The Third Tohoku Conference on Global Japanese Studies
Sat 12th Dec 2020, 10:00-12:00 Symposium-Change in Japan’s “Long 1960s”: Social Movements and Transformation
Morning Sessin(Plenary)
Chair: ADACHI Hiroaki, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University
荒川 章二（国立歴史民俗博物館名誉教授）
国立歴史民俗博物館では1917年10〜12月に企画展示「「1968年」−無数の問いの噴出の時代」を実施しました。「1968年」はこの年を頂点とするベトナム反戦運動・大学闘争・市民運動住民運動などの高揚の象徴的表現ですが、後者の含意は、展示設計にあたり次の一文のように考えていました。
1960年代後半は、日本の社会運動が、それまでの組織的な問題設定・問題解決の方式から、「個」の主体性を重視する特徴を強く顕し始める転換期でもありました。人々は様々な問題に対し異議を唱え、あるいは改革を要求する声を、各自の居場所で、多様な形態であげて行ったのです。国政を変える、あるいは「革命」状況を目指すなどといういわば「大文字」の社会運動ではなく、各個人が、あるいはその地域の住民が、それぞれの認識に基づき、各地域の独自の問題に対応すべく、「小文字」の社会運動として動き始めたからこそ、その「問い」は「無数」とも形容できる広がりをもち、それらが交流することによって思想的深みを獲得して行ったのだと思います。それゆえに、こうした新しい社会運動のスタイルは、後の時代まで大きな影響を与えました。
今回の報告では、この原点から、改めてこの時期の社会運動の特徴と意義を考えて見ます。
高岡裕之（関西学院大学文学部教授）
本報告の課題は、高度成長期の日本で生じた社会変動について、社会運動との関連で概観することである。1950年代半ばから70年代初頭まで継続した高度経済成長は、1950年代においてはなお農業人口が4割を占め、工業においても繊維産業が中心であった日本を、重化学工業を基軸とする「高度工業国家」へと変貌させた。この過程で重要なのは、経済構造の編成替えに伴い、①地方から大都市圏への膨大な人口移動が生じたこと、②その中心をなしたのが新規学卒者であったこと、③さらに大量の「出稼ぎ」が生じたことである。この②③は、今日では高度経済成長を労働力の面から支えた要因として評価されることが多いが、1950年代後半においては、当時の経済白書や政府の長期経済計画にみられるように、むしろ日本社会にとっての不安定要素とみなされていた。それは1950年代後半の時点では、いまだ「高度経済成長」が認識されていなかったことの証左でもある。本報告では、このような1950年代後半の議論に着目することを通じ、そこから高度経済成長とその下での社会変動の意味を考えてみたい。
油井大三郎（東京大学・一橋大学名誉教授）
「長い1960年代」の捉え方は国よって異なる。ベトナム反戦運動の場合、米国では介入が本格化する1965年2月から米軍が撤退を約束した1973年1月までとみるのが一般的である。他方、日本の場合は、第一次インドシナ戦争でベトミン側を支援した元日本兵が終戦後に帰国し、日本ベトナム友好協会を設立したり、ビキニ環礁での水爆実験に抗議する原水爆禁止運動がベトナム連帯を表明するなど1950年代半ばから社会党、共産党、総評など旧左翼が主導する形で運動はスタートしていた。米国の場合、1950年代に吹き荒れたマッカーシズムの影響で社会運動が沈静化していたため、ベトナム反戦運動はSDSなどのニューレフトが主導する形で1965年から再生した。その運動は、非暴力直接行動を重視する点で、日本のべ平連などの市民運動と類似していたし、交流も活発であった。その上、日本では1967年秋の佐藤首相のサイゴン訪問反対運動のころから新左翼がベトナム反戦運動に参入したので、運動主体は、旧左翼、新左翼、市民運動など多様となった。同じ新左翼を名のっていても、米国のニューレフトと日本のそれは思想や戦術面で大きな違いがあった。本報告ではベトナム反戦運動における思想や運動形態の日米比較を中心に「長い1960年代」の社会運動の世界史的意味を考えてみたい。
Sat 12th Dec 2020, 13:30-15:30 Symposium-Change in Japan’s “Long 1960s”: Social Movements and Transformation
Afternoon Session (1)
Chair: Craig Christopher, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University
黒川伊織（神戸大学国際文化研究科）
戦後日本の平和運動は、主として左派（共産党系・社会党系）の人びとにより担われてきた。近年では、このような党派的平和運動よりもむしろベ平連運動に象徴される市民的平和運動への関心が高まり、同時に両者の断絶を強調する傾向も強まっている。
本報告が扱う大阪・神戸の平和運動は、「日本で最も多くの共産党脱党者」を担い手とした。東京のベ平連運動の中心を担った吉川勇一も「共産党脱党者」であったが、しかし大阪・神戸では、「脱党者」も党派的平和運動を担いながら地域での多様な平和運動の展開を支えたという点で、中央の平和運動とは展開を異にした。
本報告では、このような大阪・神戸の平和運動の特質を1950年代にさかのぼって確認したうえで、市民的平和運動の成立とその展開の過程を、既存の平和運動との連関から跡付けていく。その際、地域で運動をリードした人びとの思想や行動に着目することで、中央の平和運動史からはこぼれ落ちる多様な歴史像を提示することとしたい。
小杉亮子（日本学術振興会特別研究員）
本報告は、学生運動を事例に、日本における「長い60年代」の期間を検討することをとおして、日本の「長い60年代」に起きた社会的変化について考察することを目的とする。1960年代後半を中心に、その前後の時期は、世界のさまざまな国・地域で社会運動と対抗的文化の動きが同時多発的に拡大した。この現象を考察するにあたり、「長い60年代」論は、1960年から1969年の10年間や最高揚年の1968年に発生したできごとのみを対象とするのではなく、むしろ、この時期に起きた考えられる特定の政治的変動や文化的変動のほうに照準を定め、その変動の前兆から帰結までを、1960年代に関する検討の対象とすることを主張する。
この議論を受け、本報告では、日本の「長い60年代」における政治的変動と文化的変動の内容を検討するために、とくに1968〜69年に東京大学で発生した東大闘争に着目する。東大闘争では、東大全共闘に糾合するノンセクト系学生および新左翼系学生と、日本共産党系の学生たちが鋭く対立した。東京大学の学生運動文化は、1950年代半ばから変容の過程にあったが、東大闘争における学生間の対立をとおして決定的に変化し、その余波は1970年代前半にも及んだ。このことから学生運動における「長い60年代」は、50年代後半から1970年代前半までに設定できると考えられる。さらに本報告では、「長い60年代」に起きた学生運動の変化の質的内容を詳細に検討したい。
