The Journal of Studies in Contemporary Sociological Theory
Online ISSN : 2434-9097
Print ISSN : 1881-7467
Volume 11
Displaying 1-16 of 16 articles from this issue
  • Tomohiko ASANO
    2017Volume 11 Pages 1-3
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Through the Theoretical Transformation of Jeffrey Weeks
    Manabu AKAGAWA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 4-13
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    This paper examines four points on sexual diversity.
    First, the fundamental question in sociology of sexuality should be how and why diverse sexualities have converged into sexual dualism and heterosexism. It should also delineate how doing gender/undoing gender, de-identification/ re-identification of sexual categories, and de-medicalisation/re-medicalization of sexual minorities have simultaneously taken place.
    Second, this paper distinguishes theoretical constructionism that addresses the social, historical, cultural and discursive construction of sexuality from methodological constructionism which regards discourse on sexuality as claim-makings activity which construct social problems. It clarifies the meaning of theoretical transformation in the works of Jeffrey Weeks, an English historical sociologist who has postulated the two forms of constructionism. His theory has developed from the one which asserted that sexuality is constructed by society and politics into the one which emphasizes that people with diverse sexualities reconstruct their social relations and intimacy in the late modern world.
    Third, inspired by Weeks’ works, this paper analyses the rhetoric of discourse that led to legalization of same-sex marriage and/or civil partnership in the U.K. and the U.S.A. Advocates of same-sex marriage and civil partnership often utilize a rhetoric of commitment which emphasizes that LGBTQ have a responsibility to form family and sustain society similar to that of others as well as a rhetoric of entitlement which asks for the same rights as hetero-sexual couples. The rhetoric of commitment makes it possible for conservatives to agree with same-sex marriage and/or civil partnership.
    Fourth, this paper points out that discourses on same-sex marriage in Japan have been influenced by low-birthrate issues that notes the problematization of justice and equality in the future between people who form marriages and raise children and the people who do not.
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  • What Sociological Theory Can Do
    Masahiko KISHI
    2017Volume 11 Pages 14-22
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    In this essay I consider something missing in current sociological theory from the viewpoint of sociologists involved in qualitative research. More specifically, it is a method for generalizing a few cases to analyze real social problems and a method for analyzing the reasons, motives and desires of people’s actions in social circumstances. We need to overcome constructionism and restore the connection between sociology and reality again.
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  • Kei SATO
    2017Volume 11 Pages 23-28
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    The Great Hanshin Earthquake and the Great East Japan Earthquake are similar in that rather than the entire population within the area being equally impacted by the disasters, difficulties that vulnerable disabled people and the elderly face in their normal life became even more apparent at the time of disaster making them a “disadvantaged disaster victim”. This also means that lessons learned from the Great Hanshin Earthquake were not utilized in the Great East Japan Earthquake. The double social deprivation of disabled disaster victims includes ① exclusion from the confirmation process of civilian’s safety and lack of access to information, ② physical barriers within the environment of shelters and temporary housing, ③ lack of assistance, ④ the “principle of uniformity (equality)” which does not give special consideration to “disadvantaged disaster victims” and the “principle of institutionalizing or hospitalizing” disabled people who have difficulties living independently, ⑤ exclusive treatment in shelters, and ⑥ a disparity in the speed of recovery from a disaster. Disabled disaster victims provide peer support using the network of disabled people's groups while making an effort to rebuild their lives and gain independence with “collective support” from volunteers and NPOs. Through activities of “The centre of disabled people in the disaster area” in the Great Hanshin Earthquake, “collective support” was established to assist the independence of disabled disaster victims based on their own desires. Also, the focus of the “Yumekaze Fund” during the Great East Japan Earthquake was on personal support, long-term support, prioritization of local regions, as well as development of disabled people as providers of support and as users of services. The importance of establishing contact points between able-bodied and disabled people is highlighted within everyday efforts to prevent social deprivation of disabled people at the time of a disaster.
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  • Ryo OKAZAWA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 29-41
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    Obscenity trials in Japan have been criticized for the arbitral nature of the judgements. However, because critics have argued that obscenity trials are inherently arbitrary, there was no possibility of analyzing each specific case. This paper introduces a method of analyzing legal judgements in obscenity trials with the aim of providing a new perspective for evaluating arbitrariness. The prevailing criticism of obscenity trial states that the obscenity of a photo depends upon its audience’s perceptions; therefore, a legal judgment on obscenity is inherently arbitrary. I argue that this view is not useful for elucidating the actual arbitrariness embedded in legal judgments. I also argue that, while previous criticisms of the arbitrariness in legal judgement mainly inferred prejudiced motives on the part of the judge, the logic behind the legal judgment should be analyzed as well. Next, I present the method of analyzing the logical grammar that makes the justification of legal judgments intelligible. “Logical grammar” refers to the normative relations among concepts. Using the grammar of logic elucidated by the analysis of In the Realm of the Senses case, I demonstrate an examination of arbitrariness of the case. In conclusion, analyzing logical grammar is helpful in rethinking arbitrariness of legal judgment.
