Search results for ""kyoto university press and trans pacific press""

The first part of this book presents the philosophy behind Kasetsu Hypothesis–Experiment classes and Classbooks (Jugyosho). The second part includes English versions of four of the HEC Classbooks. Teachers are encouraged to find ways of allowing students' own curiosity and thinking to guide their discovery of scientific ideas.

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The challenges we face today are growing conspicuously broad in scale and complex in nature. Human Survivability Studies is a new transdisciplinary field born from the growing awareness of the urgent need to tackle the large-scale environmental and social issues at crisis point in the world today.Based at Kyoto University, the recently established Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability is seeking to develop leaders able to challenge global problems on a number of fronts. Each of the twenty chapters in this volume, written by academics from the Graduate School, looks at critical issues facing humanity from a different perspective, discussing new ideas and scientific methods that will form the basis of human survivability. The aim here is to outline the framework behind the ideas, methodology, and practice of this new scientific paradigm that incorporates knowledge from both the social and natural sciences.

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Throughout twenty-seven years of military occupation, US public affairs activities aimed to persuade the local Okinawan public that the US administration of Okinawa should be maintained. The US maintains military bases around the globe while advocating democratic ideals, including freedom of the press. Yet, while declaring the occupation of Okinawa necessary for the defence of democracy, the US military administration vigorously repressed freedoms of speech, assembly, the media, and self-determination. This landmark study explores and uncovers the labyrinthine manipulations and mechanisms established to continue to defend the hard deployment of military forces through the soft power techniques of public relations.

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Rapidly advancing globalization impacts indigenous people worldwide. In this long-term study of a remote village famous for its World Heritage-listed rice terraces, where the people actively confront globalization, Shimizu Hiromu considers the extent to which globalization has penetrated even the remote mountains of the Philippines at the grassroots level. The book examines globalization in Ifugao Province since Spain's colonization of the Philippines through to the new wave of migrant workers traveling overseas. By focusing on the village of Hapao and its reforestation and cultural revival movement led by Lopez Nauyac, as well as the work of world-renowned film director Kidlat Tahimik and his attempt to remake himself as an authentic Filipino, this book examines globalization from the periphery and shows that we are all deeply connected in the contemporary era of globalization.

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As the sequel to Groups (2013) and Institutions (2017), Others is the third work produced by a collaborative research project involving primatologists and anthropologists on the evolutionary historical foundations of human sociality. This book presents cutting edge research into the meaning of "the other" and the dynamic process of "othering".Each of the eighteen chapters examines various aspects of "others" via the researchers' specialties, with subject matter ranging from the disappearance of the alpha male in a chimpanzees group to the way the other is produced amongst Canadian Inuit through their relationship with wild animals. What is generated is a unique collection of essays that is both grounded in empirical evidence and strengthened by its intricate engagement with the depth and breadth of theoretical work on the topic of "the other", as it furthers our understanding of the nature of human sociality.

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This collection of twelve life stories delves into the experiences of families of Hansen's Disease (Leprosy) patients who tell their own stories in their own words. In detailed interviews spanning more than ten years, Ai Kurosaka presents their struggles from the previously neglected perspective of family members of patients. The storytellers tell how they were torn by experiences of separation, discrimination and broken relationships. Like fugitives, many spent years hiding the truth and deceiving others to protect themselves and their families, and they reveal how this affected their relationships with others, but also with themselves. These recollections reveal agony and repentance, but are also stories of resilience that show the courage of the storytellers in speaking up and in challenging the government's policy on Hansen's Disease. This book breaks the silence of families of Hansen's Disease patients and seeks to restore relationships for families of patients and the wider society.

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Cognition is a form of adaptation to the environment. It has been invented by organisms with well-developed neural systems. Consequently, like other adaptive characteristics, cognition is, on one hand, supposedly continuous among species; on the other, it is diverse and depends upon the two constraints-phylogenetic constraints, which restrain the body structure of the organism, and ecological constraints, which correlate with the lifestyle of the organism.This book highlights the diverse aspects of cognition among a wide variety of organisms. Seventeen leading researchers in the field from seven countries illustrate the diverse aspects of cognition among various organisms ranging from insects to humans of different ages and pathological states. This volume will inspire scientists and students who strive to understand cognition and, in particular, those who aim at doing so from genetic and adaptive perspectives.

