Social Science Japan Journal - current issue

Introduction: Social Science Matters

MANZENREITER, W., WIECZOREK, I. — 2008-06-10

From Class Struggle to General Middle-Class Society to Divided Society: Societal Models of Inequality in Postwar Japan

CHIAVACCI, D. — 2008-06-10

After the fierce class struggles in the first postwar years, a societal model describing Japan as a general middle-class society with outstanding equality in opportunities and outcome became dominant. In recent years, a new societal model of Japan as a divided society has replaced this general middle-class model. Nonetheless, empirical research and comparative studies neither fully support a model of Japan as an exceptionally equal society from the 1960s onward nor do they show a fundamental transformation of contemporary Japan into a socially divided society. This paper argues that the sequence and timing of societal models of inequality in Japan since 1945 reflect the degree of resonance that societal models of inequality have in the lifeworlds of society.

Physical Anthropology and the Reconstruction of Japanese Identity in Postcolonial Japan

NANTA, A. — 2008-06-10

This article will attempt to show how Japanese identity was conceptualised within the theories and models of Japanese physical anthropology after the fall of the colonial empire in 1945 as part of the broader debate about the ‘origins of the Japanese’. Whereas at the time of the colonial empire, researchers considered that the ‘Japanese people’ had arrived on the archipelago during the proto-history of the archipelago, after the late 1940s, major researchers such as Hasebe Kotondo, president of the Tokyo Anthropological Society, stated that the Japanese had never known any interbreeding and form an uninterrupted line of descent since the Palaeolithic period. This theory was transformed into a model during the 1950s and 1960s by Suzuki Hisashi of the University of Tokyo, using the concept of microevolution and the craniometrical analysis of thousands of skeletons discovered after the war. It then became the dominant paradigm from the 1950s to the 1970s. However, at the same time, researchers from old colonial universities in Taipei and Seoul formulated an opposing model, based on the work of Kanaseki Takeo, who thought the Japanese people were the product of interbreeding, as the excavations he led in western Japan tended to show. This idea was further developed by Hanihara Kazuro in his Dual Structure Model and then by several geneticists from the 1980s–1990s onwards. This, therefore, permitted an alternative to the ‘homogeneous people’ paradigm, but at the same time showed a persistence towards the concept of ‘race’ within the research on ethnogenesis, as well as what must be called an obsession with identity that goes beyond variations between models in physical anthropology.

The Politics of Political Knowledge: Exploring the Boundaries of Academic Inquiry into Japanese Politics in the Early Postwar Period

TAKEDA, H., HOOK, G. D. — 2008-06-10

The academic knowledge of politics, including the study of Japanese politics, is mobilized by a range of actors in order to articulate the nature of political boundaries. How these boundaries are set is important for our understanding of the politics of political knowledge in Japan. The purpose of this article thus is to analyze how academics engaged in inquiry into Japanese politics have sought to define the scope of their studies by separating the study of politics from other activities by drawing boundaries in a way meant to settle the tension between academic inquiry and the act of politics. By exploring the boundaries set through these different academic endeavors, the article seeks to illuminate the distinguishing features of the academic inquiry into Japanese politics up to the 1960s.

Quality Assessment and Assurance in Japanese Universities: The Plight of the Social Sciences

Akiyoshi, Y. — 2008-06-10

Japanese universities are currently experiencing rapid development in quality assessment and assurance activities. In 2004, the national government introduced corporate-style governance into national universities, accompanied by a new evaluation scheme to be carried out by both a governmental committee and a national agency called the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation. Most local public universities operated by prefectures and cities have also adopted corporate-style governance and face pressure from local assemblies to engage in formal performance assessment. Furthermore, since 2004 the Japanese government has required seven-year, cyclical ‘certified evaluations’ (accreditation) for all national, local public and private universities and colleges. This certified evaluation is implemented at the institutional level and applies to new and evolving forms of professional post-graduate education programmes. Project-based funding schemes, such as ‘Centres of Excellence (COEs)’ in research and ‘Good Practices’ in various other education programmes are regarded as indirect forms of performance assessment. Despite the implementation of these initiatives, however, the means by which the quality of university education and research is best assessed remains the subject of hot debate, especially within the humanities and social sciences. This article considers the latest initiatives in quality assessment and assurance of education and research activities in Japan, focusing on policy and administrative reform and the particular challenges faced by the social sciences.

