriarchal lives. As for the attempt in the interviews about the survivors of sexual violence, this has reminded me of the importance of breaking the secrecy and telling the true stories, which would lead to the healing of the individual victims. (J. Herman, 1992) I was surprised to find that the power of storytelling could work as the bridge between the victims and the side of the perpetrators. Lastly, as Mr. Wada so clearly delineated, the establishment of the nursery school in the newly developed apartment complex in suburban Osaka was both ideological victory for the democratic double income family and the prerequisite condition for the woman as a wife and a worker to continue working. The oral history of the male activist illustrates how he modified the self-concept of gender after being involved in the movement.

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This paper explains the aims of 2010 JOHA Workshop Series, for which eight sessions were held between 5 May 2010 and 6 February 2011. The workshops were organized for individual researchers, who were doing small projects. The total number of participants for the workshops was 270, including post-doctoral researchers and doctoral students, as well as beginners of oral history research. Other participants were journalists, community historians and independent researchers, who were trying to start and do interviews based on their experiences of their lifelong work. In each session, current debates on oral history methods were discussed. 1) What is oral history? 2) How should we do research designing? 3) How should we use instruments for visual oral history? 4) How can we analyze and interpret transcribed interviews? 5) How can we contextualize our understanding of interviews? 6) How can we present our final reports of our interview research? 7) How can we pursue various ways for final presentations other than writing books or articles? 8) Final presentations of each presenter's oral history project results. The eight sessions did not provide enough time to fully discuss all these issues, but there were considerable discussions and progress among participants on the relationships of oral history theories and empirical research being conducted by the participants. The 2010 Workshop Series were experiments for the first time within JOHA, and they were indeed very rewarding.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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When I asked my past interviewees to check their drafts and permission for me to publish each case, a male informant asked me not to place his case in the book because of the feeling that something was wrong. The point, which caused such a feeling, was due to the fact that I had minimized him to the category of 'the eldest son' and depicted his life story so simply by using this category. The factor of being 'the eldest son' was not the essence of his story telling, but it was the keyword of the researcher to analyze from the viewpoint of gender. His complaint taught me what kind of a risk that a researcher generates by using social categories based on selfish motives.

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Roughly, the area that the Okinawan people have settled is classified into two, which are due to Pre-War settlement by migrant workers and the post-war repatriation from overseas. In modern Japanese society Okinawan people are newcomers, who have come together to form the "Okinawan" settlement. In doing so they endured the hard life on the mainland. However, they as the workforce have contributed to the development of modern Japan. Housing is a group of strategies, which has emphasized the structure of discrimination. As a consequence, the Okinawan people have pushed the return movement to Japan. Ethnicity was an important point for the organization and establishment of the Okinawan People's Congress.

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What kind of wisdom does the life story studies provide? And what kind of effects is made on human being and society by the life story studies? Further, what is the problem in practicing that? In this paper, I shall discuss these problems by considering actual case practices in my research production and the reader's reaction. First of all, the essential substance of the life story approach to holistic life is made clear. The second point is that the life story approach to the holistic life provides the ability to generate, which is developed between interviewee, interviewer/writer and reader. This is the "what" which the life story studies provide. The third point is that the social/sociological meaning of this ability to duplicate is to deepen and expand democracy, which constructs a new historical and social reality. In conclusion, I would argue that research expression is required in order to connect the "how" with the "what".

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In the contemporary Japanese society, Manga has a long history and is one of the media that is common and prevalent in everyday life. In this thesis we will analyze the experience through Manga of two men's life stories, and we will reveal the diachronic relationship between Manga and the Audience, and the meaning of the actual reading of Manga. As a result, we could observe the following three key facts. First of all, in addition to the experience of reading the text of Manga, the experience through Manga is multi-layered, including the individual, social or historical experience of the reader and the master narratives. Secondly, the meaning of experience through Manga for most people is not fixed, but always has the possibility for re-interpretation depending on the experiences in their lives. Thirdly, the experience through Manga can be a resource for the readers in constructing their identities.

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The aim of this paper is to indicate how the youth, who has had no experience of the atomic bombing, gets involved in the peace activities. This study analyzed the narratives by two participants in "The Campaign for 10,000 High School Students' Signatures", which had begun in 2001. The movement is now recognized as the process of handing down the experience of atomic bombing in Nagasaki city. It is clear that not only their experience of peace education but of family and daily life is narrated as episodes, which makes the youth take part in the peace activities. Moreover, regional identity is the remaining foundation committed to peace activities. These narratives indicate that as the result of interactions between official education, commemoration, and daily life, the youth continues to get involved in peace activities. The findings of this study will provide us how the memories of atomic bombing are handed down.

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