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Groups: The Evolution of Human Sociality is the product of a collaborative project based at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.Researchers primarily involved in three fields - primate sociology and ecology, ecological anthropology, and socio-cultural anthropology - came together to discuss the shape and variations of groups as sympatric entities, and the evolutionary historical foundations that have led to the orientation of groups in present-day human society. To that end, the book turns to non-human primates for comparative purposes to consider the nature of the evolutionary historical foundations of sociality.In place of the past objective of 'reconstructing' the ecology and society of early humans, the book's contributions instead re-identify the creation and evolution of that which is social and challenge the prevailing theory of groups in socio-cultural anthropology. Specialists on research into human beings and those studying non-human primates develop the debate about groups in the context of their own areas of expertise, at times in ways that extend beyond the boundaries of their fields.

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After the collapse of Japan's bubble-economy in the late 1980s, a wide range of neo-liberal reforms were introduced which dramatically affected the nature of the labour market. These reforms expanded and consolidated a two-tier market, widening the gap between those who benefit from the 'company citizenship' of 'regular' (long-term, secure) employment conditions and those who are increasingly disadvantaged by reduced income and security in the peripheral non-regular system of casual and short-term employment.The contributions in this volume use the 2005 Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) survey data to analyse the effects of Japanese labour market reforms on social mobility, social welfare, company 'citizenship', incomes, as well as the policy implications for homelessness.

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The Limits of Tradition explores the discourse of adat (customary or traditional) landownership that played an important role in peasant resistance against Indonesia's state development programmes and demonstrates its inherent limits as a viable instrument for enhancing the rights of forest-dwelling communities.The book traces the process in which the Indonesian government, as well as NGOs, developed competing interpretations of the discourse, and it presents fieldwork reports on how the lower classes appropriated it. It represents an in-depth study on the role of subaltern elites in creating and organising counter-hegemonic culture.

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After a decade of deregulation and economic liberalisation, the high levels of unity and social harmony that had been achieved during Japan's decades of rapid economic growth are under threat. Social conflict is rapidly increasing as economic disparities continue to grow, as the economy remains stagnant, and as new generations of workers find it increasingly difficult to find positions in the lifetime employment system.Against this backdrop, this book reports on the latest social psychology research into social conflict in Japan and how it is managed. Recognising that social justice is an important factor in many forms of social conflict, each chapter of the book addresses the issue of conflict resolution from a social justice perspective. The first part of the book analyzes the growing disparities and perceptions of injustice in Japan today from the perspectives of social class, value, social principle, culture, and legitimisation. The second part includes empirical research on the mechanisms of conflict and cooperation in social relations.

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In the past two decades, as the tsunami of globalism followed Marxism's collapse, and the seemingly ubiquitous and transparent principle of 'the market' came to forge a direct link between worldwide economic activity and individual livelihoods, the ideology called liberalism has offered an influential framework for the analysis of society and its diverse issues, from human cloning to cultural pluralism.In this comprehensive, historical, and contemporary exploration of liberalism's many facets and its prominent thinkers (both Western and Japanese), author Kazuo Seiyama critiques the triumphs and shortcomings of that ideology, while aiming to dispel common misapprehensions about the ideas of its foremost theorist, John Rawls.

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For 25 years, author Toshio Kawabe and his colleagues periodically lived and worked among the Gidra people of the tropical wet lowland of Papua New Guinea.In this book, Kawabe reports on a continuing traditional hunter-gatherer-cultivator lifestyle, describing the way of life and the major subsistence activities in the diverse environment of the Gidraland, as well as examining the skills that have sustained the Gidra culture since the Stone Age. The Gidra live within a treasure trove of rich flora and fauna, but the decline of tropical forests has been recognised as a global environmental issue.Kawabe examines the importance of such forests as complex ecosystems and discusses the lessons that developed nations can learn from people who live closely within nature about how to survive environmental changes.