Reflections on the Trajectories of Social Science Research in Contemporary Japan

MANZENREITER, W., WIECZOREK, I. — 2008-06-10

This survey on the science of the social sciences in Japan reflects upon a largely invisible discourse that has been hardly systematically explored so far. Since the current transformation of the field is first of all a reaction to a new global political economy of science, we introduce the concept of ‘academic neo-colonialism’ for a critical assessment of the vested and ramified dynamics impacting the social sciences. The survey features a short review of major contributions to the science of the social sciences, and evidence of the dynamics and consequences of the current process of change within the fields of social science demand, the academic division of labour and Japan's position within the international academic world. We argue that the apparent passivity of Japan's social sciences as well as the asymmetrical global flows of people, texts and ideas are a reflection of Japan's semi-peripheral position in the world system of the social sciences.

‘Science is in danger, and for that reason it is becoming dangerous’ (Bourdieu 2004: vii).

Fairness versus Freedom: Constitutional Implications of Internet Electioneering for Japan

Takaaki, O. — 2008-06-10

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend for legal scholars in Japan to question and reconsider the extreme strictness of electioneering regulations, which has been maintained since the prewar period. Under these circumstances, what is termed Internet electioneering started to garner attention because of its possibility of realizing the two conflicting ideas of the freedom and fairness of elections. On the other hand, Internet electioneering does not necessarily receive an unqualified endorsement from constitutional scholars. In particular, some republican standpoints have inquired whether the Internet diminishes the constitutional guarantees of the democratic process. With regard to such concerns, this article examines the constitutional validity of the development of Internet electioneering in Japanese politics.

Two Paths towards Understanding the Importance of Civil Government

Noboru, S. — 2008-06-10

Deciphering Maruyama Masao: The Challenge of Originality

KERSTEN, R. — 2008-06-10

Lever of Empire: The International Gold Standard and the Crisis of Liberalism in Prewar Japan

Masanao, I. — 2008-06-10

Kingdom of Beauty: Mingei and the Politics of Folk Art in Imperial Japan

KIKUCHI, Y. — 2008-06-10

A History of Nationalism in Modern Japan: Placing the People

Koichiro, M. — 2008-06-10

Pan-Asianism in Modern Japanese History: Colonialism, Regionalism, and Borders

MARK, E. — 2008-06-10

War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005

SAALER, S. — 2008-06-10

Japan's Contested Memories: The 'Memory Rifts' in Historical Consciousness of World War II

BEN-ARI, E. — 2008-06-10

Kita Chosen e no Ekusodasu: 'Kikoku Jigyo' no Kage o Tadoru (Exodus to North Korea: Tracing the Shadows of the 'Returnee' Project) * Exodus to North Korea: Shadows from Japan's Cold War

Haruki, W. — 2008-06-10

Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan

Naoko, K. — 2008-06-10

Making Pilgrimage: Meaning and Practice in Shikoku

Yasuhiro, A. — 2008-06-10

Genders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan

Masakazu, T. — 2008-06-10

Hip-Hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization

Shuhei, H. — 2008-06-10

Japanese Love Hotels: A Cultural History

REISEL, M. — 2008-06-10

Ethnography at Work

Atsushi, S. — 2008-06-10

Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army

Fumika, S. — 2008-06-10

Myth, Protest and Struggle in Okinawa

ALLEN, M. — 2008-06-10

The Political Economy of Japan's Low Fertility

Shigemi, K. — 2008-06-10

Shoshi Korei Shakai no Mienai Kakusa (Invisible Inequalities in an Aging, Low Fertility Society)

SCHOPPA, L. J. — 2008-06-10

Erratum

2008-06-10