Genealogy of tabunka kyōsei: A Critical Analysis of the Reformation of the Multicultural Co-living Discourse in Japan

The Japanese government started to accept semi-skilled foreign workers officially under the newly established tokutei ginō status in 2019, and national policies for supporting foreign residents are gradually being developed. However, it is unclear how the principles of tabunka kyōsei (multicultural coexistence or co-living), the official slogan for supporting foreign residents since the mid-2000s, have changed as a result of recent policy trends. In this article, I examine the transformation of logics for legitimizing policies for foreign residents using discourse analysis of the official government documents on tabunka kyōsei. Previous critical studies have revealed that tabunka kyōsei is based on the logic of a binary opposition between “Japanese” and “foreigners”. This was combined with the neoliberal logic of “supports for self-reliance”, a paternalism that sees foreigners as being in need of support if they can live "just as" Japanese. This paternalism has prevented the development of recognizing the human rights and cultural differences of foreign residents as de facto immigrants. In addition, a logic has explicitly emerged in the tabunka kyōsei discourse at the end of the 2010s that sees foreigners as a threat to national security and that their acceptance should be strictly governed by the border control policy and socially controlled from the viewpoint of national interests. To deal with this situation, tabunka kyōsei must be recreated as a principle for recognizing foreign residents as immigrants and guaranteeing their human rights and cultural differences.     

The Developing Trend of the People's Mediation in China

Abstract

Mediation has long been the preferred method for dispute resolution in China because it serves multiple functions, such as maintaining harmonious social relationships, smoothing away discord, and repressing social conflict. The sustaining forces that support mediation, however, have been weakened since the late 1970s with the profound economic and social transformation, cultural changes, and legal reforms that have taken place in China. As a result, mediation faced unprecedented challenges and was on the wane in the 1990s in urban China and some rural areas. To address this problem, the Chinese government has been making efforts to revitalize mediation since the late 1990s. This study discusses the social and cultural background under which mediation declined during the 1990s; examines the differently evolving patterns of mediation in urban and rural China; discusses the recent reform policies and practices aimed at reviving mediation; and, finally, explains implications for future development of mediation and research.     

TEXTURES OF THE MODERN: VIENNESE CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL HISTORY AND URBAN STUDIES

The following essay recapitulates the findings of a research project on Viennese modernity, which since 1995 has involved a group of historians, political scientists, literary scholars and sociologists examining the different phases in the history of the city in the twentieth century from a transdisciplinary perspective. The point of departure for the project was its participants' dissatisfaction with a myopic image of twentieth-century Vienna increasingly constricted to literary and aesthetic practices, which has focused on the ‘golden age’ of high culture in the Habsburg capital of the fin-de-siècle while omitting crucial periods of the city's history, in particular the political and cultural crisis between 1918 and 1938, and the phase of material and cultural reconstruction after the ‘collapse of civilization’ that was Nazism.     

Cosmopolitanism and integrationism: is British multiculturalism a ‘Zombie category’?

The alleged death of British multiculturalism has been celebrated in some quarters and regretted in others. Invoking Ulrich Beck’s discussion of zombie categories, we argue that while the appeal of ‘multiculturalism’ as a term has clearly declined, the category in Britain that it refers to encompasses not a single charter, but a series of political settlements and public policies that remain in place even though they have been joined (and frequently challenged) by others. Distinguishing between the term and the category is a valuable means of assessing the persistence of multiculturalism as a mode of integration in Britain.     

Rehabilitation Through Work? Disability and the Productivist Road to Participation in the East of Germany1

Abstract Drawing on secondary data and interviews, this paper traces the economic and socio‐cultural roots of contemporary policies to promote full participation of people with disabilities in mainstream German society. Underlying such policies and related practices has been a concept of rehabilitation through work that evolved within a context of labour shortages, Protestant work ethics, and German welfarism at the beginning of the 20^th century and that has yielded rather ambiguous consequences. I argue this elective affinity among economic, cultural, and socio‐political imperatives has undermined potentials for integration and self‐actualization of people with disabilities. Not only was rehabilitation subordinated to a productivist logic and provoked forms of ill‐paid or even forced labour; rehabilitation policies and measures have also been part of a system of social governance that effectively helped to segregate the “able” from the “unable” and that promulgated an ethos of productivism. Significantly, this essentially utilitarian ethos – which rendered health and rehabilitation into a social obligation and valued each wo/man according to his/her fitness and motivation to contribute to socio‐economic development – evolved within capitalism but was equally pronounced in East Germany under state‐socialist rule. Contrary to the egalitarian principles of both “socialist humanism” and “Western enlightenment”, policies and practices trans‐societally focussed on the promotion of those who could – potentially at least – contribute to the regime of industrial production. As the example of East Germany demonstrates, social participation through paid work remains incomplete, at best, and provokes further segregation – even in times of severe labour shortages. The paper concludes that notwithstanding contemporary rhetoric, rehabilitation through work has remained a central pillar of contemporary welfare policies. In times of unbroken structural unemployment, the productivist paradigm and ensuing policies have become increasingly problematic – not only for the inclusion of people with disabilities. Experiences with the productivist modes of participation and with rehabilitation in East Germany suggest a post‐productivist paradigm of inclusion that seeks participation beyond paid work.     