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China encompasses a wide range of natural environments and human communities. Focusing on specific regional changes over time, this book presents empirical studies that examine the diversity of interactions between peoples and their environments in China. Good Earths is organised around the themes of land, trees, water, and grasses - as scholars from China and beyond assess particular regional environmental issues drawing on both contemporary and historical sources. Each chapter examines a specific topic that sheds light on the relationship between peoples and environments in China, from the formation of the Pearl River Delta to the effects of the Three Gorges Dam Project and the socio-environmental significance of bamboo.Ecologically fragile belts, ethnic and environmental margins, ecologically motivated migration, deforestation and reforestation, pollution, and water use are just some of the issues examined. Good Earths thus provides an important account of key environmental issues facing China today.

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Brings together various analyses from the three major tropical regions - Southeast Asia, the Amazon basin, and Sub-Saharan Africa - and by challenging simplistic correlations, the authors explore the complex relationships between deforestation and migration.The book provides both an historical overview of migration into these regions, and presents contemporary case studies to reveal the complex interplay of factors motivating migration. The scope of the discussion is extensive, covering historical issues such as the impact of the slave trade on Sub-Saharan African forests and communities, and contemporary dilemmas like the over-exploitation of natural forest products in Vietnam.The authors look at the broader picture of intertwining political, social, geographical, environmental, and historical influences, without seeking quick-fix solutions to the social and environmental issues arising from increasing forest cover loss. The analyses are spatially and temporally contextualised, drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data to provide a useful resource for studying the societies of tropical regions and their social ecology.

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Motivated by on-the-ground experiences during Indonesia's period of political turmoil in the early 2000s following the collapse of the Suharto regime, this book systematically explains the structure of the Suharto regime while revealing its political dynamism. The primary goal is to account for the transformations that Suharto's personal rule underwent during 30 years in power and explain its end.The book focuses on the 'personal rule system' that Suharto employed, analyzing its transition and collapse in a groundbreaking thesis that draws on archival materials from major political institutions, as well as interviews with some of the key political protagonists. The concept 'co-opting type personal rule' is proposed to address the following questions: What concept can best capture the Suharto regime and the diverse array of personal rule systems and better explain the characteristics of each type? How can we analyze personal rule regimes that end in relatively peaceful transitions rather than revolution or violent coup?

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In this study, Hayami suggests that the Karen in northwestern Thailand are located 'betwixt and between' the peripheries and the mainstream of the modern nation-state. It demonstrates how the Karen actively adopt new religious practices in ways that enable them to maintain communal boundaries and cultural particularity at the same time as they integrate themselves into the broader stream of Thai society.

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Japan's national identity associates the 'Japanese people' with the Japanese land, making the farmer the backbone of the nation. Others in Japanese Agriculture challenges this mythology, revealing the changing faces of Japanese farmers during the colonial and post-war eras. First, it traces the tangled trail of Koreans brought into farming villages as a result of war mobilization and capitalist development. Second, it discusses the plight of those who evacuated from cities as they attempted to eke out a living on marginal land. Third, it points out that settlers repatriated from the colonies were met with hostility from villagers and indifference from authorities. Finally, it explores how those who were encouraged to emigrate for 'the good of the nation' in post-war Japan, found themselves victims of agrarian reforms, which severed their ties.In sum, despite being lauded as the 'backbone of the nation' Japanese farmers have been repeatedly marginalized and othered.

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This the parallel volume to The Boundaries of 'the Japanese': Volume 1: Okinawa 1818-1972, publisher in 2014, renowned historical sociologist Eiji Oguma further explores the fluctuating political, geographical, ethnic, and sociocultural borders of Japan and the Japanese from the latter years of the Tokugawa shogunate to the mid-20th century. Focus is placed first upon the northern island of Hokkaido with its indigenous Ainu inhabitants, and then upon the mainstays of Japan's colonial empire - Taiwan and Korea. In continuing to elaborate on the theme of inclusion and exclusion, the author comprehensively recounts and analyzes the events, actions, campaigns, and attitudes of both the rulers and the ruled as Japan endeavoured both to be seen as a strong, civilized nation by the wider world, and to 'civilize' its disparate subjects on its own terms.

