Kansai Sociological Review
Online ISSN : 2423-9518
Print ISSN : 1347-4057
Volume 10
Displaying 1-21 of 21 articles from this issue
Special Section I Violence and Human Beings
  • Hiroaki YOSHII
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 5-6
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Takashi SAKAI
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 7-15
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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    In this paper, I take up some arguments of those who are still forming the basic framework for our understanding of violence, i.e. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Frantz Fanon, and Mahatma Gandhi, and consider the implications of those discussions. First, derived from the idea of non-violence according to Gandhi and King, is that violence and force/power should be distinguished conceptually. In recent years, violence is likely to be confused with the force/power itself. For that reason, the debate about violence confuses, and as a result even uses of force which were previously considered to be non-violent are now considered to be violent. Second, violence and "antagonism" should be also distinguished conceptually. Thereby, the common ground (and difference) of Malcolm X's and King's positions, which are believed to be opposed, would become clear. Lastly, I examine the shocking thesis presented by Frantz Fanon, who considers violence to be "healing". Through this examination, it should become clear that those theorists/activists had the common perspective that the use of force/power is a total phenomenon which always involves a complex interaction of body and mind.
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  • Mariko INOUE
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 16-27
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Family violence is a serious social problem in contemporary society. The aim of this article is to indicate the correspondence between the vicissitudes of explanatory theories of family violence and the vicissitudes of treatments of family violence (especially child abuse). Risk factors theory is the most popular, but it cannot explain the difference between abusive families and non-abusive families both being exposed to the same risk factors. Then family system theory, which analyzes the family adaptation mechanism, has increased its importance among explanatory theories for family violence. Despite its effectiveness, family system theory has the limitation of not being able to explain norm-conforming violence, for example, cruel corporal punishments. Nested ecological theory outlines the reciprocal interaction of four primary levels of influence: macrosystem, exosystem, microsystem and ontogeny. It emphasizes the importance of cultural values and norm systems on violent behavior, then turns out to be an effective explanatory theory of family violence. The shift of theoretical importance from maladaptive family violence to norm-conforming family violence may also be found in the shift in treatment of family violence, that is, from family-maintaining treatment to family-intervening treatment.
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  • Aiko OHGOSHI
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 28-36
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    There are many issues concerning the sexual violence that occurs during wars and conflicts. In this essay, I want to focus on the viewpoint of survivors, who had for long been forced to keep silence as stigmatized victims of the sexist world, but at the end of the 20th century they decided to speak out about their sufferings and their anger against the perpetrators. I cannot forget the testimony of the former so-called "comfort woman", Kim Hak-sun, who was the first to come out and accuse the Japanese army and soldiers. It was shocking to hear how as a result she was deprived of her sexual ability and pleasure during the rest of her miserable life. I thought this testimony presented the core of sexual violence and elucidated the issue. On the other hand, a post-colonial feminist, Mari Oka, criticized me in an essay, on the grounds that it reflects the male-centered sexual expression. Counter to her opinion, here I assert that I tried to listen to the lost voices of survivors as sexual subjects. I believe this kind of discussion is very important, as we consider how we can listen to the testimonies of survivors. In addition, I argue the significance of the Women's Tribunal Against Military Sexual Slavery. This is an epoch-making trial, whose remit is to judge the structural violence of wars and the military system of the modern world. But this tribunal has been ignored both by the Japanese government and by not a few people. Now, ten years later, some events that commemorate the spirit of the tribunal are planned. We should realize that we are asked to exercise our ethical responsibility so strongly in order that we may continue to struggle against structural violence.
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  • Motoji MATSUDA
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 37-49
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    African societies have produced a great number of victims in civil wars, ethnic clashes, and other forms of violent conflict during the last twenty years. Though they are tragically marked with incurable scars, now experiments for healing and reconciliation are under way. This study considers this process by citing the case of Kenyan Post-Election Violence (PEV). Until recently, Kenya enjoyed a good reputation among Japanese people as a wildlife kingdom. This stereotyped image was destroyed by the post-election violence of 2007-2008. Hundreds of civilians were killed, and half a million people lost their homes. We would like to consider two questions. How can justice for victims be restored, and how can the violence-torn society be reconciled? How then can the victims of violence have their human dignity restored? Broadly speaking, there are two options. The one is punishing the perpetrators in modern courts of law; the other is resolving the issues out of court. Though the national court system, based on the sovereignty of the nation-state, has been dominant in conflict resolution in the modern world, the newly-established International Criminal Court started to exert an overwhelming power based on universal/global standards of justice beyond national borders in the world of the 21st century. To be sure, this universal jurisdiction, transparent, and impartial, is recognized as the last and greatest bastion of human dignity, but we would like to reveal its limitations and opportunism, and instead reconsider some out-of-court ways of conflict resolution, such as indigenous village gatherings inspired by community justice. The power of narratives of suffering contributed by each victim should also be highly evaluated as an alternative channel of reconciliation.