A Closed Immigration Country: Revisiting Japan as a Negative Case

The Japanese government maintains that the country admits only skilled economic migrants. Its statistics tell a different story. Skilled and low‐skilled economic migrants are admitted in equal measure. The aim of this article is to explain the dissonance between the government's policy rhetoric and policy outcome by turning to policy output. To this end, I quantitatively analyse immigration admission channels for economic migrants, using Ruhs' Openness and Rights Indicators (2013). The main findings not only go against much of what we believe about Japan but helps us reach a more nuanced understanding of its immigration policies. I demonstrate that Japanese immigration admission policies have become more open towards de facto low‐skilled economic migrants over time and are more open to de facto low‐skilled economic migrants than to de jure skilled economic migrants. Instead of openness, the gains made by certain groups of de jure skilled economic migrants have been exclusive immigration privileges related to permanent residence and family sponsorship.     

Creating places through language rules: A historical and ethnographic perspective on the “Rule of Irish”

In seeking to understand the political projects underlying pedagogical choices, this article studies the reasons for and situated dynamics of the implementation of the “Rule of Irish” (or Riail na Gaeilge), which prohibits the use of English in Irish immersion language camps (“summer colleges”) set in Ireland's officially designated Irish‐speaking regions, the Gaeltacht. Despite the great difficulty imposing this rule on learners represents, its implantation has remained unquestioned since the development of the first summer colleges at the beginning of the 20th century. Combining ethnographic observations, the study of press articles published between 1901 and 1916, and the analysis of contemporary language policies, I show that the implementation of Riail na Gaeilge aims to provide students with an experience of the monolingual Irish place that the Gaeltacht has long been popularly and officially imagined as being. Riail na Gaeilge is thus not just a pedagogical tool but it also has a social function of consecrating the Gaeltacht as Irish‐speaking Ireland. The article traces how the Gaeltacht was created and has been maintained through Riail na Gaeilge and explores the political reasons underlying this institutionalization.     

From Non-Believer to Believer: What Leads People to Change Their Climate Views

Studies have highlighted the political, economic, and psychological factors in the debate over anthropogenic climate change—a hegemony approach—but have rarely focused on the stories and possibilities of people's transitions from climate change non-believer to climate change believer. Based on publicly accessible narratives, this study examines the stories of those who have switched from non-believer to believer—a narrative approach—and the dilemmas involved in those switches. Our investigation illuminates that a transition to climate change believer is a cultural and moral matter based on changing social relations of knowledge and what people regard as ignorable. We find that narratives of transition commonly describe interrelated shifts in three social relational factors: the narrator's notions of self, material reality, and justice. We term this contextualized transformative experience a relational rupture. Our narrative approach thus contextualizes climate change denialism within a person's web of social relations, not the hegemony of climate change communication alone. Moreover, we suggest that, since public debate and polarization on scientific topics such as climate change, vaccination, and COVID-19 are socially situated, they may potentially be socially bridged.     

The historical roots of multicultural unity along the Upper Guinea Coast and in Guinea-Bissau

Lusofonia or lusophony is often defined as an identity shared by people in areas that were once colonised by Portugal, which in Africa include Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe. Lusofonia assumes that in these places people share something – a language, certainly, but also a history and culture rooted in the Iberian Peninsula. In some ways it is a re-articulation of Gilberto Freyre’s lusotropicalismo, the idea that Portuguese were more adaptable than other Europeans to tropical climates and cultures and created more multicultural colonial communities. Those who espouse lusofonia often have a political agenda – the strengthening of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries. In this article, we argue that, like lusotropicalismo, lusofonia is a dream; it is not rooted in a historical reality. It is luso-centric in that it ignores the power and persistence of local cultures and gives undue weight to Portuguese influence. With regard to Africa, lusofonia’s agenda is elite driven and assumes the inevitability of modernity and globalisation. And we demonstrate that it was through Upper Guinean institutions and languages, and not colonial ones, that community and fellowship were most commonly fostered in the past, as they are fostered today. Those seeking the roots of lusofonia cannot, then, look to this period of Portuguese–African engagement in Upper Guinea. There Portuguese embraced “black ways.” They operated in a peculiar multicultural space in which people possessed fluid and flexible identities. Portugal did not create that space. Lusofonia has not been the foundation for cultural unity. Rather, unity has been found in localised institutions and in Crioulo. In Guinea-Bissau, lusofonia is not an indigenous movement. If it is anything, it is the stuff of elites and foreigners and is not rooted in any historical reality.     

