Japanese Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 1884-2755
Print ISSN : 0021-5414
ISSN-L : 0021-5414
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Volume 60, Issue 1
Displaying 1-22 of 22 articles from this issue
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Special Issue
  • Introduction
    Noriaki Goto, Hiroaki Yoshii
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 2-6
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.2
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Moving Images and Societies
    Frontiers of visual sociology
    Saeko Ishita
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 7-24
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.7
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    The postmodern society is often characterized by overwhelming visual cultures. Here, we introduce sociology to deal with visual cultures and moving images; in other words, the mobilized and "virtual" gaze. We call this "visual sociology." Visual sociology is defined as the compound domain that regards the moving image as the method/object/practice of sociology. The interest in visual sociology has been gradually increasing since the 1980s. In the late 1990s, a series of visual studies after the cultural turn and the spread of digital tools effected together; as a result, more number of researchers began focusing on visual sociology. The visual studies after the cultural turn need to reconsider moving images as cultural constructs from the foundation.
    In this article, I discuss the new frontiers of visual sociology, i.e., new research themes after the cultural turn. These research themes apply the sociological research practices to both the production and reading of visual images. I believe that both are consecutive matters. First, I examine various conditions in the sociological video-making, i. e., the production of visual images. I emphasize the mobility and fluidity of the subject to shoot sociological objects. Furthermore, I examine the methods concerning the sociological visual analysis. At the same time, I argue the transnational circulation and reception of visual images in the age of globalization.
    Through pursuing this line of thought, I aim to achieve the following: (1)modify the ocular-centristic model on human beings in sociology; (2)introduce the models of various audiences and experiences of gendered bodies and not standardized bodies; and (3)open up standardized seeing and hearing experiences to the domain of broader bodily experiences.
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  • Current and Future Uses of Multimedia in Sociological Research
    On the use of visual data in fieldwork
    Hayato Yamanaka
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 25-39
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.25
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    This paper first provides an overview of the ways in which visual media are being used in field research, and then introduces specific examples of research conducted by the author in which digitalized visual data were used. Finally, future challenges facing visual field research are discussed.
    The uses of visual media in field research can be grouped as follows: (1)the use of video recordings or visual media produced by research subjects themselves; (2)the use of such media to document field research; (3)the use of visual media as a means of conducting research; and (4)the use of visual media as a form of reporting.
    With respect to the case studies of field research in which digitalized visual data have been used, I consider an example of field research conducted in Thailand in which a small-sized 8 mm video camera was used in a study on lifestyles in order to record data for a database. Second, I will discuss the production of a visual documentary of the Korean Town in Osaka, in which a steadicam was used to prepare visual documents of the neighborhood. Finally, I will discuss the production of a CD-Rom used to record oral life histories, as an attempt to document digital and hypertext interviews.
    In conclusion, with respect to the development and future potential of visual field research, technical limitations that should be considered when using visual media in sociological research and the possibility of using multimedia techniques as a means to solve these problems are discussed. I will argue that more "open readings" made possible by the participation of diverse viewers are not only important when considering the visual contents produced in the process of sociological research but also necessary in participatory field research as a way to overcome the asymmetric relationship between the researcher and subject.
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  • Visual Methods and Sociological Imagination
    Seeing, researching, and narrating
    Noriaki Goto
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 40-56
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.40
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    C. Knowles & P. Sweetman (2004) presented a thesis that "visual research strategies comprise a set of techniques which activate the sociological imagination in the broad sense in which Mills intended it." The purpose of this paper is to verify the validity of this thesis and portray the numerous possibilities related to visual methods through a project that I have been working on with my students since 1994.
    Through this research project entitled "Narrating with Photographs: A Sociology of Tokyo," we conduct sociological research on Tokyo and Tokyoites. Each year, students produce and publish over 20 pieces, each comprising a photograph with a title and a description of approximately 400 words (in Japanese). Three hundred and eighty six pieces were published in the 15 years from 1994 to 2008. A visual method called "collective photographic observation" was developed through this project. Using the photographs of Tokyo and Tokyoites taken by students, this method comprises the following three successive stages: (1)seeing the photographs as objects stimulates a sense of wonder and brings out "small narrative elements"; (2)seeing Tokyo and Tokyoites through the photographs stimulates sociological imagination, which enables students to imagine and read in the "larger hidden social backdrop of the photographs"; and (3)narrating by using the photographs(formulating text backed up by fieldwork dependent on the photographs) anchors the meaning and enables the visualization and perceptualization of previously invisible "social processes and structures." The "dynamism of competition and cooperation" weaves collective frameworks and interpretations. A narrative based on photographs is created, and a visual narrative comes into being.
