Urban croaking: diversity and distribution of anurans in a neotropical city

Anurans are excellent site-specific bioindicators. Although urbanization imposes diverse threats to wildlife species, little is known about its effect on tropical anurans. In this study we assessed the response of anurans to different conditions within an urban area (i.e. highly developed intra-urban residential areas, highly developed peri-urban residential areas, intra-urban abandoned lots, waterway). Our results show that: (1) 36 % of the regional anuran species pool was found within the boundaries of the studied city, (2) species richness peaked in highly developed peri-urban areas, (3) anuran abundance scores were highest in abandoned lots, and (4) highest similarity was found between the anuran community from highly developed peri-urban areas and abandoned lots. Although this study was carried out in a single city, and we only recorded four species, our results suggest that the urban semi-permeability process occurs for anuran communities, plus the fact that abandoned lots seem to offer better breeding habitat for anurans than a polluted waterway.     

Urban areas may serve as habitat and corridors for dry-adapted,heat tolerant species; an example from ants

We collected ants from six urban and one forest land-use types in Raleigh, NC to examine the effects of urbanization on species richness and assemblage composition. Since urban areas are warmer (i.e., heat island effect) we also tested if cities were inhabited by species from warmer/drier environments. Species richness was lower in industrial areas relative to other urban and natural environments. There are two distinct ant assemblages; 1) areas with thick canopy cover, and 2) more disturbed open urban areas. Native ant assemblages in open environments have more southwestern (i.e., warmer/drier) distributions than forest assemblages. High native species richness suggests that urban environments may allow species to persist that are disappearing from natural habitat fragments. The subset of species adapted to warmer/drier environments indicates that urban areas may facilitate the movement of some species. This suggests that urban adapted ants may be particularly successful at tracking future climate change.     

Organ Transplantation as a Family Issue: Living Liver Donors in Japan

The global criticism of organ trafficking and transplant tourism requires many countries to pursue legal protection of living organ donors for organ transplantation. Japan is one of the criticized countries: more than 26 000 people have become living organ donors. This paper presents an exploration of living liver transplantation in Japan from legal, social and ethical perspectives. Since the first living liver transplantation in 1989, the cases have increased, with extremely high dependency in spite of a few deaths and cases of severe disability. Government and professional guidelines stipulate that living donors be “relatives” so that living organ transplantation can be privatized and regarded as a family issue, although it is strictly limited to altruistic cases in some countries. Based on results of the Living Liver Donor Survey conducted in 2004, Japanese liver donors have had various experiences. Most male donors were employed, felt some obligation and had concerns about financial effects or employment during decision‐making. In contrast, only a quarter of female donors were employed, felt guilty for their children, and did not have opportunities for regular health checkups after donation. Severe tensions and family break‐up were observed in adult‐to‐adult cases, although donors were satisfied with donation overall. The author suggests that we should rethink privatization of living organ donation and that independent advocates should support potential donors. Further research is necessary to explore the reasons why organ donation is privatized even in some forms of cadaver cases in Japan.     

International Circumstances as Factors in Building a Welfare State: Welfare Regimes in Europe, Japan and Korea

The East Asian experiences of welfare-state building have universal implications for the sociology of the welfare state because they clearly indicate the relevance of international circumstances to welfare-state building. The convergence theory of the welfare state lays emphasis on the economic development, demographic structure, and age of the social security system. The path dependency theory regards a country's social structure and history as important. However, both these theories clearly state the importance of the domestic factors as well. On the contrary, the East Asian experiences show that the dates of the takeoff of the welfare state and the international context at that time were decisive for the subsequent development of the welfare state. The European welfare states are considered to be a by-product of "embedded liberalism." The Japanese welfare state, on the other hand, was established in the context of the worldwide stagflation of the 1970s; therefore, Japan experienced the formation and crisis of the welfare state at the same time and this is what characterized its present welfare system. The Korean welfare state emerged in the age of global capitalism and was consequently shaped by the co-occurrence of welfare and workfare. Given the above, it can be said that the international circumstances faced by each welfare state characterized the three worlds of welfare capitalism: Europe, Japan, and Korea.     