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Multiple discourses circulate Japanese society surrounding the relationship between Japanese people and the English language. For example, 'Japanese people are the worst English speakers in Asia', 'Japanese women love the English language' and 'learning English leads to increased income and career opportunities.' From a sociological perspective, this book tests the veracity of these discourses, using social statistical data. The aim here is to paint an accurate picture of society to assist the argument for evidence-based policy in English language education, and to challenge the myths about Japanese people and the English language propagated by various interest groups, including the government and the business community. This important book reveals that the English language discourses that exist in Japan today are largely based on misconceptions, pointing to the urgent need to challenge the education policies based on such falsehoods.

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This book takes the reader on a fascinating journey through the history of a region from the perspective of the interactions that occurred on and were facilitated by the sea. The book is divided into three parts that each focus on a different hundred-year period between 1250 and 1800. The chapters in each part examine the people, goods, and information that flowed across the seas of the East Asian maritime world, facilitating cultural exchange and hybridity. The intricate and often fraught relations between China, Japan, and Korea feature throughout, as well as those between these polities and the waves of outsiders that sought to trade with them and to conquer them. Regional diplomacy, ship-building technology, weaponry, Wokou pirate bands, the fates of castaways, and the development of international trade networks are just some of the topics that paint a vivid picture of the interconnected world of the East Asian maritime region during this period.

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Homelessness has been recognized as a serious problem in Japan since the 1990s, but the dominant model of a "homeless person" has been that of an unemployed male labourer - a model that has largely excluded women, who experience homelessness in different forms. This study gives the homeless women of Japan a voice at last.Based on extensive fieldwork, the author paints a vivid picture of the unique experiences of homeless women living in a diverse range of environments. By introducing a gender perspective to the analytic framework and challenging the conception of the homeless individual as a rational, autonomous subject, the author invites a critical reconsideration of homeless studies and of public policy.

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This book is a comprehensive account of the nativist movement in Japan today. Naoto Higuchi uses the life histories of activists to establish that the basis of their support for the movement is their conservativism rather than social or economic stress. He reveals the logic behind the emergence of the nativist movement by highlighting its links with developments in the existing right wing and Japan's conservative powers. A common interest in historical revisionism and conflict with neighbouring countries provides a further logic that underpins the nativist movement's particular focus on "special privileges" for permanent Koreans resident in Japan. The book examines the role of the internet in the recruitment of nativist activists and in lending a veil of historical "truth" to the falsehoods concerning these special privileges. Finally, Higuchi considers the issue of voting rights for foreign residents in the context of East Asian geopolitics and increasing securitization, and warns about the dangers of not resisting securitization.

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Japan's Great Hanshin Earthquake of 1995 destroyed the homes, livelihoods, and communities of many elderly people. Some of the most vulnerable survivors spent up to five years in temporary shelters before settling into publicly subsidised apartments or dispersing into the general population. Public scrutiny of the post-earthquake recovery drew attention to the challenges of community generation and the loneliness, isolation, and death experienced by elderly earthquake victims.Bringing together quantitative and qualitative analysis of media discourse, public policy, and ethnographic fieldwork, this book examines the earthquake's long-term effects of temporary shelters and public reconstruction housing for elderly residents. The first study to utilize NVivo qualitative research software in a Japanese research context, this is an original contribution to natural disaster literature, as well as health and welfare policy in societies that, like Japan, are undergoing rapid urbanisation and population ageing.

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Since the Fukushima nuclear accident in the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake of 11 March 2011, Japan has seen a significant revival in its social activism. Large-scale social movements sprang up in response to such issues as denuclearization, proposed new US military bases in Okinawa and the 2015 National Security Legislation, propelled by dissatisfaction with the national government’s stance on these fronts. In the context of the broader ‘amorphization’ of Japanese society, this book characterizes these movements as ‘amorphous’ based on the phenomenon in which movements are formed by diverse and disparate people and display disparate, disorganized and undefined elements in stark contrast to Japanese social movements of the past which were of a highly structured organizational type. The authors have direct, first-hand experience of these social movements and paint vivid pictures of their diverse activities. Chapters focus on issues such as opposition to hate speech and US military bases in Okinawa, and examine in detail movements such as SEALDs, Hangenren and Amateur Revolt, perhaps the most amorphous social movement in Japan of this period.

