Nowadays, it is rare that formal sociology is questioned. Does formal sociology provide answers in their entirety? Could we reconsider formal society, and to what end? Georg Simmel was both a formal sociologist and a philosopher, during a time when it was rare to consider such professions mutually beneficial. I, too, maintain that Simmel was prescient in his union of the two, and that, once again, it is worth reconsidering formal sociology in light of philosophical questions. Therefore, in this report, I clarify the necessary relation between formal sociology and philosophy, as based upon Simmel's interpretation of Kant. Although Simmel's Kant interpretation is rarely referred to in sociology, we can reach a new definition of formal sociology by reconsideration formal sociology in this way.
　Simmel wrote a famous sociological works which provide us with a useful guide, namely, On Social Differentiation (1890), Sociology (1908), and Fundamental Questions of Sociology (1917). In these works, Simmel detailed his "social differentiation theory," a theory based on analyses of life in its natural state. In this paper, 1 clarify Simmel's theories, specifically with regard to their relationships to formal sociology. In this way, I hope to bring about a systematic and practical reconsideration of formal sociology.

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　Nowadays, we are entering the global world. In accordance with this trend, we encounter many problems, for example, the problem of dwindling environment and mineral resources, poverty in the third world, regional conflicts, and so on. We have some possible answers for these problems. Constructing a regional community in the world is seen as one of these answers, more specifically, such regional treaties as the EU, NAFTA, and ASEAN. They are playing the role of the safety net of the globalization movement.
　But these treaties are not the real solution to many global problems. On the contrary, these regional communities lead to the crucial division of the world. Japan, too, during the Showa Era, contributed to problems of the worldwide division between the 'haves' and the 'have nots.' As a result of the division, the global world experienced the age of crisis - an age dominated by world war, revolution, and so on.
　On the other hand, Showa Era Japan also presented a solution to the growing divides.Takata Yasuma, the eminent sociologist and economist, wrote the East Asian Ethnology (1939), and stated that it was indispensable to foster an ethnically and economically equal world for mankind of the 20th century. In other word, Takata called attention to the unsymmetrically divided world, and tried to reform this world so as to symmetrical, equal world. In this sense, his sociological work analyzing ethnic, national, and class divisions could be deemed "Unsymmetrical Ethnology."
　This paper proposes a solution that overcomes the global risk world by using Takata's conclusions pertaining to the East Asian community in the Showa Era. This solution would contribute in the creation of a more moderate regional community.

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　This paper aims to examine Multiracialism in Singapore and to understand the mechanism by which people whose backgrounds are different live together in the same place.
　Singapore is known to be a multi-racial society, which consists of "Chinese," "Malays," "Indians" and "Others." It is also famous for its positive policies to maintain racial harmony. The ideology behind these policies is called "Multiracialism."
　Through the examination of Multiracialism, it becomes clear that it has two aspects: it breaks up the racial cohesion on one hand and reinforces it on the other. In order to understand the mechanism by which these two aspects work in the daily lives of Singaporeans, I have examined the public housing estates. The reason why public housing estates are suitable for this purpose is that they are social institutions to keep social order in the context of Singaporean society. Public housing estates house 84% of the population, and 82% of these estates are purchased ones. It means that in order to live in Singapore, one must buy a flat and live there.
　The fleldwork I did in one of the public housing estates reveals that the residents have developed an autogenetic communality by themselves. However, paradoxically, its formation means the start of suppression. The example of this is the demolition of one of the "hawker centres" (general term used for the public food courts in Singapore) that has supported residents around the centre since the 1960s and has been the core of communality there.
　The case mentioned above shows the mechanism of Multiracialism in the everyday lives of Singaporeans. One of the effects of Multiracialism is to break up the racial cohesion, and this plays an important role in creating the autogenetic communality which does not question one's race. However, once the autogenetic communality starts to be formed, it is destroyed by another effect of Multiracialism, which reinforces the racial cohesion.
　It must be remembered that it is the autogenetic communality that supports the mechanism of Multiracialism; this is the point which can be learnt from Singapore's case.

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　The objective of this paper is to examine the various ways the Irish language has served as a symbol of a nation, through two different phases of Irish cultural nationalism: nationalism in the 'nation-building' stage where its primary aim is to construct national identity and in the 'reconstructing' stage, where the object is to maintain and to endorse an-established national identity. In order to examine how discourses of cultural nationalism have changed, I think it necessary to analyze these phases of the Irish cultural nationalism.
　Firstly, I analyze the discourses deployed by the Irish language revival movement which started towards the end of the nineteenth century. Examining how the language was represented in the movements, I reveal that the discourses of cultural nationalism denied the 'co-evalness' of the language, and always represented it with nostalgia.　This representation of the native culture is still influenced by the Anglo-Irish colonial discourses of the end of the eighteenth century.
　Secondly, in opposition, the Free State government came, after independence, to retrieve the co-evalness of the language when it introduced compulsory education and adopted revival policies. This means that the government tried to prove, in the triangular relationship with Northern Ireland and Britain, that it was a legitimate institution of the Irish nation by inheriting the native language. However, this attitude provoked much hatred among Unionists in Northern Ireland, and the heated dispute over the validity of the language even in the South.
　These changes could not be interpreted as a simple failure of the cultural nationalism.With the change from 'nation-building' to 're-construction,' cultural nationalism shifted its focus from primordiality of culture to its contemporaneity. It brought into question the historical and political belongingness of the language, and revealed the nation's sectarian and ideological division rather than its unity.

