May 2023 marked a policy milestone with the relaxation of various COVID-19 regulations in Japan. In light of this situation, this paper focuses on how COVID-19 has transformed various “borders.” First, the concept of “syndemic” in medical anthropology and sociology is introduced to show how infectious diseases can be analyzed from the perspective of the humanities. Next, we review the measures taken to control infectious diseases to date, focusing on borders. Finally, the discussion on vaccine passes will be traced to gain a perspective on rethinking society in terms of borders and mobility.

A reevaluation of the constitution of the sociological classic, Man and Society in Calamity, and the configuration of pestilence in this classic disaster research are attempted in this paper. Recovery and revitalization from the COVID-19 pandemic is considered using the concept of Pre-Disaster Recovery Planning. For this examination, several examples are given of NPO activities observed in our fieldwork in Ishinomaki after the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Today, social research is at a major turning point. First, with the progress of digitization, the awareness of the importance of “data”has spread throughout society. Second, new types of data, such as web survey data, SNS data, various types of big data, and video data, are being used for analysis. Thirdly, statistical methods of analysis have also become remarkably advanced and sophisticated. In the midst of these changes, we must consider what the nature of social research education should be. Major issues to be considered are as follows: 1. How the practical education of social research should be in a context where secondary analysis is recommended, 2. How should Internet surveys be positioned? 3. How to introduce and educate students about big data analysis, 4. A reconsideration of the requirement for random sampling, and 5. How to teach advanced methods of statistical analysis. These problems are considered in this paper while taking into account the situation of social research at a turning point.

While outlining the “Social Research Practicum” at Shinshu University in 2015, how teaching staff can conduct a social survey at the level of writing a bulletin-level paper with the “Social Research Practicum,” how large a workload s/he should bear, and what kinds of problems exist in each step are described in this paper. To sum up, the merits and demerits of aiming to write a bulletin-level paper together in the “Social Research Practicum” are discussed.

In this paper, several questions surrounding social research education are examined from the perspective of a young researcher specializing in qualitative research. In 2003, a standard curriculum for obtaining the Certificate of Social Researcher was established, this curriculum becoming widely adopted thereafter. However, due to changes in social conditions, various issues have arisen, such as the need for education on research ethics and building relationships with survey subjects. The position of qualitative research methods in the curriculum, which primarily focuses on quantitative research methods, are discussed in this paper along with problems experienced by young faculty members in social research training for students and issues in social research education.

Using the methodology of conversation analysis, the aim of this study is to explore how the social conditions appropriate to the activity of performing on stages are constructed and how actors’ participation as “actors” is shaped in the creative process of contemporary Japanese theater. Previous sociological studies of contemporary theater have not attempted a detailed analysis of the interactions during the creative development of a play. However, this process is a central part of the theatrical production process. Analyzing interactions during rehearsals, it is revealed that the director’s embodied gaze is mobilized as an interactive resource to initiate actors’ performances during the creative process.

The Scottish independence referendum in 2014 has been widely studied. However, studies exploring how the Scottish Government, led by the Scottish National Party, legitimatised Scottish independence are relatively scarce. Building on a concept, “nationalism-social policy nexus”, developed by Daniel Béland and André Lecours, and analysis of a government white paper Scotland’s Future as well as speeches by the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, the way in which the Scottish Government legitimatised Scottish independence by criticising the “bedroom tax”, which was introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government in April 2013, is demonstrated.

In wartime Japan, large numbers of national standards were established in order to regulate everyday life; a national uniform (Kokumin-Fuku),national housing (Kokumin-Jutaku),and national food (Kokumin-Shoku).This paper scrutinizes the relationship between these regulations and industrial technologies resulting from mass production. How the wartime Japanese state subsumed individual life through measurement and quantification in light of the standardization and nationalization of everyday life is described in this paper. Furthermore, how individuals were forced to govern their lives to fit those standards is also explored.

This paper aims to clarify the effect of service industrialization on “quality of work” through an examination of the impact of the ratio of atypical employment by industry on jobs and wages by gender. Prior literatures say the service industry has two characteristics. One is that they depend on women and atypical workers, and the other is that the “quality of work” tends to be low. However, it is conceivable that the effect of the service industry on “job quality” may differ by gender. In this paper, employing PIAAC in 2011 in Japan, I revealed two things. First, the increase in the ratio of atypical employment has led to a greater allocation of jobs to women in typical employment. Second, it has led to a reduction in wages for both men and women in typical employment. From the above, women in typical employment have borne a double burden of additional job duties and lower wages during the development of the service sector.

The purpose of this paper is a theoretical examination of materialism in disability studies. Materialism is an important theoretical starting point for disability studies. Therefore, materialism in disability studies was seen as the source of disability studies’ imagination to grasp disability as social oppression and the cause of disability studies’ dismissal of difference. After reviewing the materialist assumptions of disability studies, this paper examines the critique of the materialist assumptions of disability studies and the response to the critique of poststructuralism by materialist disability studies. The theoretical foundations that open the critical imagination of a new disability politics are explored through this work.