Trade union support for fathers' use of work–family benefits – lessons from Sweden

Trade unions have traditionally been male-dominated organizations serving men's interests as family breadwinners, primarily through wage-setting. This study explores whether unions will contest the gendered division of parenting to develop values and practices that support men as caregivers. It takes place in Sweden, where unions are strong and fathers have legislated rights to paid parental leave. A mail survey of local unions revealed that the vast majority of unions did not believe it was important to focus attention on men as family caregivers. Only about one-fourth reported activities to improve men's benefit knowledge; only about one-third reported that they helped to implement parental leave at the workplace and only about one-fourth had negotiated contracts that extended leave benefits for fathers. Unions were more active in supporting men as fathers when they prioritized women's equal employment opportunity and when fathers requested union help. Stronger unions were more likely than others to have won enhanced benefits; contracts tended to increase compensation rather than offer more leave time. Swedish unions are in a strong position to promote, help implement and extend work–family benefits for fathers, dissolving the boundary between work and family spheres, but this potential has not yet been realized.     

Value of “haafu” as a Category in Education Research

This paper examines the importance of better recognizing and representing haafu students in Japanese education policies by using Fraser's tripartite theory of social justice. In today's transnational Japan, there has been a remarkable increase in the number of haafu, a term used in reference to children with Japanese and non‐Japanese parents. However, the educational experiences of haafu children have not been adequately investigated by researchers and the government for education policies. Central to these arguments are concerns that haafu children occupy a liminal space, and hence are potentially educationally “at risk.” They are generally viewed as Japanese because of their nationality and are expected to perform like the majority of Japanese students with two Japanese parents due to their familiarity with Japanese culture. Yet, in practice there is a paradox that haafu students might be marginalized as a consequence of being viewed as not Japanese enough. In this context, how should public education respond to an increasingly culturally diverse student body? This paper argues why there is a need for public education, its policy and practices to more effectively recognize, represent and redistribute resources ‐ as Fraser frames the three dimensions of social justice ‐ in support of these students.     

STABILIZATION POLICY: A RECONSIDERATION

Should stabilization policy be a macroeconomic priority? Most central banks consider it a goal, but Robert Lucas has contended that policies to stabilize output, even if effective, yield negligible welfare gains. This article critiques Lucas's argument. Existing literature suggests nontrivial benefits from stabilization due to nonlinearity of the social welfare function and of the short‐run Phillips curve. Our analysis and examination of the evidence from periods of prolonged high unemployment also suggest further significant gains to stabilization since the “accelerationist” hypothesis does not seem to hold in times of very low inflation. (JEL E61, E63)     

Who Is Protected?

Many employers have excluded women whose infertility is not medically documented from allegedly hazardous work claiming they feared if the women became pregnant, their fetuses would be harmed. In United Auto Workers v. Johnson Controls, the Supreme Court held in 1991 that so-called "fetal protection policies" are unlawful sex discrimination. After examining four cases challenging exclusionary policies in Britain and the United States, this article unmasks and argues against the assumptions underlying such policies. By returning to well-established sex discrimination doctrine, moving away from a male norm, and reaffirming women's right to both work and have children, the Supreme Court's decision in UAW V. Johnson Controls is an important victory. The decision should help to break down job segregation, prompt the EEOC to act, and clear the way for addressing questions of health and safety rather than equality and difference.     

Gender and Occupation in Market Economies: Change and Restructuring Since the 1980s

This paper compares employment restructuring, gender, and occupationalchange in Japan, Sweden, the UK, and the USA, since the 1980s.Its analytical framework is derived from feminist debates aboutthe relative influence of political–economic skill regimesand cultural ideologies of gender on occupational sex segregation.In each country, the shift towards services has further concentratedmen's dominance of employment in extractive and transformativeindustries. Pre-existing patterns of occupational segregationbetween the sexes have not however been universally reinforced.A degree of occupational upgrading has facilitated women's movementinto a growing range of professional and managerial occupations,but the extent of economic opportunity for women is not a simplefunction of labor market economics. The social–democratic,egalitarian values and policies of Sweden, for example, seemto have offered greater economic benefits to women than themore individualized, liberalized labor market policies of theUK. In conclusion, it is argued that gender and markets aremutually constitutive; their evolution is not pre-given butsubject to political choices informed by history and culture.     