加藤諭（東北大学史料館准教授）
社会運動（学生運動）の要因や運動体の分析の重要性は論を俟たないが、運動は、論点の対象となる組織に何をもたらしたのか、また組織自体は社会運動を受けて、どのような自己改革を志向したのか、その帰結もまた問われるべきである。本報告は、学生運動そのものと、その対象となった大学内部の改革の議論双方を分析する視座から、東北大学の学生運動とその影響を、1960年代前半～1970年代半ばまでの時期設定で考察するものである。従来、東大紛争に代表される1968～69年の大学紛争のインパクトがその後の大学改革（各種改革委員会）の契機として捉えられがちである。しかし、東北大学は学生運動と大学改革が同時代的に同時進行していた点を本報告では抽出したい。東北大学の場合はキャンパス移転問題が1960年代を通じて課題となっており、学長辞任にも繋がるなど、すでに1960年代前半より学内運営において学長と評議会の関係が問い直され、そのための議論が醸成されていた。その過程の中で、1960年代後半には教養部と学部の関係と大学自治のあり方が模索され、1970年代前半にかけて大学改革問題は学長、学部長の選挙制度と構成員に議論が収斂していくこととなる。東北大学のこうした長い60年代の事例から、日本における学生運動と大学改革の論点の多様性を明らかにしたい。
Sat 12th Dec 2020, 13:30-15:30 Japanese Studies Group Sessions (1)
Chair: YUKI Takenobu, NAKAYAMA Aiko, Graduate School of Economics and Management, Tohoku University
Family, Community, and Entrepreneurial Orientation in Family Owned SMEs
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) represent the pilar of many developed economies including Japan, where they represent 99.7% of all businesses and employ around 70% of the total workforce. The majority of these businesses are owned and managed by a family group, a fact that makes them behave in ways different from big corporations, since the values and characteristics of the family group influence the business. Another aspect that make this type of business unique are the relationships, sometimes extremely close and strong, that tie them to local actors that constitute the communities in which they are embedded. Considering the owning family, the local community, and the family business as a system in which changes in one factor influence the others, this work focuses on discovering how these ties are connected to the management of the family business in Japan. Specifically, this work focuses on how family ties and community ties can influence an important aspect of business management called “entrepreneurial orientation”, a concept that measures the propensity of companies to engage in entrepreneurial activities such as actively searching for product innovation or engaging in competition with other businesses. The data for this study was collected using a recognized survey in the entrepreneurial orientation field, with adjustments to fit the Japanese scenario, and administered to local SMEs in Miyagi Prefecture. After running statistical analyses on the data and including interviews with local managers to supplement the analysis, this research shed some light on how these different connections might affect entrepreneurial orientation in Japanese family businesses. It was found that community ties are strongly connected with positive measurements of entrepreneurial orientation, and this positive connection becomes even stronger for companies that achieve a longer lifespan. It was also found that family ties play an important role in younger companies; however, it does not show a significant connection with entrepreneurial efforts at more established firms.