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  • Re-examining Garfinkel’s “Passing” Logic
    Yuki KAWAMURA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 42-54
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    This reconsiders the works of Garfinkel who conceptualized ethnomethodology and his logic of “passing” while seeking to clarify the realities of “passing” that the game model cannot fully explain. According to Garfinkel, there are aspects of the realities of “passing” that cannot be fully explained by Goffman’s logic of “passing” based on a game model. These aspects are reflexivity or situational manipulation and continuity.
    The type of “passing” where the game model applies has episodic character, preplanning, and reliance upon instrumental knowledge of rules, whereas “passing” in a practical sense, i.e., the challenge of achieving the very ordinary, being self-evident to people, and blending into the background routine is something that game model cannot address.
    Reconsidering the issue and taking this into consideration, it becomes clear when applying Garfinkel’s logic on “passing” that while it is possible to analyze“ passing” in a game model, the first task for those undergoing“ passing” is to achieve “normalcy,” be self-evident, and blend into the background. After confirming the structural incongruities between these two logics, I demonstrate the meaning of Garfinkel’s analysis through a case study. In doing so, I reevaluate “the paper of Agnes,” that played an important role in the founding of ethnomethodology and confirm its significance.
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  • Subjective Meaning as the Unity of Meaning and Lived Experience
    Ken TAKAKUSA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 55-67
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    The aim of this paper is to elucidate the logic of the division and coherence between science and life in Alfred Schutz. It is often said that he attempts to make common-sense and scientific knowledge consistent in his foundation of interpretive sociology. However, the dichotomy between science and daily life conceals the multiple dimensions in his concept of life. Therefore this paper examines his book The Phenomenology of the Social World and manuscripts written in Vienna focusing on the distinction between meaning and lived experience (Erlebnis). This conception derives from Bergson. By this distinction Schutz seeks to maintain a critical viewpoint on scientific knowledge and to get a foundation of doxa at the same time.
    In The Phenomenology of the Social World, Schutz brings the dimensions of meaning and lived experience into the analysis of the social world. First, he scrutinizes the mechanism of self-interpretation. This act constitutes meaning by applying the given knowledge to lived experiences. Schutz claims that understanding as an act of meaning constitution is based on self-interpretation. Then, Schutz deals with the concept of simultaneity of the durée on the dimension of lived experience. The ego can see the Other’s continuous flow of experience in the simultaneity. While the unity of both dimensions is formed as subjective meaning for the everyday actor, the unity dissolves in the social science, which is “the constitution of objective meaning-contexts out of subjective meaning-contexts” and therefore excludes the dimension of lived experience. However, his recognition of the limit of interpretive sociology does not end up postulating the impossibility of it. Schutz regards the unity of meaning and lived experience in the daily life as “intermediate sphere”, which cannot be reached by the purely philosophical knowledge. Here we can find a reliable foundation of sociological reflection.
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  • Focusing on Herbert Marcuse’s Eros and Civilization
    Reo MAWATARI
    2017Volume 11 Pages 68-80
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    This paper reinterprets Marcuse’s theory of civilization as a critique of traditional Greek ontology, focusing on Eros and Civilization (1955). As a result, I postulate that Marcuse intended to overcome Heidegger’s theory on “Sein zum Tode”. As a method, this paper compares Marcuse and Heidegger because Heidegger was Marcuse’s teacher from the end of 1920s to the early 1930s and Heidegger’s argument keeps on affecting Marcuse secretly.
    Marcuse shares the critique of traditional ontology with Heidegger. At the same time, Marcuse examines the essence of Dasein to explore the subject for social change. Then, Marcuse describes Eros as the essence of Dasein in terms of Freud’s instinct theory locating Freud in Western philosophy (Plato). In addition, “time” is a clue to examine being in Heideggerian ontology and Heidegger criticizes the ordinary conception on time. Not only Logos but also the progressive or linear time sense are the established thought patterns of Dasein. Heidegger finds a hint in “Sein zum Tode” to overcome the ordinary conception on time. In contrast, Marcuse deals with “eternal return” to criticise the ordinary time sense. The eternal return affirms the will to eros of Dasein. Consequently, Marcuse emphasizes biological natural death, which is not irrational death, and criticises the interpretation of death in Dasein as existential moment rationally. By doing so, he intends to overcome Heidegger who is not able to escape from the framework of “Sein zum Tode”.