Before,during and after the cultural turn: a ‘Baedeker’ to IR's cultural journey

This article, which is part of a broader attempt to construct a ‘Baedeker’ to IR's cultural journey, contributes to the contested debated on the (ir)relevance of cultural diversity to the study of international relations by providing a picture of where we come from, of where we are now situated and of some of the suggestions as to where we should be going in order not to get lost in this almost uncharted landscape. The first main section discusses why questions pertaining to cultural diversity traditionally have held a surprisingly marginal position within IR and shows how IR before the Cultural Turn was more ‘culture-blind’ than ‘cultureblank’. The second main section turns attention to IR during the Cultural Turn and examines how two influential bids for a culturalist alternative have been better at posing good questions than providing attractive answers, placing IR's cultural journey in a ‘blind-blinded stalemate’. Against this background, the last main section asks where the cultural journey should head after the Cultural Turn and identifies and evaluates four different suggestions for ‘routes’ to proceed by. While they may be at variance when it comes to the specific direction suggested, they all represent attempts to set a course between the culture-blind Scylla and the culture-blinded Charybdis, and indicate in this way that it would be premature to let the problems associated with the Cultural Turn lead to an expulsion of questions relating to cultural diversity from the IR agenda.     

Women's Work? The Relationship between Farmwork and Gender Self‐Perception

Women have long been involved in agricultural production, yet farming and ranching have been associated with masculinity and men. In recent years women have become more involved and more likely to take active and equal roles on farms and ranches and thus increasingly are doing tasks that have been associated with masculinity. Prior work indicates that women are perceived by others as more masculine when they do these tasks, but less work has focused on the association between women's involvement in farming and women's own perceptions of their gender (i.e., how masculine or feminine they feel). Using 2006 survey data from a random sample of women in livestock and grain operations in Washington State, we find that women's involvement in farm and ranch tasks is associated with their gender self‐perception, with more involvement being associated with a more masculine self‐perception. Women who view their primary role as independent agricultural producers or full partners also perceive themselves as more masculine than women who view their primary role as homemaker. We discuss the implications of these findings for women's experiences in agriculture.     

National conceptions,transnational solidarities: Turkey,Islam and Europe

In this article, I examine the interplay between the institutionalization of Islam in Europe and the transnationalism of Turkey's Directorate for Religious Affairs (Diyanet). Based on extensive fieldwork in Turkey, Austria, Belgium, France and Germany, I demonstrate not only the salience of the nation‐state prerogative on the part of both European states and the Turkish state but also the tension between national conceptions of Muslim identity on both sides amid transnational solidarities. I also argue that, to a certain extent, European policies of detransnationalizing the Muslim field in Europe also intersect with the Diyanet's transnational politics vis‐à‐vis Turkish/Muslim immigrants in their common resistance to the deculturalization of Muslims in Europe. While European countries try to nationalize their respective Muslim communities into their cultural and juridical framework through reterritorialization, the Diyanet has increasingly deterritorialized its activities to preserve a Muslim identity engrained in Turkishness – hence, the coexistence of both a tension and mutual accommodation between Europe and Turkey.     

NORMS OF PUNISHMENT: EXPERIMENTS WITH STUDENTS AND THE GENERAL POPULATION

Norms of cooperation and punishment differ across societies, but also within a single society. In an experiment with two subject pools sharing the same geographical and cultural origins, we show that opportunities for peer punishment increase cooperation among students but not in the general population. In previous studies, punishment magnified the differences across societies in people's ability to cooperate. Here, punishment reversed the order: with punishment, students cooperate more than the general population while they cooperate less without it. (JEL C72, C90, Z13)     

Towards Greater Recognition of the Right to Play: An Analysis of Article 31 of the UNCRC

Children’s right to play is formally enshrined in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, few research studies have explored children’s experiences of play from an explicit rights‐based perspective. Using children’s views to illustrate the multi‐dimensional relationship Article 31 holds with other key children’s rights, this article shows how a rights‐based classification of play emphasises issues such as freedom, safety, choice and inclusion. The article highlights the fact that while Article 31 has provided an impetus for play policies throughout the UK, these have not been developed from an explicit rights‐based perspective. The article concludes by suggesting that the Committee on the Rights of the Child could take a greater lead on this issue through more robust monitoring and enforcement of Article 31.