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With a focus on Brazilian migrant workers in Japan, this study produces a comprehensive picture of the forces driving transnational labour migration, both in the countries of origin of foreign workers and within Japan. How are Japan's labour institutions changing under globalisation? What are the implications of these changes for the lives of people in Japan?Asking these and other questions, the book demonstrates how Japan's labour shortage has established a 'trans-national employment system' and shows that globalisation is 'the very cause of the breaking up of Japan as a middle class society'. It also discusses the impact of concepts of nationality and family registration on the lives of foreign-born workers of Japanese descent within Japan.

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This study challenges the prevailing view that Thailand's democratisation process in the 1990s was led by the active middle class. It presents an alternative explanation, examining certain 'passive' forces. The author argues the need to break free from the spell of the assumption that the middle class is pro-democracy and turn attention toward anti-democratisation forces because the pace of political democratisation was slowed down by the presence of such forces.This book will emphasise the fresh point of view that democratisation was advanced by appeasement of the forces that were reluctant to democratisation.

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Highlights the important roles that things play in our everyday lives by examining how things and humans interact. Based on ethnographical data from Asia, Africa, and Oceania, the included essays challenge the instrumentalist idea that humans alone are subjects with agency (freedom to act) while things are merely objects at their disposal. Anthropologists have, typically, viewed things through anthropocentric lenses; reducing things to social function or cultural meaning.The book's approach is to shift the question from "what do things mean?" to "what do they do (cause)?" - a shift from meaning to agency. Using an interdisciplinary approach, including researchers from archaeology, ecological anthropology and primatology, as well as cultural anthropologists, and taking the broadest understanding of things, this book probes the permeable boundaries between subject and object, mind and body, and between humans and things to demonstrate that cultures and things are mutually constitutive.This book was published as a joint publication with Kyoto University Press.

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Having experienced a large-scale reorganisation of social order over the past decade, people of the Malay world have struggled to position themselves. They have been classified - and have classified themselves - with categories as bangsa (nation/ethnic group) and umma (Islamic network).In connection with these key concepts, this study explores a variety of dimensions of these and other 'people-grouping' classifications, which also include Malayu, Jawi, and Paranakan. This book examines how these categories played a significant part in the colonial and post-colonial periods in areas ranging from Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. It demonstrates the extent to which shifting social conditions interact with the contours of group identity. This is a collaborative work by scholars based in the US, Japan, Malaysia, and Australia.

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After the collapse of Japan's bubble-economy in the late 1980s, a wide range of neo-liberal reforms were introduced which dramatically affected the nature of the labour market. These reforms expanded and consolidated a two-tier market, widening the gap between those who benefit from the 'company citizenship' of 'regular' (long-term, secure) employment conditions and those who are increasingly disadvantaged by reduced income and security in the peripheral non-regular system of casual and short-term employment.The contributions in this volume use the 2005 Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) survey data to analyse the effects of Japanese labour market reforms on social mobility, social welfare, company 'citizenship', incomes, as well as the policy implications for homelessness.

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In the face of the financial crisis of East Asia in 1997, Japan successfully pressed forth the Miyazawa Plan and other efficient rescue packages while the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank failed to present effective programs. With its presence established, Japan kept playing a leading role in formulating the Chiang Mai Initiative which facilitated bilateral and regional economic cooperation in the area.Based on the analysis of the process, this book examines the ways in which East Asia has grappled with the regional integration of the economies of the area. The study focuses upon competing developmental models, the effects of the Free Trade Agreement and the Economic Partnership Agreement, the initiatives of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, investments, and trades in the region.The contributors to the book then inquire what can be done in financial and monetary domains, with special attention paid to the effects of the depreciation of currencies and the consequences of the IMF emergency policies. The study also addresses the issues of productivity, problems of agrarian small states, and difficulties of the socially weak in the region.

