Maps play a role in imaging the modern world and nations, and have a role as fragmentary and personal "way-finding tools." In addition, maps are taking on a role as local media which are important for substantializing the liquid image of a "local area." These can be conceptualized as alternative maps, which design various images of a local area, that is not necessarily limited by administrative boundaries, by visualizing the "distribution" of the objects selected according to a certain theme (e.g. local resources), and institutional standard maps, which uniformly divide the local areas based on administrative "boundaries." In contemporary society, the formulation of alternative maps, which can reduce complexity in the way described above and express the multi-layered "(local) society" that cannot be fully illustrated in single-layer standard maps, is required so that people's perception of society is restructured accordingly. The activity of mapmaking, which used to be a professional service, has been democratized by the highly flexible style of expression of alternative maps, and such maps are often collaboratively produced through grassroots civic activities. Consequently, there is the possibility that alternative maps may serve not only as a form of alternative special expression, but also as media which mediates communication and networks in the local area by being linked to people's social activities and brings the new social nature of maps to light.

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The objective of this study is to investigate the cooperation of activists in transnational social movements. Previous studies argue that core participants in such movements are the 'victims' of social problems. However, social problems are based on complex factors in the global era, and we cannot define the core participant in the anti-globalism movement nor can we apply the perspectives of previous studies. This research focuses on the participants and repertoires of the protest against the 2008 Hokkaido Toyako G8 Summit. The author tries to distinguish the core participants and cooperation among activists in anti-globalist movement through interview data obtained from 50 participants who were concerned with various repertoires and the process of gathering resources in the summit protest. We found that core participants were resident activists in Hokkaido and were transmitted repertoires from overseas activists, and from Tokyo. Looking closely, we can see that they applied the predetermined set of repertoires in the protest; however, they did not always apply 'global' repertoires in the stages of preparation such as with regard to serving meals for activists. As a result, we can find three points about the global social movement: [1] The places where social movements are held are important in defining the 'core participants'. [2] 'A predetermined set of repertoires' plays a significant role in the diffusion of transnational movements' repertoires. [3] Through not only repertoires but also the preparation process can core participants express their political ideals. This paper finds that place plays more important role than the offender-defender dichotomy in transnational social movements. We provide new insight into previous research that analyses the cooperation of social movements, and examines the core participants and methods of transmission in global social movements.

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This paper analyzes how the "Destandardization of Household Formation" is manifested in East Asia in the context of the theory of the Second Demographic Transition. Lesthaeghe, Ron and Van De Kaa, Dirk define the Second Demographic Transition as not only the change in population structure caused by a low fertility rate but also the wide spread of the destandardization and diversity in household formation. Indeed, a very low fertility rate became a common social phenomenon in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea following the 1970's and 1980s, though there is little research examining this. The aim of this paper is to analyze to what extent destandardization and diversity of household formation is spreading in East Asia. This problem is analyzed from the perspective of fertility behavior in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, with a specific focus on gender preferences for children using the data from the surveys NFRJ-S01, TSCS-2006 and KGSS-2006. The subjects of these surveys were of the generations who married between 1955 to 1994 in case of Japan, and 1965 to 1994 in case of Taiwan and South Korea. The major findings are as follows. First, a transition to a preference for daughters from a balanced preference for both sons and daughters was found in Japan. This indicates that although a destandardization of household formation is evident, this transition has not led to a diversity of household formation in Japan. Second, the continued preference for sons in Taiwan and South Korea, indicates that even destandardization of household formation has not occurred in these countries. In conclusion, the fertility behavior of people who married in a period characterized by a very low fertility rate is not diverse. This, however, doesn't undermine the validity of the theory of a Second Demographic Transition in Post War East Asia.

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In Suicide, Emile Durkheim found that the level of social integration affects suicide rates. However, he did not investigate the mechanism behind why social integration reduces or increases suicide rates. Anthony Giddens pointed out that we must propose a new model that takes into account micro factors (e.g. attitude) that mediate between social integration and suicidal behavior. By focusing on the role of attitudes toward suicide, the Community-norm mechanism (van Tubergen et al. 2005) advances this theoretical issue. This theory assumes that social integration affects attitudes toward suicide, but we have little empirical evidence about the relationship between them. This study examines the effect of social integration on attitudes toward suicide. By analyzing JGSS-2006 data, the following was found: (1) The divorced and widowed assume a positive attitude toward suicide: (2) The childless person assumes a positive attitude toward suicide: (3) The person who lives in a residential area for a few years assumes a positive attitude toward suicide. These results show that social integration affects attitude toward suicide.

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The purpose of this report is to analyze the personnel training programs of global companies, focusing on the educational program of Toyota Industry School (TIS). TIS, as an instructional activity program in Toyota, was founded the year following Toyota's establishment. This report especially focuses on how the educational program of TIS works in a large corporation such Toyota. The effectiveness of the TIS educational program is directly tied to how much it meets the needs of Toyota. A basic viewpoint of this report is that the content of the TIS educational program is meeting practical requirements to train workers in certain skills, and moreover, is based upon the organizational culture of Toyota Corp. Through interviews with people associated with TIS, including staff, students and alumni, as well as the top management of Toyota (including the president), this report examines whether the personnel training and educational program of TIS only functions as a place that creates labour for Toyota, and how it contributes to the local community.