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  • Akeshi WATARI
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 50-53
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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  • Masahiro OGINO
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 54-56
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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Special Section II The Discrimination and the Exclusion in the Field of Employment
  • Hisaya NONOYAMA
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 57-61
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Hiroyuki FUKUHARA
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 62-75
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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    In 2009, RENGO and RENGO-RIALS organized a research team on the Working Poor in seeking a solution to the problem, and carried out a survey. The conclusions are described below. Examining the living conditions for 15-year-olds living in poverty and a precarious family environment, many Working Poor have been relegated to diluted family ties, school/employment imbalance, and the less educated, so that they have not achieved enough "Socialization". The marginality of their jobs and the precariousness of their employment have led to uncertainty in the workplace. Consequently, the strength of the connection to workplace organizations, family, friends, acquaintances, and local communities are also diluted, in some cases among those who were suffering from mental illness. Further, many Working Poor are excluded from the social security system such as unemployment insurance, which was designed for continued employment and temporary unemployment. At the same time, we observed that they have been robbed of the opportunity to describe their thoughts and requests. These results suggest that the problems of the Working Poor are closely related to poverty and social exclusion from childhood, exclusion from the logic of the business community as the foundation of mainstream of Japanese society, and social security as premises for that logic. In other words, we demonstrated that this problem is the most serious problem of discrimination and exclusion within Japanese society, in particular that of working society.
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  • Saya OYAMA
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 76-86
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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    At the end of 2008, a "seasonal camp for homeless temporary workers" was established in Tokyo's Hibiya Park to support those who had lost their jobs and homes. The seasonal camp for homeless temporary workers made "poverty" in Japan more apparent, while promoting it as a political issue. However, there has been almost no research conducted into the effect that such activities have on participants and the outside world. The seasonal camp for homeless temporary workers was closed in June 2009, but the activities which it provoked are currently expanding nationwide. This paper primarily uses participant observation to examine the activity of the "temporary workers camp" in Aichi Prefecture, which has the highest number of temporary worker cutbacks in the country. Section 1 outlines the background of the large-scale emergency of the economically impoverished in Aichi Prefecture. Section 2 focuses on the formation process up to the creation of the Aichi temporary workers camp. Section 3 considers the mechanism and characteristics of "consultation," which was essential until the closure of the Aichi camp and the formation of the "Aichi anti-poverty network" were successfully achieved in May 2010. Section 4 provides a summary and outlines future challenges.
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  • Miki TSUTSUI
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 87-101
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to clarify how, with the progress of decentralization, municipalities try and fail in supporting socially-disadvantaged job seekers and in developing recruiting companies. How effective are the municipal policies for employment, almost all of which have never been enforced as full-scale policies? To answer this question, we need to step closer to the realities of the trial and error of the people concerned, rather than merely glance at the record of performance. Through this sociological work, this paper insists that it is right that much time is needed to realize the desired results. The prevalence of the mentality "it is because of bureaucracy that the PDCA does not operate" should be avoided. The four findings through a case study of Toyonaka city are the following: (1) Municipalities are forced to patch up external time device revenue sources for enriching their employment policies. (2) The employment policy of Toyonaka city is comprehensive. (3) This is based on the recognition that socially-disadvantaged job seekers need welfare-for-work support and basic job training, and that small companies need help for improving personnel management and for recruiting better-qualified people. (4) Therefore, the coordinators are providing every possible help for both the labor supply and the demand sides, and this is a time-consuming and difficult task, whoever is in charge of it. Should municipalities take on such responsibilities as this? To answer this important question, this paper shows the data through which we can examine whether this success and that failure are influenced directly by administrative laws. Nowadays centralism has more harmful effects in the decrease of employment and the increase of socially-disadvantaged job seekers. It is better to construct institutions which can try to achieve optimal local results, with the minimum standard of living guaranteed on the national level.
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  • Yasuhiro KAMIMURA
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 102-104
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • Masahiro ABE
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 105-108
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
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Articles
  • Nao YAMAMOTO
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 109-121
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Recently, citizen policing has been on the increase, but can this phenomenon be reduced to psychological factors, namely the decrease of "perceived security" ? Of course, it should be pointed out that the increase in news coverage of "violent crime" is one of the conditions surrounding citizen policing, but in this study we first tried to clarify the specific intentions of these activities. Examples of research on citizen policing are rare in Japan, so in this study we proceeded to focus on the following points, based on the results of fieldwork in a Kyoto entertainment district. It can be said that citizen policing is aimed at producing a deterrent effect by keeping watch for "criminality" rather than detecting crimes themselves, but in that case, how does one decide what constitutes a "disorder" ? Further, many people are participating in the citizen policing, but is their interest related intertwined other factors rather than psychological ones; namely, the decrease of "perceived security" ? We focused on the above points, analyzing the status of current citizen policing in urban areas, from the position of intersecting, pluralistic power in creating the space.