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This is a study of Japan's home-grown concept of seikatsusha that resembles 'citizen', 'people', 'consumer', 'common man', and 'the public', though not exactly identical with any of them. The idea has occupied an important place in Japanese everyday life, academia, and progressive movements.This book presents an extensive genealogy of the concept of seikatsusha, from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. While examining the philosophy of such thinkers as Kiyoshi Miki, Nobuyuki Onuma, and Shunsuke Tsurumi, the book scrutinises the debate over seikatsusha, which has been undertaken by a variety of political and intellectual movements, including Shiso no kagaku (Science of thought), Beheiren (Citizens for Peace in Vietnam), and the Seikatsu Club.The book points to the viability of the idea of seikatsusha in a sustainable welfare society in the 21st century and is the first in English to fully investigate the concept within Japan's historical and structural context.

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As the plight of refugees around the world looms large as one of the central problems facing the international political community at the beginning of the 21st century, the situations facing displaced persons in Africa are both acute manifestations of this global trend, and unique in their particularities.As the powerful nations of the world are mobilised to tackle domestic conflicts and their ensuing refugee problems in the Balkans, the Middle East, Southeast Asia and elsewhere, African societies have typically been abandoned by the international community to resolving their own conflicts through their own means. The authors of this volume examine both causes and effects of displacement in terms of both local and global politics, environmental risks, socio-economic costs, and policy and identity issues. Combined, these papers provide a powerful if not comprehensive overview of the variety and complexity of circumstances concerning displaced persons.

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A chance discovery of sixty-odd works of art in a filing cabinet in Kyoto University's Department of Geography in 2014 triggered an investigation which soon morphed into a multi-disciplinary research project seeking to understand their origins and significance. The works were reproductions of sketches, watercolors, and maps produced by the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, who had visited Kyoto in 1908, immediately after completing his third expedition exploring Central Asia. Through these works Hedin had recorded the people, temples, and landscapes of Tibet. But how they came to be reproduced, and what these reproductions were doing in Kyoto remains a mystery. Section I presents the sixty reproductions of Hedin's work, alongside the originals, where possible, as well as contemporary photographs of the sites Hedin had depicted. Section II focuses on Hedin's visit to Kyoto with a view to understanding the exchanges of ideas and values between the esteemed guest and his Japanese hosts and interlocutors, as well as investigating the mysteries surrounding the story of the reproductions.

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For more than 140 years, Japan's koseki registration system has functioned as the official means by which an individual qualifies as "Japanese". Information concerning each family is entered into one koseki register record in a system that documents the status relationship information of Japan's population based on the notion of "bloodline". Tracing the history of the koseki registration system from its inception in the Meiji era through its use in Japan's colonial holdings in the pre-war era and to the present day, The State Construction of "Japaneseness" challenges the very foundations of the system, arguing that it promotes prejudice and discrimination and fosters a divisive understanding of the "Japanese" as a people. This significant work presents conclusive evidence on how the koseki registration system has used deeply problematic understandings of ethnicity, citizenship and the family to define "the Japanese", excluding and discriminating against those unable to fit into the framework of this highly politicised bureaucratic system.

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Japan's national identity associates the 'Japanese people' with the Japanese land, making the farmer the backbone of the nation. Others in Japanese Agriculture challenges this mythology, revealing the changing faces of Japanese farmers during the colonial and post-war eras. First, it traces the tangled trail of Koreans brought into farming villages as a result of war mobilization and capitalist development. Second, it discusses the plight of those who evacuated from cities as they attempted to eke out a living on marginal land. Third, it points out that settlers repatriated from the colonies were met with hostility from villagers and indifference from authorities. Finally, it explores how those who were encouraged to emigrate for 'the good of the nation' in post-war Japan, found themselves victims of agrarian reforms, which severed their ties. In sum, despite being lauded as the 'backbone of the nation' Japanese farmers have been repeatedly marginalized and othered.

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Based on participant observation and interviews in a village in Sarawak, Ryoji Soda examines outward migration from the village, the migrants' living strategies in urban areas, their frequent moves between rural and urban areas, and kinship relations between rural and urban residents. Focusing on the Iban of Sarawak, one of the major ethnic groups, the study suggests that their movement should be comprehended as a part of their endeavours to expand their living space. With research that spans a decade, People on the Move presents a fresh ethnographic perspective on human mobility, rural-urban interactions, development policy, and family relations.