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.     

Urban Identity as a Global Phenomenon: Hybridity and Contextualization of Urban Identities in the Social Environment

Major sociospatial transformation processes are taking place, and so concepts such as tradition, distinctiveness, and identity have become fundamental but delicate factors in the context of the social environment. Consequently, identity has become not only a term, but rather a comprehensive theme and concept, in making new places and built environments. In this context of argument, this article elucidates the implication of identity at different scales. It emphasizes the importance and hybridity of urban identities and how they may become entities or even mechanisms to overcome globalization issues. This article looks at global examples to exemplify various manifestations of urban identities. This theoretical article aspires to promote debates that can benefit current research programs in the context of globalization, urban identity, and sociocultural diversity. Finally, the aim here for specifying different levels of urban identities is not necessarily toward categorizing them, but rather to identify their roles and propositions in various scales that are related to humans and their social environments.     

Religion as a means of cultural reproduction: popular rituals in a Yunnan Chinese village in northern Thailand

This article discusses how popular rituals are used to achieve cultural reproduction in Banmai, a Yunnan Chinese village in northern Thailand where I conducted empirical fieldwork between 2002 and 2007. Most Banmai villagers were local militias originally associated with the Chinese Nationalist Party in western Yunnan Province. They went into exile on the Burmese side of the Golden Triangle in or shortly after 1949 when the People's Liberation Army swept through this region, and they ultimately settled in northern Thailand's hill regions in early 1960s. As the self-proclaimed preservers of authentic Chinese culture, Banmai villagers vigorously instituted many traditional practices, following the imagined Confucian orthodoxy, to build a reified community that represents an idealized Chinese spiritual world. Through their participation in popular rituals, we see clearly how villagers have been able to attain the cultural unification that has played a crucial role in meeting their spiritual needs at various levels: the individual, the family, the kin group, and the community.     

Foreign Employers as Relief Routes: Women,Multinational Corporations and Managerial Careers in Japan

This article argues that multinational corporations may provide critical relief routes for women workers' progress in managerial careers in national contexts where their career paths with domestic employers remain blocked by traditional and institutional practices. It illustrates this possibility through a study of two women managers at the local head office of a foreign‐owned multinational retailer in Japan and their career trajectories. The alternative career paths through foreign employers are not without their contingencies and constraints, and the article identifies the limitations of the transformative potential foreign employers could have in the larger realm of women's managerial employment in a restrictive context such as Japan. Noting that globalization incorporates different groups of workers into the global economy with different costs and rewards, the article concludes by calling for a more nuanced understanding of women's employment with multinationals and for further research that remains cognizant of the multiplicity of experiences in different contexts.     

Social work as a bureaucratic professional labour: an empirical analysis in non-profit organizations in northern Portugal

In the last decade and a half, a new perspective on sociological analysis of professional groups has gradually emerged: professionalism and professionalization are no longer analysed as opposed to bureaucracies. In a previous article, we developed an analytical model in which we theorized a hybrid concept of Bureaucratic Professional Work (BPW), based on a theoretical hypothesis of association between various organizational forms (divisional bureaucracies, professional bureaucracies, neo-bureaucracies and post-bureaucracies) and different types of professional work in social work. Structured interviews were conducted with 63 social work professionals who work in 35 non-profit organizations of social services in northern Portugal. We questioned how these professionals perceive their own work in relation to the level of control and centralization of decisions, the routine of procedures and the predictability of results. We also study how social constraints, the tasks performed and work in multidisciplinary teams vary according to the type of BPW. This allows us to detail the modalities of the BPW and set out exploratory hypotheses for other more extensive quantitative studies as well as complementary studies of a qualitative nature.     

