In the United States, more than 11 million undocumented immigrants and their families have settled as members of society. However, since the 1990s, the U.S. has implemented a range of restrictive immigration policies, including extensive border controls as well as internal social controls backed up by surveillance and exclusion by means of mass deportation - triggered by the 9.11 terrorist attack in 2001. Such immigration policies have been described as a form of selective immigration policy incorporating “desirable” immigrants who have the potential to contribute to society, but excluding “undesirable” immigrants who are associated with illegality and criminality. This article sheds light on the experiences of rural Mexican immigrants and their families from Oaxaca and examines the impacts that such increasingly restrictive immigration enforcement policies have had on them. It also examines how immigrant social networks and communalities long considered a source of mutual aid and community cohesiveness have been affected by immigration enforcement and its hegemonic discourse on criminalization.This article is based on interview data collected through a multi-sited ethnography carried out in rural village “E”, located in the state of Oaxaca, and also in immigrant destination communities in Fresno County, California. It examines the transformation of the migration process based on immigrant social networks - looking into how migrants internalize such a criminalization discourse by the U.S. government and how these ideas have been transmitted through their own transnational social spaces. Finally, this article argues that hegemonic discourses that legitimize the exclusion of immigrants are reproduced through the transnational social spaces of the immigrant community. As a result, this has had the unintended consequence of the transnational community itself acting as a part of the “transnational disciplinary apparatus” by inadvertently deterring further (re) migration.

It is of fundamental importance to analyze the process by which immigrants achieve their occupational status in order to address the various issues surrounding foreigners in Japan and instances of social inequality based on race and ethnicity. In the case of Zainichi Koreans, who have a long history of settling in Japan, the easing of employment discrimination by Japanese employers, the decline of the ethnic economy that has offered Koreans employment opportunities, and the recent polarization of the labor market, have all contributed to cases of occupational status divergence which can be grouped into three categories: economic assimilation, ethnic enclavization, and underclassization. The purpose of this paper is to identify the divergence mechanism responsible for determining the occupational status of Zainichi Koreans. The analysis presented in this paper is based on immigrant studies in America, which focus on the “adaptation” process of immigrants. I consider the key factor affecting the occupational status divergence of Zainichi Koreans to be the way in which the immigrant family acts as a “reservoir of different forms of capital.” In other words, the divergence of achieved occupational status by Zainichi Koreans can be explained in terms of the differences in the arrangement structure of economic or social resources possessed by each Korean family.Analysis of interview data revealed various combinations of social capital, economic capital, and cultural-human capital that cause economic assimilation, ethnic enclavization, and the underclassization of Zainichi Koreans. This paper makes two major contributions. It contributes to the field of “Zainichi studies” which has historically developed in Japan through the analysis of the contemporary mechanisms of occupational achievement by Zainichi Koreans, paying special attention to diversity within this ethnic group. It also contributes to the study of immigration in Japan by offering a Zainichi Korean perspective that helps address the issue of immigrant adaptation in Japanese society.

This paper focuses on M. Weber’s methodology of understanding and his perspective concerning the concepts of “Gefühl”, “Affekt”, etc., for explicating the status of feeling in his sociology. Weber was engaged mainly in the interpretation (“Deutung”) of an understanding of motive in his sociology. In this work, he attached great importance to the understanding of feeling as well as purposefully rational consideration. Thus, he regarded “empathic evidence”, as well as “rational evidence”, as an important mode for understanding. Furthermore, he argued that empathic experience (“einfühlend Nacherlebnis”) is a necessary component of understanding, and that the actor’s “purpose” (“Zweck”) can, itself, be understood by empathic experience. Of the various concepts that Weber used, that of “Gefühl” (“feeling”) is especially important. This concept covers the whole range of feelings and stresses the intentionality and representation that most feelings involve. On the other hand, “Affekt” (“affect”) is an extremely narrow concept and points towards feeling lacking intentionality and meaningful content. This concept forms the border between intentional feeling and physiological or psychological response. Intentional “Gefühl” can include cognitive content, but it is not defined articulately and conceptually. So, the “Gefühl” can be unique amalgams characterized as experience (“Erlebnis”).“Gefühl” can be distinguished from rational value (“Wert”) and while intentional “Gefühl” can also include suggestive content, they remain obscure. On the other hand, rational “value” is formed by conceptual definition and involves clear consciousness about the content. However, since value also includes “Gefühl” as one of its components, it cannot exist without feelings. “Purpose” also shares the same aspect. Weber treated various feelings as falling within a gradation ranging from “Affekt” through intentional “Gefühl” to defined “value” and “purpose”. Therefore, from the perspective of “value-rationality”, rationality does not exist simply in binomial opposition to feeling. In fact, Weber analyzed various feelings and considered them as important factors affecting actions and social institutions. For example, the Calvinists are often treated as rationalistic. However, Weber argued that they embody strong feeling in their motive of seeking to make rational life possible. Thus, analysis of feeling formed an important point of view within Weber’s sociology.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a quantitative sociological analysis of food choice - examining the relationship between ethical food consumption and social activities. Lifestyle studies in the field of social stratification theory have shown that dietary habits are often regulated by the difference between income and social status. However, dietary habits are not only subordinated by the social structure - they may also change society as people make subjective choices. In Europe and North America, the concept of food citizens, who are involved in policy proposals in large cities, has been advocated in order to bring about changes in society through their food purchasing preferences. Although there are many social issues related to food in Japan, previous research has not yet clarified the relationship between food choice and social activities. Therefore, to explore the relationship between food choice and social activities more fully, I conducted a quantitative analysis of the preferential purchase of domestic food and organic food using data from the 2015 National Survey of Social Stratification and Social Mobility (SSM). As a result of ordinal probit regression model analysis, it was found that, in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, women (rather than men), older people, married people (rather than the unmarried), and those with children bought both types of food. In terms of social stratification, however, the higher the household income and level of class-consciousness, the more food was purchased. Service workers bought organic food more often. Domestic food buyers were often active in residents’ and neighborhood associations, while organic food purchasers were often active in civic movements and volunteer activities. This result was statistically significant even when socio-demographic characteristics and socio-economic status were controlled. Based on this analysis, we found that people participated in different social activities depending on their type of food choice. Based on these results, we proposed a Japanese-style food citizen model in which food choice is not only influenced by social structure, but is also linked to social action.