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　"The Cornerstone of Peace," which is located in the southern half of Okinawa prefecture, is a very famous symbol for war and peace. The monument is engraved with the names of about 240,000 men and women who lost their lives in the Battle of Okinawa, regardless of nationality or whether they were military or civilian. Many journalists, newscasters, and politicians mention it as an ideal monument for the war dead.
　In this article, I will argue about the correlation between official memorial places and public opinion. In case of Okinawa, before "the Cornerstone of Peace" was built, hundreds of monuments had been built by the war bereaved in Okinawa as well as by administrative units of local government. Such monuments by local governments were often looked at critically as selfish, so that a new kind of monument was needed to dedicate to the whole war dead. After 1991, when the project to build the Cornerstone was announced, some people argued against it and others for it. Then once the monument was erected in 1995, it was praised as an ideal monument without controversy, especially in Japan proper.
　More importantly, these days, the need for a new kind of memorial which can replace the controversial Yasukuni Shrine is becoming an issue. The case of "the Cornerstone of Peace" in Okinawa can offer some solutions to this issue.

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　The human "body" has been a subject of sociological study since the 1980s. Accordingly, the "Sociology of the Body" was founded as an individual field, and a number of scholarly works referring to the body have been produced.
　The importance of the Sociology of the Body, however, is continuously being questioned. Some critics suspect that the majority of the works in the field are only playing with the word "body," and therefore do not possess an academic significance. Others criticize that the works of the Sociology of the Body tend to deal only with "fashionable" topics such as tattooing and body-piercing, and have no interest in more serious topics such as pain, death, and disability. Is the Sociology of the Body, as the critics claim, really a meaningless field lacking in academic significance? Or, docs it have no consequence above trifling matters?
　In this paper, I argue against such criticisms by proposing a prospect of the Sociology of the Body. This prospect consists of discussions on the subject of human "vulnerability," which are related to the issue of human rights, universality of physical pain, and "planetary" humanism. These discussions have a very unique and vital significance since they endeavor to construct a bold but thoughtful cosmopolitan theory, which is required in the contemporary society where dogmatic relativism thrives.

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　This study examines the relationship between gender and other categories of social subjectivity of children by focusing on girls' and boys' language use in an institutional setting.
　In Japan, gender studies have examined the process of sex-role socialization and difference/dominance between boys and girls. But, the recent studies in Australia, England and other countries criticize such socialization theory and "gender-difference" approach as being trapped within gender essentialism. For example, B. Thorne advocated a more fluid and contextual approach, insisting that "examining gender in context," rather than fixing binary abstractions like "boys emphasize status and girls emphasize intimacy," was imperative. New studies adopting post-structuralist theory support Thorne, and insist that individuals are not solitary beings but complex changing subjects positioned by discursive practices which they take up in various contexts. These studies maintain that children are active agents who construct their subject positions and power relations through discursive practices as an ongoing process.
　Based on the post-structuralist theory, this study looks into gendered subject positioning by focusing on the third grade girls' and boys' disciplinary expressions in "Oyatsu activity." ("Oyatsu" means an afternoon snack in the after-school childcare center in Kyoto City where this author videotaped the children's various activities in fall of 2003). During the "Oyatsu activity," the eldest third graders are assigned leadership roles. In this specific context, the disciplinary expressions of the third grade girls tend to stress imperatives and directives. Nevertheless, the expressions are always taken into consideration within concepts of gendered self and gender norms. As a result, the girls' leadership and their disciplinary words, which are more polite and less aggressive than those of their male counterparts often end up just being ignored by the lower grade boys. The girls then try to restore their undermined social position by using various institutional resources. This study examines gender in one institutional context and makes conclusions not only about changing subject and power relations but also about gender consistency and its powerful effects.

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　Ecotourism development has recently drawn a good deal of attention from local governments and tourism researchers as a program emphasizing the role of local communities. Many studies exploring the relation between ecotourism and local communities have been done in those fields of tourism studies, economics, sociology and anthropology. However, most of them have dealt with those resident groups that are involved in tourism and little researcher has been done on the general residents who held no explicit relation with tourism.
　This paper presents a case study exploring the relation between community-based ecotourism development and the local residents based on three months of fieldwork on Minamidaito Island in Okinawa. It aims at reexamining the concept of ecotourism from the perspective of everyday relationships between local residents and nature.
　First, I will overview the general concept and the process of the project called 'Shima Marugoto Museum (Island as a Museum).' The project was thought to be an ideal development plan of community-based ecotourism. After many interviews and participatory observations, however, it turned out that local people's attitudes toward this 'ideal' plan was and is non-committal. To consider the meaning of this attitude of lack of commitment by local residents, I suggest that the concept of 'Seikatsu Kankyo Syugi (environmentalism based on local life)' conceived as different from 'natural or global environmentalism' is useful. In this case study I also examined the regional relationship between local residents' everyday life and the nature therein. Lastly it is indicated that there is another possibility of developing ecotourism based more on local community's everyday life which could shed some light on the meaning and possibility of so-called 'global ecotourism.'

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