Strategic Management of Migrant Workers in Traditional Japanese SMEs
In recent decades, one of the major challenges for many Japanese small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the severe labor shortage and shrinking domestic market due to the aging population. Despite a majority of firms using migrant workers as a stable workforce for maintaining domestic production, some traditional Japanese SMEs such as manufacturing and construction firms have started
to explore overseas markets with their technical interns or highly-skilled foreign professionals. The potential values of migrant workers for facilitating SME internationalization deserves more research, yet this observed phenomenon is still being overlooked in academia. Hence, from an international human resource management (IHRM) perspective, I have taken on a multiple-case study to address one question: how traditional Japanese SMEs are strategically managing and developing migrant workers for exploring overseas markets.
A qualitative research methodology is adopted in this study to examine the organizational processes for building theory. Four local firms have been chosen as case firms. They have all expanded their overseas business or deepened their overseas collaborations with international business actors with the employment of migrant workers. Cross-case comparisons were conducted because two of the firms employed highly skilled professionals (HSPs) while the other two employed semi-skilled or so-called low-skilled technical interns (TIs). The findings showed that all the case firms have experienced incremental insiderization in foreign markets. New business identification can be achieved through international human resource development (IHRD) of migrant workers. For firms employing TIs, they have gained international knowledge and improved organizational capability while actively seeking support and knowledge from external networks for managing migrant workers. While for companies hiring HSPs, training for migrant workers are more affluent and diverse, all the firms have expanded their international networks, which is believed to be crucial for SME internationalization. Therefore, my findings suggest that migrant workers provide linkages to unexplored resources and opportunities, and IHRM can improve overall organizational cross-cultural management capabilities. Further, TIs can be strategically developed into international human resources as well. Proper understandings of migrant workers’ demographics and characteristics can help SMEs planning to enter emerging markets achieve ‘matching’ between their advantages and the needs in the target market and be more accurate in finding partners with high potential reciprocity.
The Role of Social Networks in Job Hunting by Chinese Students at Tohoku University
As a response to the globalization of the economy and the declining birthrate and aging population, companies in Japan have a growing need for foreign human resources, and securing excellent foreign human resources has become an important aspect of their management strategies. Recruitment of international students is gradually increasing. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) even sponsored a project entitled the Employment Promotion Program for International Students. The Tohoku Innovation Human Resources Development Program (DATEntre program), another example of this type of project, is an Employment Promotion Program for international students who hope to find employment in Japan after their graduation. In 2017, the number of foreign students who were employed in Japan reached 22,419, an increase of 15.4% from 19,435 in the previous year. Looking at the breakdown by nationality and region, China accounted for 10,326 students, a decrease of 713 or 6.5% from the previous year, while it still maintains an overwhelming majority within the student population, accounting for 46.1% of all students. This study targets Chinese students at Tohoku University and focuses on their job-hunting activities in Japan. Granovetter (1973) proposed the "weak-tie hypothesis" and found that when changing jobs, workers tend to get useful employment information from those with weak ties (not close friends) rather than from those with strong ties (close friends). In Japan, the OBOG network (OBOG, is an abbreviation for Old Boy Old Girl) - alumni network, is an important information resource widely used by job seekers. Considering OBOG as weak tie, what impact does it have on Chinese students' job hunting in Japan? This study focuses specifically on the impact this network has had on students' aspiration rankings and satisfaction with their offers. The main finding is that the Japanese alumni had a positive impact on the job-hunting outcome, while consultations with Chinese alumni did not have much of an impact on the final job offers. It was also found that internships play an important role in the job-hunting activities of Chinese students.