    Photographs are "access points," which mediate between the sociological process and the daily lives of people. They have the potential of dramatically changing social research and sociology education.
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  • For doing sociology on visual experiences
    Hajime Yasukawa
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 57-72
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.57
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    This is a mock-up of doing sociology on visual experiences. How socioculturally, or how differently do we "see"? Many discussions have been made on the visual and the ocular-centrism in the modern world. Sociologically, the seeing is a way of conduct or an institute, and investigating the visual is exploring the social. However, in this connection, fewer empirical examinations have been conducted. I intend to do this in the everyday world. Here, the target is the "visual experiences", which are various vision-related experiences, distinguished from "vision" as physiological given and "visuality" as sociocultural abstract. Research is attempted using the autophotography, a social psychological method for self-concept study. That is, I requested the subjects to take photos of "you as you see", to select photos appropriate to the theme, and to describe how the photos were taken. In the beginning, the photos were classified with regard to their main objects. Many autophotos, taken by Japanese university students, were of things rather than persons—things as favorite, for-daily-use, memorial, relationship-signified, and so on. Although this is an interesting result, which indicates that Japanese youth constructs their selfhoods "via things," the research focus was not on the selfrelated contents of photos. In fact, I was not concerned about whether and how they really were autophotos. I wanted to see how the subjects did visual experiences respectively when taking-photos activated their experiences. Then, for example, the photos appeared to be only ordinary, the images of bodies seemed connotative of how the subjects touch themselves, and the photo's objects were very rambling things. I believe here are points of departure. The arrangement and display, rather than the analysis, of visual images is the practical way of exploring visual experiences. Or the continuous re-arrangement and re-display is a somewhat effective way for visual study.
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  • Listening to Voices and the Sociological Possibilities of Orality
    Tazuko Kobayashi
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 73-89
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.73
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    This paper examines, from the perspective of "auditory sociology," the oral expression of personal experiences and the act of listening to such voices. In consideration of the situation brought about by the development of voice recording/replaying technology, I re-listened to the voice of a Japanese-Canadian Issei recorded during a life story interview that I conducted about 20 years ago. While confirming how the interviewer develops a relation with the interviewee through listening, others' voices in the presence of her voice—as expressed in indirect speech—are recognized and concretely addressed. The relationship between the self and others and the meaning of multi-voices in oral narratives are pointed out through the state of "appropriation" of voices. Additionally, as I faced a situation wherein the interviewee had lost her voice due to some illness, I discuss the characteristics of the voice not only as a means of transmission but also as communality—"auto-affection" and "self-recursiveness." Re-listening to the interview as voices makes me realize that we discuss the "écriture of voice," which brings together auditory sense and visual characters. I conclude that the study based on orality has the sociological possibility of aiming for an understanding of human life within the reciprocality of parole and écriture, while referring to personal history and self-reflectivity found in voices and considering a hearing orientation of being unifying, consonant, and aggregative.
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  • A Pluralist Tale World Based on the Sound Recording Data Interpreted by the Investigator
    Through the ethnography of interview
    Masayoshi Koga
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 90-108
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.90
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    An interviewwas conventionally understood to be a formof research that reveals the "real intention." However, considering the changing views regarding investigation in recent years, an interview is considered to be the collective action of a hearer and a narrator and as a political product of the negotiation involving "what can be told."
    The improvement in the reappearance possibility of the data based on the use of an IC recorder makes possible a database type analysis, which comprises "voice"(mutual locutionary act) and "sound"(voice element within the situation collected) in the emergent interview situation. An immanent analysis is conducted using such data in order to observe the "instructability" of the multistory relation nature of a hearer and a narrator and the mutual context presentation, especially by which a "story" is constructed in an interview situation and to point out the problem of understanding "voice" from a single position.
    In order to pluralistically build the "tale world" interpreted by the investigator, a spiral practice, which carries out mutual reflection, is required for a tale by analyzing the mutual effect with the concentration of "voice" and "sound" in an interview, and the research that reads and solves a respondent of multivoice is conducted.