Crafting Migrant Women's Citizenship in Japan: Taking "Family" as a Vantage Point

Abstract:  To adequately approach the question of migrant women's citizenship claims, sociological studies of "family problems" of migrants need to be linked with theoretical discussions in feminist citizenship studies. This paper makes such an attempt by using "family" as a vantage point for understanding migrant women's location within the Japanese citizenship regime. I will tentatively use the concept of "citizenship regime" (J. Jenson) to designate a matrix of institutional rules and arrangements that regulate relations among different categories of citizens, as well as citizens and non-citizens. The aim of the paper is to show in what ways the dimension of "family" is constitutive of Japanese citizenship regime. "Family" will be approached in its aspect of empirical family situations on the one hand and on the other, in its aspect of legal and ideological construct that assures "intergenerational identities" of the nation. The paper will be divided into two parts. In the first section, I will examine the status of the two largest groups of migrant women (Filipinos and Nikkei Brazilians) within the citizenship regime, particularly in reference to labor and "family". In the second half of the paper, drawing extensively on the findings of collaborative research conducted from 2001 to 2003, I will trace the endeavors of migrant women to enhance their autonomy through economic as well as associational activities. In conclusion, I shall discuss briefly the significance of these endeavors in relation to the transformative politics of Japanese women's citizenship in the last two decades.     

Urban governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan: An Urban political sociological approach to the case of Osaka

In this article, we first review current Japanese urban and regional sociological literature on the COVID-19 pandemic. Some empirical studies of the current conditions, challenges, and difficulties faced by urban communities with the pandemic have loomed large. Although urban governance of infectious disease control has been generally an important research topic in urban studies, there is limited research on this aspect, particularly in Japan. Then, we briefly examine the urban governance of the pandemic in Japan, with a focus on the case of Osaka. Specifically, by analyzing the meeting minutes of Osaka Prefectural Government's countermeasure headquarters, we shed light on what issues were mainly dealt with and what main organizational actors were involved. The results indicate that, in addition to the administrative and political collaboration between central, prefectural, and municipal governments, the involvement of industrial and professional organizations (e.g., medical and economic associations) is particularly salient. This is because the governmental sector in Japan lacks a strong legal framework and a policy implementation capacity for infectious disease control. Consequently, it has requested (through intermediary associations) that residents, businesses, and hospitals cooperate with the government to control the spread of the virus. With regard to the characteristics of the Japanese urban governance of the pandemic, more comparative research between cities and regions in the country and those in other countries will be one of the important issues for future Japanese urban and regional sociology.     

Urban fragmentation as a research hypothesis: Rabat-Salé case study

Cities in developing countries display distinct spatial patterns which are increasingly recognised as the fragmentation of urban space. Although the reason for this is largely unknown, it is necessary to recognise it in order to shape appropriate urban policies.This paper is concerned with a study of Rabat-Salé, Morocco, testing the hypothesis that physically different fragments determine distinctive ways of using the city. The peculiar morphological characteristics of eight fragments were identified and, based on information from a sample survey, three issues were investigated: places of reference and the accessibility to infrastructure and services; the household's residential trajectory within the agglomeration; and the family network and its spatial location. It was found that the differences in the use of the city were not systematic among the population of the various fragments. What emerges is more a social integration resulting from a mixing at the level of family, clan or region of origin, than a societal fragmentation. The research confirms that although two distinct and at times divergent urban spaces exist, they do not necessarily conflict. These differences depend principally upon household social and economic conditions. It is essential that urban management and planning take these factors into account.     

关于把建筑业发展成天津市国民经济支柱产业的对策研究

一、天津市建筑业具备成为国民经济支柱产业的理论依据和条件1980年4月间,邓小平同志明确指出“从多数资本主义国家看,建筑业是国民经济的三大支柱之一,……是可以为国家增加收入、增加积累的一个重要产业部门。”1992年10月党的十四大再次提出:“振兴建筑业,使之成为国民经济的支柱产业。”十五大报告也明确提出要振兴支柱产业,积极培育国民经济新的增长点。我国即将入世,无论从建筑业自身的生存和发展,还是从其对天津市国民经济的带动作用来看,尽快把建筑业建成真正的支柱产业是迫在眉睫的,而且我们的建筑业也正处于活跃的发展时期,从以下三方面可以阐明:     

Making Heterogeneous Space: Land Development and the Proletarianization of Urban Underclass in Post War Japan