The Long-Term Impact of Temperature Rises on Rice Crop Yields in Japan
Global warming is a serious future risk to our society and is likely to decrease the productivity of some crops in higher temperature areas. Rice is the main crop in Japan that will be affected by temperature rises; hence, understanding the temperature’s impact on rice productivity in Japan is essential. Much of the previous literature examines the relationship between temperature and crop yields. The Ricardian approach is used widely to capture the long-term impact of temperature reflecting the adaptive behavior of farmers (Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, and Shaw 1994; Passel, Massetti and Mendelsohn 2017), but recently the problem of omitted variable bias has been pointed out. Alternatively, the panel data analysis has been used to address this bias. However, this only captures the short-term, but not the long-term, impact of temperature. From a policy perspective, it is important to explore both short-term and long-term impacts. Thus, to address these problems, Burke and Emerick (2016) proposed an alternative approach to explore the long-term impact. Following their approach, we explore the long-term relationship between temperature and rice yields in Japan. In this study we estimate the rice crop yield model using the city level panel data of a northern region (the Tōhoku area, i.e. a lower temperature region), and a southern region (the Kyūshū area, i.e. a higher temperature region). We consider the threshold temperature in formulating the model as we generally observe that when the temperature exceeds some threshold, higher temperatures affect the crop yield negatively, while under the threshold, higher temperatures are likely to result in higher crop yield. In this analysis, we searched the threshold in estimation. The main findings are as follow:
(1) The threshold temperature is found to be 25 Celsius.
(2) Higher temperatures beyond the threshold lead to a significant negative impact on rice yield, while temperatures below the threshold do not affect it.
(3) Using the resultant estimate, we created a simulation of the impact of a future temperature rise of 2 degrees Celsius and found a reduction of 8.6% and 4.2% in the Kyūshū and Tohoku areas respectively.
(4) The negative impact is reduced in the cities in the Kyūshū area that conduct double cropping, i.e., Miyazaki prefecture, where the reduction was 4.7%.
Sat 12th Dec 2020, 16:00-17:30 Japanese Studies Group Sessions (2)
Chair: KIYAMA Sachiko, Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University
Comprehension of Incomplete Collaborative Utterance in Japanese Interaction: A Neurolinguistic Comparison between Native and Non-Native Speakers
It is known that native speakers (NSs) of Japanese prefer to leave utterances (i.e., syntactic units) incomplete in conversations, expecting the addressee to complete them (Mizutani, 1980). Incomplete collaborative utterances are often used in problematic situations such as when the speaker wants to refuse an invitation (Brown & Levinson, 1987), as demonstrated in (1).
(1) sono hi-wa yotei-ga aru kara.
that day-TOP plan-NOM be since
“Since (I) have a plan on that day, (I cannot come with you).”
(Note: The abbreviations TOP and NOM refer to topic and nominative case markers, respectively.)
This utterance is syntactically incomplete in that a clause expected after the conjunction kara ‘since’ is missing. Clearly, the speaker tries to avoid uttering the critical part of the refusal (e.g., “I cannot come with you”), which might be offensive to the addressee. However, non-native speakers (NNSs) of Japanese who were educated in formal school settings may have difficulties comprehending incomplete collaborative utterances. I, therefore, present a recently conducted collaborative study (Wang, Tokimoto, Song, Song, Ueno, Koizumi, & Kiyama, 2020), that compared the neural substrates for processing Japanese incomplete collaborative utterances between NSs and NNSs, utilizing event-related potentials (ERP) obtained from electroencephalogram (i.e., brain waves) readings. As a result, NNSs, in comparison with NSs, yielded a stronger effect of ERP when listening to incomplete utterances, presumably reflecting NNSs’ possession of extra processing load for these kinds of utterances. The results suggest that late learners of Japanese may feel confused with incomplete syntactic structures in, for instance, refusals, while NSs smoothly and easily comprehend these to be collaborative. The neurolinguistic finding supports the argument (National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, 1951), which postulates that Japanese conjunctions in interactions function as sentence-final particles, modifying moods to manage interpersonal relationships with the addressee.
Changes in Japanese Honorifics during the ‘Long 1960s’
In this presentation, I aim to see how Japanese honorifics (keigo) changed during the ‘long 1960s’. Language and society are closely connected, hence the appropriateness of language is sanctioned by social conventions. After the World War II, Japanese society has changed drastically, as is well known. The belief that the young must honor their elders became weakened, and the emperor lost his political and military power with the Constitution of Japan. These developments brought an easing of the hierarchical relationships that had existed historically. The rapid growth of business and spread of appliances such as telephones, televisions, and audio players built interest in social communication. Deregulation of overseas travel and the Tokyo Olympics gave people opportunities to look at Japan objectively from an international perspective.