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In 2004, Japan earned a new World Heritage site: "Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range, and the Cultural Landscapes that Surround Them". The Heritage consists of three sacred sites and pilgrimage routes connecting them, and extends over three prefectures (Wakayama, Mie and Nara). Though the Kumano-Kodo pilgrimage routes had been long forgotten even by locals residents, many tourists came again after it was designated as a World Heritage site. However, the Typhoon No. 12 that struck West Japan at the beginning of September 2011 caused serious damage to this area, including the cultural heritage constituting this World Heritage site, restoration of which is ongoing. In this report, I analyze the narratives on cultural heritage and try to clarify the changing of narratives from pre- to post-disaster, and what such changes mean. I also analyze these narratives from the theory of recontextualization of meanings and values. I aim to show that, following the disaster, local narratives which are ordinarily suppressed in a national and global context are being revitalized.

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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issues of disappearance from the perspective of missing persons' families. While much attention has been paid to cases of disappearance in natural disasters, accidents at sea or wars because missing persons' lives in those situations are obviously in danger, cases where we cannot conjecture the missing persons' life and death have been overlooked. In this paper, "disappearance" is defined as the latter cases of disappearance. In order to convey the problem of "disappearance" that cannot be explained by the circumstances of a missing persons' life and death, I analyze the judgments of missing persons' families concerning the life and death of their missing relative, and the troubles they encounter from a perspective drawing on the sociology of death. On that basis, I conducted interviews with missing persons' families, and made the following findings. Firstly, it is hard for family members to decide as to whether to accept their missing relative as being alive or deceased. In these situations, it is often the case that missing persons' families have been deeply concerned about the missing person's safety for a prolonged period. Moreover, families' judgments about the missing persons' life and death are also influenced by the police's objective judgment and the legal treatment of missing persons. The discrepancies between these judgments on the life and death of missing persons compounds the problems for missing persons' families in terms of finding the missing person, dealing with social procedure and psychological conflict over the adjudication of the missing person's disappearance.

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After a disaster, society shifts back from exceptional and non-daily life to daily life. Insofar as the disaster is a major one, the shift back to everyday life is considered to be a one-time event. Nevertheless, we must think and plan the sociology of the disaster as being a description of a possibly frequently-recurring event, and not as the description of a one-time occurrence. The seismologist and the sociologist each have a big role to play in this activity, considering the different matters by which they were struck. However, we must not regard this as consisting merely of the thoughts of the individual researcher. Circumstances divide our life into time "before the event" and "after the event". In this case, there have been many results produced by the things "before and after" which impressed the various specialists. At the time of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake disaster, this phenomenon was not seen. The results produced, and the things they noted, play the same role as remembrance of the disaster. It is important that we keep in mind both "before the event" and "after the event" to preserve the memory of an earthquake disaster.

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In the case of the temporary housing for disaster relief in Natori-city, Miyagi, various measures are being carried out at the level of the residents' association to combat the problems of alcoholism and "lonely death" syndrome in light of the lessons learned from the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster. When these actions are grouped together, what is observed is in one sense "excessive" community administration at the hands of the residents' association. However, differing from the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake disaster in which numerous victims were literally crushed to death in an inland earthquake, we can understand this excessive community administration to be a socio-cultural device to deal with the "wandering spirits" (of those dead or missing) produced by and peculiar to tsunami. In this paper, using an approach different from that of folklore or religious studies, I investigate the sociological role of the community toward the regrettable loss of life resulting from a large-scale disaster.

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In this article, we discuss the Great East Japan Earthquake as a wide-spread system disaster. A wide-spread system comprises multiple infrastructure and life-lines, and a huge distribution and service network. The system normally protects us against disasters, and provides enormous advantages. But any failure in this system has extensive effects. Restoration is difficult and delayed. Furthermore the relationships between the center and periphery of the system before the failure increase the severity of the situation. A wide-spread system has not only physical and economic aspects but also social aspects such as family, administration, politics, mass communication, science, and so on. Mankind finds itself incapacitated in the face of the collapse of this large and complicated system. In this disaster Tohoku became the periphery, and even Tokyo, the center of Japan, lost control. This situation had not been observed in the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. What happened between 1995 and 2011? Further discussion about the relationship between man and community in a wide-spread system is necessary to find an answer.

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This paper investigates the "diabolic" connotations of present-day risk society. The contrast between "the symbolic" (the moment which produces bonding and solidarity) and "the diabolic" (the moment which produces separation and individualization) is important to understand the sociological meaning of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Modern society has "tamed" risk and "attached" it under a symbolic social structure. However such a symbolic structure is now being torn apart, and the diabolic aspects of society are spreading with the appearance of the new type of risk. The balance between the symbolic and the diabolic created by modern symbolism is collapsing. The remarkable sign of the diabolic and "danger" aspect of risk society was recognized especially in the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The limits of symbolism are the sociological meaning that Fukushima taught us. In order to face the risk society, we have to look squarely at "the diabolic". If we want to survive the risk society in the true sense of the word, we should not turn away our eyes from the diabolic aspect of society. I would like to examine this point, making it relevant to the ambivalence of "trust", the distinction of "risk and danger" and a surveillance society.

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