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  • Focusing on her Private Property Theory
    Tatsuro INOUE
    2017Volume 11 Pages 81-93
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to clarify the significance of Hannah Arendt’s concept of the private realm in connection with her original private property theory. Arendt understood “private property” as an effective system to guarantee “the private realm”, and “property” is strictly distinguished from “wealth” to mean sustenance, money, and products. She regards “the private realm” connected with “private property” as fundamentally important as a realm with two positive values; the principle of “security” and dimension of the “depth” of the human life.
    However, “private property” is constantly exposed to danger from the destructive power of the expropriation process that take multiple forms in modern society. Especially in her later years, Arendt focused on the problem of how to control the destructive operation of the expropriation process and to guarantee private property.
    At the end of this paper, I consider the arguments for a basic income from the perspective of the issues raised by Arendt.
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  • Taku HIROTA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 94-106
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    The British Sociologist Anthony Giddens has offered structuration theory as a means to overcome the problem of the dualism of the individual and society in social theory. This theory is based on the duality of structure manifest in the recursiveness of social life as constituted in social practices. Structure is both medium and outcome of the reproduction of practices. An attempt to understand the dualism in terms of this duality is found in Japanese philosopher Watsuji Tetsuro’s concept of betweenness in his formulation of ethics.
    Watsuji focused on the Japanese word ningen. The term ningen means the public and at the same time, the individual human beings living within it. Therefore it refers not merely to an individual ‘human being’ nor merely to ‘society’. This idea was derived from Hegel’s dialectic and thus Watsuji interpreted human existence as a dialectical unity of these two characteristics. In this way, Watsuji regarded the duality of human existence as the practical connections between person and person, in other words, betweenness.
    Moreover, the logics of duality in Giddens and Watsuji have common ground in that they both make reference to trust in others. In Giddens’ theory of trust, the purpose of social practices is to bracket anxieties generated by the questions that could be raised about the frameworks of existence. For Giddens, the functions of these bracketings are understood as trust. In this sense, Giddens handles the theory of trust psychologically. Watsuji postulated trust or loyalty as a movement that continues to negate the possibility of betrayal on every occasion following the logic of duality.
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  • Toward an Analysis to the “Negative” Aspects of Organizational Culture
    Katsuhisa TAKENAKA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 107-119
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
    This paper seeks to legitimize the research done by CMS (Critical Management Studies) as an alternative to organizational cultural studies. For this purpose, I classify traditional research on organizational culture into four cells and emphasize the significance of organizational culture studies by CMS.
    Organizational culture is generally defined as “the set of values, rules, and beliefs that are internalized and shared by the members of an organization.”
    In administrative science, organizational culture (corporate culture) has been seen as the source of corporate competitiveness and has therefore emphasized the loyalty of members and the sense of unity. After E. H. Schein presented the multi-leveled concept of organizational culture, scholars have continued to elaborate on this theory.
    In the development of organizational culture theory, Schein’s model became quite famous. Most of scholars in this field mention it as the starting point of their debates with the result that Schein’s model came to be the target of many criticisms. These criticisms can be roughly divided into two groups.
    First is the criticism by G. Morgan and M.J. Hatch from organizational symbolism, and P. Gagliardi and A. Strati from organizational aesthetics. They pointed out that each member of organization could interpret symbol differently in contrast to a sense of unity brought by the cultural conformity assumed by Schein. Secondly, CMS takes a skeptical approach with respect to organizational culture different from the criticism described above.
    This paper argues the significance of perspectives submitted by CMS. With M. Alvesson as the leading figure, CMS points out the risk of creating cultural addicts by an authority forcefully imprinting culture on members of an organization. Cultural addicts subordinate themselves to existing forms, values and social patterns, viewing existing culture as natural, rational and self-evident; therefore they refrain from considering alternative ways of creating social reality.
    Today there are countless scandals caused by organizations such as corporations. Organizational culture is often recognized as the cause, but traditional organizational culture theories other than CMS fail to fully grasp the “negative” aspects of organizational culture.
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  • Takeshi DEGUCHI
    2017Volume 11 Pages 120-125
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Naoki SUDO
    2017Volume 11 Pages 126-130
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Mitsunobu SUGIYAMA
    2017Volume 11 Pages 131-137
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Naoki ISO
    2017Volume 11 Pages 138-143
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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  • Eiji HAMANISHI
    2017Volume 11 Pages 144-149
    Published: 2017
    Released on J-STAGE: March 09, 2020
    JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
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