As a result of these multiple changes, Japanese honorifics were rethought and sanctioned. In the past, honorifics had been a means of communication to express hierarchical relationships in a traditional class-based society. However, during the ‘long 1960s’, these transformed into means of communication to express mental distances between speakers and listeners, based on their backgrounds. In other words, during this time, Japanese honorifics came to describe horizontal, rather than vertical, relationships.
The Discourse on “Faith” in the Enlightenment Period: Shimaji Mokurai and the Politics of Modern Japan
As described in several previous studies, during the early Meiji period characterized by the slogan of “civilization and enlightenment” (bunmei kaika) the newly-established government was faced with the problem of “religion” and how to place it in the modern state. Recently, the engagement of religious figures as well as enlightenment thinkers in the process of the construction of religion has been emphasized in the growing scholarship on the concept of religion. Often considered as the central part of religion, the term shinkō, which prevailed after the turn of the century, was connected to the concept of “faith” during the early Meiji period and played an important role in the establishment of religion. However, there are few studies that shed light on this issue.
The Shin Buddhist Shimaji Mokurai (1838-1911), one of the first Japanese Buddhist priests sent abroad for the investigation of religious conditions in the West, has received scholarly attention from different perspectives, mostly for his writings about the positions of sei (politics) and kyō (religion). However, despite his reputation as a quintessential advocate of “freedom of religion” (shinkyō no jiyū) who appropriated shin in the modern Japanese context, little research has focused on Shimaji’s discourse of “faith.” In this presentation, I will discuss the religious discourse of Shimaji from the perspective of the construction of “faith” in the early Meiji period, especially focusing on his reinterpretation of shin―a term used in the Shin Buddhist context from the pre-modern period―in the new framework of religion. Furthermore, I will also examine the discourse on “faith” of other Buddhist figures in the same period when national cultivation under the banner of “enlightenment” became a central concern for Buddhists, so as to position the intellectual enterprise of Shimaji in a broader context.
Sat 12th Dec 2020, 13:30-15:00 Law/Political Science Group Session
Chair: KABASHIMA Hiroshi, Maia Roots, School of Law, Tohoku University
The History of Law in Medieval Japan: Two Approaches in the Japanese-Language Academic Community
To conduct an interdisciplinary study, it is essential for the academic fields involved to be both independent of and cooperative with each other. Legal history is an interdisciplinary science, and it requires close cooperation between historical science and jurisprudence. However, there seems to be some difficulties peculiar to legal history in that it deals with invisible norms and highly abstract technical terms.
This presentation is motivated by a personal struggle of the presenter who has roots in both legal history and Japanese history, and aims to explore the possibility of setting a basic point for developing a reciprocal relationship between the two disciplines, focusing on the history of law in medieval Japan.
Regarding medieval law, Japanese legal history as a discipline of basic law and Japanese history as a discipline of historical science are mutually interdependent on each other’s knowledge. Many works in Japanese history concern lawsuits or litigation systems and many researchers have footings on both academic grounds. Nevertheless, discussions often fail to complement one another as they tend to be arguing on different planes.
There are qualitative differences in viewpoints and research questions between them, which is not itself a problem. There should rather be such differences. What is important is to be clearly conscious of these discrepencies when you conduct a study or enter into discussion with other scholars. Put simply, it is the weight given to the question “what is law?” by each researcher that makes the difference.
In this presentation, several examples will be examined that illustrate these different points of view, such as the relation between the historical word “saikyo” and what we call a “judicial decision” or “lawsuit.” Moreover, the presenter will examine some criticisms from the side of Japanese history against legal history. In considering these issues, I rethink the characteristics of the two disciplines from the viewpoint of the significance of the modern legal system and technical terms in the field of law for researchers, and identify means for further cooperation.
The cultural fracture in contemporary Western international society
In this presentation, I will examine the rise of populism and the political turbulence it has caused in Western democracies through the lens of political culture. I will argue that the current political moment is best understood as a cultural fracture within Western international society, placing both the partisans of radically opposed value-systems and understandings of the purpose of politics in opposition. This has international consequences as well, since each political culture emphasizes different international institutions (understood here as durable and recognised patterns of shared practices forming the backbone of inter-state relations).
The dominant political culture in the West until recently was neoliberalism, which values free markets and promotes a managerial vision of the state as a technocratic rule-making apparatus supervising the domestic economy. This results, at the international level, in an emphasis on the operation of global markets and on supra-national modes of international governance constraining states’ freedom of behavior. Neoliberalism now faces strong challenges from both the right and the left. On the right is an atavistic form of nationalism that promotes a narrow vision of ethnically and culturally unified political communities rooted in an idealized vision of the past. It sees the role of the state as being the protector of those idealized national communities against those that would weaken them. The result at the international level is a renewed emphasis on nationalism and sovereignty as the pillars of international relations and a rejection on the freedom of behavior of nation-states. On the left has arisen a political culture concerned with the pursuit of social justice and the empowerment of groups considered oppressed. It promotes an activist vision of the state charged with bringing about a more equitable society. The result at the international level is an emphasis, again, on the sovereign freedom of the state to act without external interference, but also on universal human rights meant to protect the dignity of every human being against oppression.
