Contemporary Japan最新文献

{"title":"Left-libertarian values and post-Fukushima social movements: Analyzing newcomers to protests in Japan","authors":"K. Satoh","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2119521","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2119521","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant accident in March 2011 (3/11) resulted in a significant upsurge of protests in Japan. Previous studies have reported the importance of newcomers (i.e. citizens who first began to participate in protests after 3/11) in such protests. However, a comprehensive picture of these newcomers remains unknown due to the absence of large-scale quantitative datasets. Based on the results of an online survey of approximately 80,000 citizens in the Greater Tokyo area conducted in the winter of 2017, this paper analyzes newcomers and factors that influence their participation in post-3/11 protests. Newcomers account for 40% of protesters and are characterized by their left-libertarian values such as direct democracy, cultural liberalism, antiauthoritarianism, and environmentalism. The newcomers had experience in low-cost social movements and were triggered to be a protester through the perceived social crises caused by 3/11 to which their libertarian values made them sensitive. Some newcomers cultivated a collective identity and friendship through their participation in protests, particularly those who protested in front of the prime minister’s office. By comparing these data with those of pre-3/11 studies, it can be concluded that the “new protest cycle” after 3/11 can be seen as the second wave of the large-scale new social movement in Japanese civil society.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"157 - 186"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44825767","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Rethinking Japan’s depopulation problem: Reflecting on over 30 years of research with Chizu Town, Tottori Prefecture and the potential of SMART Governance","authors":"N. Okada","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2131991","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2131991","url":null,"abstract":"This paper addresses the “depopulation problem” (kaso mondai) in Japan, but from a perspective that has so far been lacking in the literature. First, it points out that the essence of the problem lies in the continuous decline and deterioration of the proactive commitment of “small, lively communities” (ikita chiisana komyunitii). Second, it discusses how this situation can be reversed and the ways that these communities‘ potential for overcoming these challenges can be enhanced and sustained. I have visited “depopulated areas” (kaso chiiki) all over Japan from the mid-1980s to the present in 2022, and have surveyed and analyzed the “reality of depopulated areas” and the “particularities and local specificities of the depopulation problem” that confront residents. There are peculiarities and diversities, but at the same time, in the process of visiting these various regions I have also identified many commonalities. Moreover, I have developed a hypothesis that the aspects of the “depopulation problem” may be completely different in areas where the proactive efforts of “small, lively communities” are recognized compared to areas where they are not recognized. As such, I see the role of “small, lively communities” as central to addressing the “depopulation problem” in contemporary Japan. I would like to emphasize that it was not possible to establish such a working hypothesis only through desk work. Rather, these insights were born from extensive travel throughout the regions of the country, compiling the collected data, and identifying statistical trends. As will be discussed later, it was only possible to establish such a perspective by conducting field research in concrete, living regions. Only when this kind of field research can be done is it possible to create working hypotheses and strategically test them. Fortunately, the author had such an opportunity. In the mid-1980s, the Department of Social Systems Engineering was established in the Faculty of Engineering at Tottori University, where I was working at the time, and I was given the leadership role in creating the department. As one of the aims and identities of the new department, I took up field research that would contribute to the revitalization of local communities. As soon as this was announced, people from the Chizu Creative Projective Team (CCPT), a voluntary group of local residents in Chizu Town, Tottori","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"210 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41980315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Narrating against dominance: Women and organized crime in Japanese discourse and popular culture","authors":"Erik Ropers","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2083336","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2083336","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43374029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Fascinating History of Wound Healing Through Fine Arts.","authors":"Massimo Papi, Ersilia Fiscarelli","doi":"10.1177/15347346221102642","DOIUrl":"10.1177/15347346221102642","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Visual art images narrate the evolution of humankind including different and specific wound managing strategies. Through the observation of some notable art works we explore the empiric historical progress in wound healing and the main reasons they may have been represented. We briefly examine the cultural, symbolic, magical or religious beliefs that have conditioned the approach to a fundamental vital need of humanity: to heal a wound.</p>","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"22 1","pages":"15347346221102642"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88960633","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Karma and punishment: Prison chaplaincy in Japan","authors":"T. Benedict","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2074127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2074127","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46363290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Autonomy and responsibility: Women’s life and career choices in urban Japan","authors":"Vincent Mirza","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2021.2022572","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2021.2022572","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Based on fieldwork and interviews collected over the past decade, this article examines how young single women in Tokyo are trying to make choices for their careers, navigating between the political economy of labour and reproduction. The article looks at how these women make choices within an ever-changing context where the Japanese moral economy of the postwar coexists with a neoliberal articulation of individual responsibility for life choices. Their experiences reveal the important contradictions between the conservative work regime within companies and the flexible job market they have created. This creates impossible contradictions that place women in both a precarious job market, and when they work in more stable conditions, results in the impossibility of having a family. This article will discuss how, despite these contradictions, young women create meaningful work while attempting to find freedom of choice as they try to define work and life choices not only as a social and moral responsibility, but also as an individual choice. In other words, I seek to show how life choices articulated during the post-growth era are creating new configurations and new challenges within the context of Japan’s ongoing economic and demographic challenges.