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  • Fukuko TAMASHIRO
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 122-134
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Battle of Okinawa is an event of great importance to the people of Okinawa and one that they want to discuss. The purpose of this paper is to clarify an aspect of politics on representations of victims of the Battle of Okinawa in Okinawan society. We analyze the change in the description of "comfort women" and "comfort stations" in the local history books, from the viewpoint of "the borders of compassion" by Lisa Yoneyama (2006), which distinguishes between victims who receive compassion and those who do not. The following analysis results were obtained: firstly, the descriptions of "comfort women" and "comfort stations" first appeared in the latter half of the 1970s, and then increased in the latter half of the 1990s. Secondly, a clear difference emerged between Korean women who were abducted and Japanese prostitutes after the latter half of the 1990s. Thirdly, the war experiences of "comfort women" have not been documented in detail compared with local Okinawan experiences. Fourthly, "comfort stations" were regarded as an affront to public morality by the local community. In conclusion, the spotlight came to fall on "comfort women" through heightened academic interest in the comfort issue from around 1991, when former Korean "comfort women" accused the Japanese Government, and how they were represented superseded the borders of compassion for the victims, and was used to emphasize the victimhood of the Okinawan people and the offences of the Japanese military.
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  • Satoshi ADACHI
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 135-147
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance and limitations of social integration policy and philosophy of New Labour through the analysis of its "terrorism prevention" policy. One of the issues given to the New Labour Government was to establish social cohesion in culturally, ethnically, and religiously diverse Britain. For that purpose, the New Labour Government introduced the concepts of "Britishness" and "citizenship" as a basis for social cohesion. Both concepts were defined by abstract and democratic values and were assumed to be accepted among all communities. The social integration philosophy of the New Labour Government was embedded in its anti-terrorism policy. The New Labour Government set a terrorism prevention policy as a key measure of their anti-terrorism policy. Cooperating with Muslim communities, the Government would encourage young Muslims to be committed to common democratic values and to keep them from evil and extreme thinking. However, the prevention policy has been criticized from the start because it emphasized the importance of common values too much to rightly appreciate the negative impact of social and economic inequality on social integration. The prevention policy could overtly or covertly stigmatize Muslim communities as potential terrorist groups and, as a result, provoke young Muslims. Such limitations as the terrorism prevention policy had reflected on the social integration policy and philosophy of New Labour. To overcome such limitations, it is more important to recognize and tackle the negative effect of humiliating "emotions" among Muslims on social integration, rather than to urge Muslims to further assimilate.
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  • Takeshi HIRAMOTO
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 148-160
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    In this paper, we demonstrate how speakers project punch lines and organize joke-telling sequences in conversation. Previous studies on jokes and humor have revealed that the gap between expectation about what is to happen and what actually happens is what yields the humor aspect. Based on a conversation analytic approach, we examine how speakers properly combine these two components (expectation and event) to yield humor in conversation. Sackss' (1992) idea of "first verbs" will be quoted, and their ability to project punch lines is discussed. The results of the analysis will show that while "first verbs" may be used to let the hearer know that the punch line will come next in the joke-telling sequence, they will not reveal the content of the punch line. Further, it will be argued that this joke-telling sequence highlights the ordinary nature of the expectation which the speaker holds, and the extraordinary nature of the event faced by the speaker. These characteristics may contribute to produce humor in conversation.
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  • Tomoko SONO
    2011 Volume 10 Pages 161-172
    Published: June 30, 2011
    Released on J-STAGE: September 22, 2017
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper attempts to analyze the intellectual network in modern Kyoto, called the "Kyoto network" in this paper, as a public sphere, and to show the function and role of intellectuals in the public sphere. Based on Habermas's works, particularly "Heinrich Heine and the Role of Intellectuals", this paper attempts to obtain a frame of reference by incorporating intellectuals into public sphere theory, and to show the role of intellectuals in the public sphere. Using this frame, this paper attempts to study the Kyoto School, herein called the "Kyoto network", as an intellectual network, and broadens my view of the intellectual network surrounding the Kyoto School, herein called the "Artists Village". The Kyoto School is a world-famous school of philosophy, but its structure and the companionship among its members are not well-known. This paper picks up various and abundant facts about its members, and reveals the existence of multiple and interactive intellectual networks in Kyoto in those days. Above all, the close interaction between scholars and painters caused a social movement, in particular the founding of KOKUGASOUSAKU-KYOKAI, the "Society for the Creation of National Painting". Consequently, it can be said that man must recognize the function and role of intellectuals in the public sphere, and integrate them as key and essential conditions for the effective performance of the public sphere. Most important of all, these functions are to identify problem situations, to act as a transmitter of knowledge or as opinion leaders, and to reconstruct the public sphere by reflection and dialogue with other intellectual networks. These functions were certainly fulfilled by the intellectuals of the networks in Kyoto.
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