In this presentation, I will assess the current balance of force in Western societies between the partisans of these three political cultures and examine the consequences the clash between them will have for the workings of international society.
A comparative study on marital debt disputes under different marital property systems from the perspective of family law ---Focusing on the balancing of conflicting interests of spouses and creditors/third parties
From 1950 until the present, the judicial interpretations of the Marriage Law as well as the Marriage Law itself in China have been revised frequently. Among those changes, one constant adjusting towards marriage debt disputes shows a trend of value orientation transformation. The interests of spouses and creditors have always been in conflict in such cases. The modifications of the Marriage Law’s rules concerning joint debt disputes went through changes from initially protecting the woman’s side, to protecting the creditor’s reasonable interests, to a slight tendency to protect spouses’ interests again.
China’s current legal marital property system is the joint marital property system, which means a shared ownership of property acquired after marriage. This also means that, while sharing the property acquired by an individual after marriage, the couple will also jointly bear the personal debts incurred by one individual spouse during the marriage. This leads to conflicts of interest between spouses and creditors.
My research is a comparative study of marital debt disputes from a family law perspective. In some other jurisdictions, marital property regimes different from that in China are in force. For example, Japan’s largely separate marital property regime provides a different view from China on the systemic level. Another theoretical alternative that has been suggested by scholars is a system called an ‘extraordinary property system’. This is under the structure of the joint marital property system and provides that, under certain conditions, the property of the husband and wife is converted from joint ownership to separate ownership, even during marriage. This system is found in Swiss civil law, French civil law, and the civil law of Taiwan.
In my research I compare the approach to marital debt under the different marital property systems. More specifically, I explore the reasons for the different approaches with a focus on legislative history and with reference to societal background where appropriate.
*I agree to publication of my proposal in open-access digital format.
Sat 13th Dec 2020, 10:00-12:00 Japanese Studies Progress Reports
Chair: ONO Naoyuki, Graduate School of International Cultural Studies, Tohoku University
Poetry by Plants: The Roles of Waka in a Medieval Short Narrative
Popular stories of premodern Japan known as otogizōshi were often performed at the roadside by itinerant monks or nuns or expounded upon during temple sermons. As such, these tales served the dual purpose of entertaining and instructing their audiences and often utilized stock phrases, easily recognizable character types, and elements of the strange or fantastic to keep their listeners hooked. Kajō monogatari (The Tale of Flower Feelings, ca. early 17th century), in addition to having these features, ends with a long section of waka poetry that forms the core of this paper. Kajō monogatari is thought to have been told in temple sermons, used as a jumping-off point to discuss Buddhist doctrine and philosophy. In this tale, several flowers take the form of human women and seek out a monk living in a remote hut in the hopes of achieving enlightenment. It may not be surprising, then, that the tale emphasizes the Tendai Buddhist doctrines of sōmoku jōbutsu (plants becoming buddhas) and nyonin jōbutsu (women becoming buddhas). However, at the end of the tale the listener is provided with a list of poems composed by each of the flowers in thanks and praise of the monk’s sermon; fifteen poems in all, told in succession with no descriptive text between them other than the name of the flower that composed the poem. Through an analysis of a selection of poems from this list, I will show the multifaceted role of waka in this tale. The poems praise Buddhism and the content of the sermon, and so function as celebratory; they are an example of proper etiquette, as patrons often wrote poems after religious sermons, and so provide social education; they utilize wordplay, providing humor and interest to an audience; and I will argue that these poems also act as an encyclopedic list (monotsukushi) of plants. Centering on the poetry of Kajō monogatari and drawing in examples from other otogizōshi, I will show that waka played a complex role in medieval short narratives, encompassing religious expression, poetic expression, etiquette, humor, encyclopedic knowledge, and more.
Reconfiguring the Outcome of the Ūman Ribu Movement: A Stepping Stone to Resisting and Challenging Biopower in Postwar Japan
The women’s liberation movement (ūman ribu) of the 1970s came to life as a result of women’s disillusionment with the violence and gender discrimination of the Japanese student movement of the 1960s. Ribu campaigned for the liberation of women and sex as a prerequisite for human liberation, and for a short time grabbed headlines with their activities. However, as their activities formally ended in 1982, ribu is generally regarded as an experimental and short-lived episode of radical feminism in Japan. Furthermore, given that gender discrimination is a persistent and widespread issue in contemporary Japan, the impact of ribu is viewed as limited.