This paper aims to focus on a correlation between urban land development and a “proletarianization” of day‐laborers by examining Mitsui Fudosan Group [Mitsui Real Estate Group] as an agent of urban developments and construction industry in Japan, with examining daylaborers’ riots and moral economy as a counter‐culture against gentrified urban spaces.It is necessary to acknowledge the fact that the national projects – maintained by the closed market and the subcontracting labor system in the construction industry – also induce a radical opposition against the urban development. Although national projects are inevitably accompanied by gentrification, eviction of the homeless, and social exclusion of the underclass, unavoidable transgression or deviation conflicts with urban development, such as periodic and spontaneous riots by day‐laborers, demonstrates a vulnerability of the national unity. In fact, the day‐laborers changed the street labor market into their own field in order to overturn the hierarchy determined by the subcontracting structure in the construction industry. Their bodily expression in the form of riots had radically transgressed the ideas promoted in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics as “One World,” or the 1970 Osaka Expo as “Progress and Harmony for Mankind.” The Olympic legacy was disrupted boldly and transformed into a radical egalitarian thought in this sense. The underclass is immediately defined and commodified by national projects, however, it does not mean that its body is completely involved in its time and space.     

Urban gradients alter the diversity,specific composition and guild distribution in tropical butterfly communities

The increasing expansion of the urban environment has been considered one of the causes of biodiversity loss. Due to the decrease of the quantity and quality of habitats, this process causes the restriction of organisms to sometimes-specific microhabitats. The patterns of variation of the biodiversity along the environmental gradients, however, are still poorly understood. This study evaluated how urban gradients affect the diversity, specific composition and frequency of guild of the community of butterflies. Butterflies were collected in three transects continuously traversing the urban, rural and preserved habitats using baited traps and by active sampling. We found that the urban gradient acts as an environmental filter in the butterfly communities, reducing the richness and frequency of guilds of frugivorous butterflies, structuring the community through turnover, but without effects in the abundance. This study shows the importance of the urban gradients approach in the butterfly community and its applicability in the management of urban areas in order to include native vegetation along the gradients, aiming at increasing environmental heterogeneity, to preserve butterflies and maintain the ecosystem services and network interactions in altered landscapes.

     

Technology, world view, and adaptive strategy in a northern hunting society

Les anthropologues confondent souvent culture matérielle et technologie. Us limitent la technologie aux artefacts, plutôt qu'aux artifices qui les sous-tendent. Cet article pose comme hypothèse que la technologie propre à une culture devrait être considéréd comme faisant partie de sa stratégic globale d'adaptation. On veut suggérer tout particuliére-ment que la vision du monde et les croyances peuvent accroître le succès des stratégies adaptatives. Les sociétés de chasseurs-collecteurs nomades semblent privilégier la con-naissance technique plutôt que la propriéte matérielle. Cette hypothése est éayée par des données décrivant la vision du monde des Indiens Beaver, en relation avec leurs stratégies adaptatives.     

Developing habitat models for waterbirds in urban wetlands: a log-linear approach

Up to 95% of wetlands in southwestern Ontario, Canada, have been drained and converted to other land uses since the mid-1800s. Remaining wetlands now exist within a mosaic of urban and agriculture land cover and may resemble “islands” from the point of view of species that need this habitat. We investigated the relationships between waterbirds and wetland size, isolation, and adjacent forest cover and roads in 19 wetlands within and adjacent to London, Ontario. Waterbirds were grouped into resource-based guilds: Dabblers, Divers, Waders, and Gulls and Terns (because of small samples, the Passerine and Raptor guilds were dropped from the statistical analyses). Because of the high degree of multicollinearity between variables, we used log-linear analysis to develop models that explained variations in species richness in the waterbird guilds. The log-linear technique provided quantification of environmental effects in a richer way than previous research as the interplay between biophysical factors found in reality are partially captured by the inclusion of interaction in the habitat models. All of the models incorporated the biophysical variables of wetland size and adjacent wetland area, forest cover, and roads. Waterbirds in these urban and near-urban landscapes appear to be using all wetlands available to them, no matter how small or how disjunct the wetland. This has implications for wetland evaluations that may not rate wetlands in human-dominated landscapes highly enough to be protected from development.