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Just within a few decades, the global dream of building a 'middle class society' has vanished almost everywhere, giving way to an emerging global nightmare: 'social exclusion'. France and Japan have been among the most successful societies, taken as examples by the rest of the world that it is indeed possible for a nation to include almost an entire population in the middle class. However, even these two countries have suffered increasing disillusion since the 1980s. The main concern of these countries is now social exclusion.This book analyses and contrasts the French and Japanese experiences of social exclusion. Although social exclusion in France and Japan are, in many respects, quite similar, in important respects, they are also quite different. Using a wide array of methodologies, the book presents a diverse range of perspectives on the problem of social exclusion and suggests various ways the problem might be resolved.

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Officially, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a total of 54 ethnic groups, including the majority Kinh and 53 ethnic minority groups. This book examines the history of the ethnic group determination process, highlighting some of the challenges the official policies pose to both the state and the affected peoples.Vietnam has proudly embraced its multiethnic identity, seeking the equality of all ethnic groups in the interests of national unity. Yet, among other things, it appears that the total number of ethnic categories was rather arbitrarily determined initially, and then fiercely defended by influential politicians and academics. Furthermore, the extensive field surveys reveal that ethnic policies are frequently manipulated at the regional and local levels in pursuit of economic interests, and not infrequently, to the detriment of those they were intended to benefit.

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Borobudur is a 9th-century Buddhist temple site in Central Java, Indonesia. As a cultural landscape, Borobudur is a site of active discussion. Since the start of the International Field School on Borobudur Cultural Landscape Heritage, the site of Borobudur as a cultural landscape (including its mountains, fields, villages, and historic tangible and intangible items) has been considered in light of the role, and potential role, local communities and organisation have in conservation and the living environment.How can Borobudur as cultural landscape be described? How are diverse activities related? How can individuals contribute to its sustainability? This comprehensive volume considers these questions and presents discussions by academics and local community members. The book considers cultural landscape heritage - saujana heritage - and discusses the idea of 'evolutive conservation'. It presents geographical, geological, and ecological perspectives. It also investigates the ancient lake that once existed, as well as the topography and landscapes. The book looks at the regional planning system and describes the history and potential of local communities and organizations with a focus on tourism and development.

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Diversity' is a crucial concept describing the recent shift in minority studies away from its focus on social stratification and inequality. In recent times, new theories and concepts that suggest 'positive' meanings are emerging.Minorities and Diversity is a collaborative work emerging from the Division of the Study of Minorities at Tohoku University in Japan. The book's focus is on empirically analysing the mechanisms that produce alienation and discrimination, as well as normatively exploring the social conditions that connect minority groups and social diversity to creativity and dynamism.Chapters in this volume delve into: The status of women in Japan in relation to marriage and single motherhood. Gendered roles and norms in the early modern period. The Japanese American reparation movement. Korean and Muslim ethnic minorities in Japan and the UK. Mutual aid in Okinawa. The role of non-governmental organisations and non-profit organisations in fostering social diversity. This insightful work suggests that, in order to broaden our understanding of minorities, we should examine the ways in which these groups promote the enrichment of society.

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Though there is no biological validity to race, it continues to play a central role in various aspects of our daily lives. What, then, generates and reinforces the reality of race, and in what ways?In order to explore these questions, this book examines racial representations from both scientific and humanistic perspectives, taking into account both historical and contemporary views. This incisive anthology is the product of an interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Germany, Israel, Iraq, and the USA. The discussion consists of studies in history, literature, sociology, cultural anthropology, and genetics, while the primary focus is on racial representations in Asia.The book elucidates issues and phenomena that have been neglected or marginalised in the literature on racial representation, and it serves to broaden our understanding, both in the theoretical and empirical realms. Looking at these phenomena, it is realised that racism has become increasingly obscure and harder to identify and articulate, thus posing the question: are we really beyond 'race' and heading towards a future of 'integration?'.