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"35 1","pages":"197 - 213"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43518105","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Mutual learning between Japanese managers and foreign subordinates: Enablers for middle-up-down management under role definition flexibility at Japanese headquarters","authors":"K. Koyama","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2028227","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2028227","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The number of foreign workers at Japanese companies has increased in recent years. Whereas this trend has been promoted by the policies of the Japanese government, Japanese companies face many difficulties in cross-cultural management. This study aimed to reveal how Japanese managers can modify their mindset and behaviours to adopt middle-up-down management for their foreign subordinates. Nine factors were coded from the interview surveys with ten pairs of Japanese managers and their foreign subordinates. Given the nine factors, a hypothetical conceptual framework was developed based on the three-step cultural synergy model. This conceptual framework offers some new perspectives to cross-cultural management theory. First, the homogeneous culture of Japanese companies could be replaced by cultural synergy and inclusive leadership to apply middle-up-down management with role definition flexibility to foreign subordinates. Second, cultural synergy and inclusive leadership could be more effective in Japanese than Western human resource management. These findings need to be fully examined in future research.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"87 - 105"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49253556","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Working the shopping mall: Labour shortages and the dualities in Japan’s labour economy","authors":"Hendrik Meyer-Ohle","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2028226","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2028226","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Japanese labour market has for long been sharply divided along the lines of gender and contractual status, with these attributes largely determining employment conditions. Yet, Japan’s demographic situation has led to labour shortages, and it needs to be asked whether companies can sustain current employment practices. This article seeks answers to this question by looking at the employment situation in retailing, specifically in shopping centres, places that are demanding in terms of working hours and employ high numbers of female and non-regular employees. The emergence of labour shortages led to a lively discourse among the members of the Japan Council of Shopping Centers, the industry’s association, and this discourse has been featured in the industry journal SC Japan Today. Analysing this discourse, the article argues that companies have built their business models on the assumption of a ready labour supply, and they are now becoming more flexible in employment practices. Yet, companies avoid a discussion of remuneration levels and are also looking at other solutions such as the reorganization of work processes or automation, and especially the employment of foreign employees. An increase in foreign employees may lead to new dualities based on nationality in the future.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"42 - 57"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47243899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Employment of senior workers in Japan","authors":"P. Debroux","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2028228","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2028228","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Japanese HRM practices and policies resulting from the compromises between labor, management, and the state emerged after WWII and coalesced in the 1960s. The subsequent emergence of a very cohesive, stable, and dynamic employment system is largely credited with playing an important role in Japan’s economic success and the stability of Japanese society in the postwar period. The treatment of senior workers after mandatory retirement occupied a specific place in this system. A mix of institutional, socio-cultural, economic, and demographic factors created a virtuous circle, and Japan was considered a model of management of those retired workers. Companies were able to maintain employment for many of them in relatively good social and economic conditions beneficial for both parties, even after mandatory retirement, and this assured a good transition to definitive retirement. However, despite Japan’s relative success in this regard, this paper exposes why the traditional HRM policies and practices are now considered socially and economically unsustainable in the treatment of retired senior workers. It argues that Japan cannot afford under-utilizing senior workers during the pre- and post-retirement periods of their career in the way that traditional policies and practices have institutionalized. Not only does Japan’s economy need senior workers, but not giving them the opportunity to maintain decent standards of living would have dire social and economic consequences. This calls for revamping the HRM system, so that the talent of senior workers can be used for their own benefit, while contributing to their employers and to society at large.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"58 - 86"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49360005","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Japan’s employment system and human resource management – coping with increasing adjustment pressures","authors":"Parissa Haghirian","doi":"10.1080/18692729.2022.2031506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/18692729.2022.2031506","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This introduction introduces the four papers of the special issue and places them in the wider context of the changes and challenges that Japan’s employment and HR systems have been confronting. The paper first discusses major challenges Japanese companies and the Japanese economy face such as labor shortage, low productivity and womenomics and the problems of recruiting skilled labor. After this, the paper discusses the interrelatedness of these issues and how the papers presented in this special issue provide new insights into these topics. Finally, the paper gives a brief assessment of how the Covid-19 pandemic, which happened after the project had started and which is therefore not reflected in the individual papers, has impacted work and employment in Japan.","PeriodicalId":37204,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Japan","volume":"34 1","pages":"3 - 12"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42443738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}