This paper examines the ways in which Japanese women married to Pakistani migrants construct their identity as "converted Muslims." In doing so, it aims to show how the restructuring process of the world economy and the resulting movement of people across national borders affect the experiences and self-perceptions of the women in a local context. After describing the socio-economic contexts of the women and their married life, this paper will focus on their gatherings via which a new notion of the self emerges. It will then examine the ongoing process of redefining the self in a wider social context and the manner in which gender intersects with other differences such as religion and nationality in determining the trajectories of self-construction. The paper concludes that the process of "becoming Muslim" is not a result of the women passively assimilating themselves into "Pakistani culture," but rather the result of them actively negotiating their place within the often contradictory circumstances in which they find themselves.

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For aboriginal commercial fishers on the Northwest Coast, the history of commercial salmon fishing is far shorter than traditional subsistence fishing. Despite this, they often recount that commercial fishing is their tradition. While the content and background of this narrative has not been addressed by anthropologists, I believe the following premises dominate. First, the two activities are both recollected as "lost glories." Next, whether fish is sold or consumed as food is not significant whilst aboriginal fishers emphasize that they are "people of the sea" in daily communication with other peoples. Put strongly, such interpretations, centered on ethnicity and nostalgia, presuppose that aboriginal peoples manipulate recognition on the epistemological level. Though I do not deny these interpretations, I suggest the possibility of another interpretation from my research among the Kwakwaka'wakw fishers - that they "traditionalize" commercial fishing on a practical level.

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In Korea, cultural phenomena are often linked to Confucian teaching. And in the case of organ transplants, the tradition of Confucianism appears at odds with modern medical practices. In this paper, the author sheds light on Confucianism as an explanatory system within the context of organ transplants, with examples of this practice expressed in Confucian terms, while depicting the broader perspective of Confucianism as employed by the Korean people. The narratives that invoke Confucianism in the context of organ transplants are full of contradiction. Both those who argue that the progress of organ transplants in Korea is lagging and those who feel more optimistically about this progress use Confucianism to justify their logic. As Confucian teaching is not restricted to a single, correct interpretation and is expressed in different ways by different people, analyzing Confucianism as a monolithic philosophy is problematic.

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In cognitive anthropology, little attention has been paid to women's knowledge and gender differences in the folk classification of subsistence spaces. This paper examines such gender differences or divisions of subsistence spaces and related religious places by focusing on a Japanese fishing village on the Tango Peninsula before Japan's high economic growth period. In this village, women engaged in agriculture and followed Buddhist rituals, while men engaged in fishing and followed Shinto rituals. While also maintaining classificatory commonalities, members of each gender had detailed classifications of areas within their own activity spaces. Both women and men recognized and experienced both "public" and "private" spaces, in both subsistence and religious activities. Furthermore, the women were not subordinated and inferior to the men in their knowledge of spaces and places but rather maintained complementary relationships with them. Current feminist theories on modern Japanese space cannot fully explain the situation of the studied village.

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The purposes of this paper are to track the main trends of Okinawan studies by Japanese scholars from the Meiji period to the present and to discuss the prospects for future studies. Before the Asian-Pacific War, most scholars embraced and attempted to verify the hypothesis called Nichiryu dosoron in which the Okinawan and Yamato peoples were thought to have a common racial and ethnic ancestry. After the war, however, interest in the origins of the Okinawan and Japanese peoples declined while interest in the socio-religious aspects of Okinawan culture increased. In the last two decades, Okinawan studies have become more diversified and specialized than ever before under the influence of postmodernism and postcolonialism. There are still, however, important subjects that remain almost untouched in Okinawan studies. Along with exploring subjects that have been ignored in the past, practitioners of Okinawan studies should strive to provide a common platform for promoting dialogue among themselves.

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