An island region in some country should be given an autonomy or a special status based on islandness? Case studies on European ‘island regions’ show that more than half of them enjoy an autonomy or an insular special status. We can explain this state as ‘asymmetric pluralism’, not meaning nationwide federalism but giving special or autonomous status toward only one or a few regions in a country. While regional autonomy or special status and their making process including island regions are mentioned usually in State-region (bilateral) relations, in European case they are observed in EU-State-region (triangle) relations. Insular autonomy was executed as a choice to reject the accession toward EU and the common market for preserving their fragile economic interest, or it was given to island regions according to European subsidiarity (devolution) and several outermost island regions enjoy EU’s special option program based on remoteness and insularity according to its social economic cohesion (overcoming regional disparities) principle. Actually, the ‘insularity’, originally a geographical or ecological concept, is discussing inside EU, several European countries and island regions for its institutionalization. In this discussion, island autonomy is concerned with the insularity as a socioeconomic minority rather than ethnic or cultural minority mainly focused by asymmetric pluralism or consociational democracy theories.

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This paper aims to clarify current situations and issues of the local government-led learning support project in remote islands. Many local governments in remote islands provide out-of-school learning support. Especially, “Nakayoshi-juku” in Kitadaito Village, Okinawa Prefecture is recognized as “a learning support center” to solve regional education issues. And “Nakayoshi-juku” plays a part in public education in Kitadaito Village. Learning support projects are made possible by the variety of resources available. But, from a system perspective, issues of the learning support projects are securing financial resources and teachers and establishing evaluation methods. From a practice perspective, issues are building relationship with a school and creating an environment where children can learn with peace of mind. We need to continue to solve these issues and to consider ways to provide out-of-school education sustainably in remote islands from both perspective a system and a practice.

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This paper examines the involvement of senior members of the village community and village rituals, which play a central role in the implementation of the villages rituals of Yaeyama. This paper notes, for example, that senior members of the village community are involved in the work of scheduling village rituals and play a central role in implementing village rituals, and consideration was given to the historical background of the senior members of the village community. The historical background of the role of senior members of the village community was the presence of village officials “Yomochi” and “Tabusa” during the Ryukyu Kingdom era. When comparing oral traditions and historical materials in each region, they were instructors and directors on the social life of the villagers' peasants, but were also deeply involved in village ceremonies and played a central role in carrying out the ceremonies without delay.

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This paper reconstructs *Ratəd in Proto-Atayalic subgroup of Austronesian language family, which is a cultural lexicon meaning “a section of arable land,” on the basis of present-day forms in Atayal and Seediq such as atu (Atayal), ratuc (Paran Seediq), and gasut (Truku Seediq). The cognate relationship between these words are opaque due to innovative phonological changes that occurred in each language as well as in each dialect. This paper traces these phonological changes that leads to the proto-form.

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In this paper I shall attempt to give a description of the honorific forms of Ginoza Sokei Okinawan, based on fieldwork conducted in 2018-2019. After introducing the main features and situation of Sokei Okinawan, I shall provide an overview of the honorific forms. I shall describe said forms of Sokei Okinawan divided into answering words, second person pronouns, addressee honorifics, derived subject honorifics, lexical subject honorifics, humble forms, and features of the use of honorifics, and touch upon their etymology and distribution throughout the Northern Ryukyus.

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Currently, songwriters perform in media such as TV, radio, and records, perform in festivals and events, perform in folk song bars, and perform in a variety of other Okinawan folk songs, and are highly praised by people. However, when the history of the singers are traced back to after the prewar period, it is greatly different from the present image and role of the singers, and they were not highly appreciated in general. The image of the singers becomes positive as time goes by, and the role of the singers change accordingly. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the process of changing the image and role of the singers from the prewar period to the present through the viewpoint of dedicated singers of the folk song club/bar in Okinawan island.

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