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Offers the first detailed description of 'composite swiddening', a traditional Southeast Asian upland agricultural system that combines shifting cultivation fields on the hillsides with irrigated paddy fields in the valleys.The book is a product of research over a 15-year period by natural and social scientists in Vietnam's Tat Hamlet, a Da Bac Tay ethnic minority community, and it challenges the conventional belief that shifting cultivation inevitably causes deforestation. It describes this complex agroecosystem in terms of its multiple individual components, structure, functioning, and sustainability; social and economic dimensions; adaptation to on-going demographic, economic, environmental, and policy changes; and wider use elsewhere in Vietnam's northern mountains.It will be of interest to Southeast Asian area studies specialists, agricultural ecologists, ethnologists, and upland development policymakers.

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Stratification in Cultural Contexts is a collection drawn from research results of the East Asian Division of the Center for the Study of Social Stratification and Inequality at Tohoku University.In this book, scholars who specialise in areas of East and Southeast Asia examine how the problem of stratification manifests itself in different cultural and historical contexts, discussing when and in what circumstances the problem of stratification has become more serious, and suggesting how the tension could be eased. The topics dealt with are diversified, from religion to economic concerns.The local wisdom of traditional societies is used to analyse inequality and stratification in cases such as the phenomenon of 'religious revival' following democratisation in Mongolian society, the lives of 'slaves' under the Choson dynasty in Korea, and the role of warrior-class women in early-modern Japan.This volume provides a strong step on the way to further studies of stratification and inequality in cultural contexts.

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This study investigates the impact of agrarian development programs on rural class structure in Bangladesh, and it highlights how the local administration of infrastructure affected the social stratification of villages.Re-thinking Economic Development shows how the so-called Green Revolution was conducive to the formation of the groundwater market and the emergence of the 'waterlords'. The book demonstrates the ways in which the failure of formal finance facilities contributed to the credit flow from the wealthy to the poor, with the transformation of the potato-marketing system and the structure of rural finance.

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As much of the world turns its attention to questions of the role and even survival of the nation-state formation in an increasingly globalised world, the authors of this interdisciplinary volume shift the focus of the debate by examining various sites of social action where the nation-state is still in a formative stage even as it is increasingly under threat. Challenges to emergent nation-building arise both from within multi-ethnic 'states' as well as from without, e.g., through pressure from international human rights organisations and the global capitalist marketplace.The authors demonstrate too that this betwixt and between situation is neither entirely new nor unique to the globalised world system; parallel tensions already existed between locals and migrants of regional trading networks before the European colonisers arrived on the scene to further complicate matters. Including micro level ethnographies, local histories and a macro-theoretical overview of the world-system, this volume directly engages with the complexities of globalisation in marginal and troubled states, complexities that are themselves typically marginalised in debates all too often obsessed with the plight of the most powerful and developed nations.

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In order to produce sufficient quantities of food to feed the world's growing population, we need to increase the food producing capacities of crops and to protect the environments in which they grow. Discovering untapped plant resources is an important challenge, but a haphazard increase in food production may cause environmental damage. We need foresight and must take sound appropriate actions. The sago palm is a plant that might fulfill all of these requirements. The sago palm accumulates more starch than any other plant in the world, yet, in global terms, it continues to languish in relative obscurity.The Japanese Society of Sago Palm Studies was formed in the hope of raising its profile by hosting seminars and symposiums in Japan and overseas to help it achieve the recognition it deserves. To this end, the Society's members have worked together to produce this volume, written in an easy-to-read style.

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This book is a collection of Hiroaki Sasaki's contributions to further developing the Kaleckian model of analyzing economic growth cycles and distribution. The Kaleckian model is a post-Keynesian type of growth model based on a principle of effective demand. It investigates how changes in income distribution affect microeconomic variables, such as economic growth, output, and employment. Although many discussions of the Kaleckian model focus on short-run economic growth, Sasaki's main contribution is that he also considers medium and long-runs. Sasaki also introduces a variety of factors, such as differentiating between profit-led and wage-led regimes and investigating how the wage gap between regular and non-regular types of employment affects economic growth. The earlier versions of the papers collected here have been previously published in esteemed academic journals, such as Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Journal of Economics, International Review of Applied Economics, and Metroeconomics.

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