In contrast to this established narrative, I argue that ribu’s various activities should be understood as intersectional interventions into biopolitics in Japan, and when viewed in this way the significance of ribu extends well past both feminism and the mid-1970s.
This new reading starts with one of ribu’s main achievements: the prevention of the revision of the Eugenic Protection Law during the 1970s. I will show that throughout their campaign against the continuity of prewar eugenic policies in postwar Japan, ribu’s intersectional, rather than purely feminist, nature as a movement becomes evident. I will then follow the work of prominent ribu activist Yonezu Tomoko to show how two organisations concerned with body politics she helped found – Soshiren and the DPI Jōsei Shōgaisha Network – took on and continued the biopolitical interventions of ribu into new fields of activity.
The Promotion and Management of the Turkish Image in Japan
This paper analyses the management and promotion of the Turkish image in Japan. It is the intention to answer the questions of how the image of the Turkish has been promoted in Japan and how Turkey’s public diplomatic organisations manage the country and their people’s image in Japan. The institutions studied in the paper include the Turkish Embassy in Tokyo, the Tokyo Mosque and Turkish Culture Center, and the Tokyo Yunus Emre Institute, all of which work to promote Turkey and Turkish Culture in Japan. Their policies and the strategies intended to promote Turkey are investigated using a qualitative research strategy applied to interviews with public officials from these organisations. It was found that the institutions used elements of Turkish culture in the promotion of the Turkish image in Japan and aimed to strengthen the existing bonds of friendship between the Turkish and Japanese people through their activities. Moreover, among the participating institutions, it was found that the Tokyo Mosque and the Turkish Cultural Center was the place most frequently visited by Japanese guests, and it also enjoys positive ratings on crowdsourced travel websites.
Performing the Nation: Cultural Nationalism in Ikebana
My research project proposes a cultural study of ikebana, based on Stuart Hall’s (1997) ‘circuit of culture’. His approach focuses on articulations and communication between five cultural processes – representation, identity, production, consumption, and regulation. Honing in on these articulations, I will explain ikebana as a multi-faceted phenomenon, and elucidate the ever-ongoing and complex processes of cultural meaning-making at various levels in ikebana theory and practice.
While covering all five of the above-mentioned cultural processes and their linkages, I am focusing on ‘representation’ and ‘identity’ in particular to see how cultural nationalism (Yoshino 1992, 1996; Hein 2008; McVeigh 2004) manifests itself in ikebana, from expressions in theory to the ways of performing ‘nation-ness’ (Surak 2012) embedded in its everyday practice. My research addresses questions of identity construction and performance (Billig 1995; Edensor 2002; Oguma 2002; Surak 2012), image building and ‘branding’ (Berger 2019), cultural ownership (Goldstein-Gidoni 2001), as well as globalization and hybridization (Befu 2003; Iwabuchi 2002; Pieterse 2009).
For my presentation this time, I will mainly concentrate on the interworking between ikebana schools and the Japanese government as producers and regulators in defining how ikebana is (re)presented outside of Japan. During my presentation, I will offer an overview of my progress so far, explaining my methodology and sharing the results of recent fieldwork in the US. Casework will be centered on the three largest ikebana schools with a strong international presence, namely Ikenobo, Sogetsu, and foremost on Ohara (whose workings in Belgium I am closely involved with).
Japanism and Catholicism in Early Shōwa Japan: Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko’s Idea of Overcoming Modernity
Regarding the Asia-Pacific War in Japan, one of the important research topics is what attitude religious people took against the war, and how they thought about the relationship between their religion and Japanism (Nihonshugi). It has been argued whether they compromised with the war-effort or adhered to their beliefs. However, Japanese intellectuals in the 1930s, who cooperated with the war, aimed at creating an anti-Western modernity and planning the ‘New Order Movement’ that would be applicable to the world in East Asia instead of the Western. In terms of this, Christians who were committed to Japanism should be analyzed as one of the thinkers the ‘New Order Movement’. These issues should also be studied in the context of global history, not just Japanese.In this presentation, the speaker focuses on Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904-1945), one of the most influential Catholic intellectuals in prewar and wartime Japan. In 1942, Yoshimitsu participated in a symposium on “overcoming modernity” which thirteen scholars from various specialized fields gathered in the planning of the magazine named “Bungakukai” under the title of “overcoming modernity”. They mainly discussed what they considered problems of modern Western civilization. For the Catholic philosopher Yoshimitsu, modernity is defined as the loss of absolute value, such as God, and humans therefore become anxious of mislaying something to serve. The idea of “overcoming modernity” for Yoshimitsu was an attempt to philosophically create a universal logic through Catholicism. By discussing Yoshimitsu’s idea, the speaker argues about how a leading Catholic philosopher saw the relationship between Catholicism and Modernity; in addition to this, it will discuss the meaning of ‘New Order in East Asia’ in terms of Catholicism for overcoming Western modernity.