    By reading the data that conducts refrain with respect to "voice" and "sound" in this paper and from listening comprehension of low ranked highschool("sinnro-tayou kou") graduate investigation, the aspect of affairs related to the "lifeworld" of individuals such as a young mother, a young nerd, and a temporary employee is shown, and a stereotype graduate image is saturation. My research will emphasize the necessity for a multistory understanding.
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  • Possibilities of Sociology in Analyzing Films and Documentaries
    Toward the ethnography of "everyday politics"
    Hiroaki Yoshii
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 109-123
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.109
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    How can we create the possibility of sociology in analyzing films and documentaries? Hase Masato criticizes the content of the cinema reviews that are closed within the critics' private universe and insists the potential of sociology in films in which "the politics of film" should be analyzed. I agree with his insistence. However, in this article, I would like to discuss another potential with respect to sociology in films and documentaries.
    It is the potential to analyze the practices of "everyday politics" that are taken for granted in our daily lives and conducted as "folk sociology." How do we conduct such an analysis? I insist that the various practices of "categorizations" in films and documentaries should be focused upon, and demonstrate an analysis of the variation of the categorization of the handicapped in a film titled "Freaks" and two documentaries titled "Mahiru no hoshi (Shining stars in daylight)" and "Mokkosu gennki na ai (Such powerful and gentle love)." Films and documentaries are extremely interesting and thrilling materials with which we can analyze "folk sociology" in our daily lives and critically and reflectively consider "everyday politics."
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Articles
  • The Bases of the Denationalized Counter-public Sphere
    Case study of the union that supports undocumented migrant workers
    Sachi Takaya
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 124-140
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.124
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    The purpose of this paper is to discuss the bases of the denationalized counterpublic sphere by dealing with a case in which a union supports undocumented migrant workers.
    After reviewing the arguments on public sphere, I consider the case of the "Zentoitsu" union that supports undocumented migrants. By using the theoretical framework of emergent coalition and counter-public sphere, I clarify the activities of the union. I will point out the two bases of the emergent coalition and the denationalized counter-public sphere.
    The first base is the social sphere wherein migrant workers can realize their social rights. Usually, migrant workers approach the union to solve their labor problems. The union asks them to participate in the public spheres, for example, in meetings and demonstrations, instead of solving their problems. In other words, although public spheres are certainly based on mobilization, they are also open, because any migrant can participate in them.
    The second base is the intimate sphere. Some migrant workers continue to attend the union even after their problems have been solved. They attend to develop intimate relationships with the staff or other union workers and internalize the rule as "workers." When they appear in the public sphere, they embody the ideal image of workers. This is the representative of the counter of the public sphere.
    In this way, there exists an emergent coalition within Zentoitsu, while it appears as a counter-public sphere.
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  • Redrawing the Public/Private Boundary in Arendtian Politics
    Autopoiesis of political discourse
    Setsuko Hashimoto
    2009 Volume 60 Issue 1 Pages 141-157
    Published: June 30, 2009
    Released on J-STAGE: August 01, 2010
    DOIhttps://doi.org/10.4057/jsr.60.141
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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    The interest in Hanna Arendt's work has recently been extended to social science; however, it is claimed that Arendt's concept of politics is irrelevant for modern real politics and society because of her rigid and apparently old-fashioned distinction between public and private. In this paper, against these arguments, we reconsider her definition of public through intensive reading of her text in order to prove its original possibilities in sociology.
    According to Arendt, the distinction between public and private is correspondent to the boundary of language/out-of-language rather than segmentation referred to as ordinal politics. Therefore, the public sphere is defined as a realm of language that consists of action and speech(= discourse) between individuals in plural. She rejected the concept of the politics that based on rational truth whose irresistible force destroys human freedom and considered only factual truth to be appropriate as the foundation of the politics. For Arendtian thought, factual truth is a key concept for its ambiguity; while out-of-language, factual truth is of the essence for politics, which consists of only language.
    Hence, from the viewpoint of factual truth, Arendt not only divided language and out-of-language but also articulated these two realms. As a result, her distinction between public/private shows significant similarities with the boundary of system/environment(System/Umwelt) in theoretical sociology, especially the social system theory. The foundation of politics is parallel to the autopoietic system, and thus, we find Arendt's political thoughts in the resonance of the social system theory, which radically reconsiders the boundary of system/environment.
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