An Anthropological study on gathering activity of wild edible foods from the perspective of the concept of “place”
In this workshop, the presenter will report on the progress of their master thesis about the theme of "gathering" and "place". The term “gathering” here refers to the most basic and simple form of food acquisition for human being as an animal, for example, picking up wild edible shellfish, nuts or plants etc. by hand and transporting them to the settlement. And the term “place” basically means the partial spaces with specific meanings added by humans and segmented from surrounding space. First of all, we will discuss how the gathering as one subsistence activity is linked to the geographical concept of "place" because of the characteristics of the "immobility" of the gathering objects. Next, by overviewing previous studies on gathering and place in Japan, the presenter will point out some problems in them, for instance, the cases are biased toward mountain villages, most of them are studies of "already existing" places and fail to show the creative and dynamic aspect of the gathering places, and physical movement during the gathering process is ignored. And then, the presenter will show that the relationship between gathering and place must be explored more by focusing on the dynamics of the gathering places and body movement. After the explanation of the methodology and research field, we will discuss about various characteristics and dynamics of gathering places found in the cases of contemporary urban gatherers, and about the meaning of body movement in the process of gathering by showing ethnographic data obtained from the anthropological fieldwork in 2020. Lastly, analyzation and consideration of the micro-dynamics of gathering places—its generation, transformation and disappearance— are conducted from the viewpoint of "gathering as place-making".
Motoori Norinaga and the Rice Plant as a Connection Between Sacred Myths and the Present
This paper examines the idea of how to build the new concept of the community（Mikuni,皇国）devised by Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century. He reinterpreted the myth Kojiki,（古事記）to find relationships between ideal ancient time in the myth and his contemporary time. The Kojiki was a myth rediscovered by Norinaga, who argued for the sacredness of the text by presenting it as a myth told by the Emperor Tenmu. By emphasizing the connection between the Kōsoshin (Imperial ancestor) who made this world and the present Tennō (emperor), he secured the connection between the then-contemporary world and ancient myth.
However, the Tennō was a remote figure and an object of awe for Norinaga. What was the connection between the Tennō described in the holy Kojiki and Norinaga, who claimed to be an ordinary man? The answer to this is found in the "rice" that Japanese people purportedly ate every day. Norinaga argued that the presence of the quotidian staple grain was an indispensable tool in understanding the values of the divinities in the Kojiki. Moreover, it was a proof that Japan was superior to other countries. For Norinaga, rice was given by the gods to the emperor and ordinary people alike, and being able to eat it every day provided the basis for Japan's excellence. In the 18th century, the spread of a rice diet could realize his idea that anyone who could eat rice could join a member of a community as Mikuni. This idea was thought to contain the potential to collapse the strict hierarchical society of Edo-era Japan. For Norinaga, rice was the essential element connecting the world of the present with the sacred myths of the ancient past.
An Anthropological Study of Agency among Muslims living in Tohoku, Japan
This report focuses on the individuality of Muslim women’s experiences and their reflections on life and the changes they make to integrate into Japanese society. It focuses specifically on how they negotiate with their surroundings and their reactions to everyday occurrences in a non-Muslim society.
The progress of globalization has caused the Muslim population to greatly increase in Japan. During the process of investigation, it was found that in addition to Japanese people’s indifferent attitude towards Islam, only a small Muslim population lives outside of big cities, while ignorance of and prejudice towards Muslims exists in Japan’s Tohoku region. In Islam, women are required to conduct religious practices different from men. Especially by wearing a veil, they clearly distinguish themselves from other people in Japan. However, while it causes inconvenience to their lives, it also brings new opportunities to re-examine their identity.
In conclusion, I argue that as Muslim women on the margins of power in Japanese society, they encounter multiple difficulties. However, on the other hand, the result shows that they are also willing to adapt to life in Japanese society by adapting to the way they believe is right. Moreover, during the process, we can see their agency is exerted in various aspects of their lives.