Fabricating Japaneseness? The Identity Politics of Young Designers and Artists in Global Cities

The present study explores the identity politics of young Japanese designers and artists working across national boundaries today. It addresses the following research questions: (i) Do young designers and artists aim to produce works with “universal” appeal or strategically make use of “Japaneseness”? (ii) Do they develop new transnational identities or regard themselves as “Japanese”? and (iii) Who do they think has the power to label their works as “Japanese” in the art worlds? For this purpose, I conducted in‐depth interviews with professional designers and artists who have migrated from Japan to London, New York, or Paris. The results show that most designers and artists who were interviewed indeed aim to produce works with “universal” appeal, while only a few respondents attempt to strategically express “Japaneseness” in their works. However, regardless of whether they make use of “Japaneseness” or not, all respondents regard themselves as “Japanese” without developing new transnational identities. Even so, they do not search for or hold onto Japaneseness; but rather the media, as well as a certain part of the art world, persistently attempt to emphasize “Japaneseness,” due to the structure of the art world, where whiteness continues to be the “norm.” While designers and artists are increasingly oriented toward creating works with new forms and values through the transnational production system, gatekeepers and legitimators of the art world continue to fabricate “the nation” and reinforce boundaries of national culture.     

Gender still at work: Interrogating identity in discourses and practices of masculinity

Apart from a few paragraphs reminiscing on how, in response to a publisher contacting us, Jill, Marilyn and I founded Gender, Work and Organization combined with a few comments on its evolution as a leading journal in our field, this article largely summarizes and seeks to develop my lifelong interests in discourses and practices of masculinity. It pays tribute to my doctoral students and/or research colleagues with whom many of these ideas concerning masculinities were shaped. The article then surveys the literature on discourses and practices of masculinities through the three waves: the unitarist, the pluralist and, finally, the performativist approach to discourses and practices of masculinity. A central argument of the article is that although each wave has contributed something of importance to the critical examination of masculinities, none of them fully interrogate identity to theorize how our attachment to the security that it promises is illusory. Posthumanist feminists come closest to realizing this and seeking an alternative embodied and ethical engagement with, rather than a competitive elevation of self over, the other. In the conclusion, there is a brief comment on how the global backlash from the political right has made struggles against dominant masculinities all the more urgent.     

Why die for my sibling? The positive association between identity fusion and imagined loss with endorsement of self-sacrifice / ¿Por qué morir por un hermano? La asociación positiva entre la fusión de identidad y la pérdida imaginada con la disposición al autosacrificio

Abstract

Identity fusion — a visceral feeling of connection with a group — is a powerful predictor of willingness to engage in extreme pro-group behaviour. Here we propose that identity fusion also reinforces willingness to fight and die for one’s siblings, and we explore one of the underlying mechanisms producing this effect. We additionally controlled for a powerful predictor of family investment, perceived psychological similarity with the sibling. Our study shows that fusion with a sibling, but not perceived similarity, is positively associated with willingness to fight and die for the sibling. This relation is mediated by the imagined personal consequences of losing one’s sibling. This research extends previous work on fusion with groups to pairs of individuals and identifies a new mediator of the effect of fusion on willingness to fight and die for others. Overall, these results suggest that identity fusion might contribute towards explaining self-sacrifice among genetically related individuals as predicted by the theory of kin selection.     

Playful organisations: Undecidability as a scarce resource

This article explores how organisational play becomes a managerial tool to increase and benefit from undecidability. The article draws on Niklas Luhmann's concept of decision and on Gregory Bateson's theory of play to create a conceptual framework for analysing the relation between decision and undecidability. With an empirical point of departure in Danish public school policy and two concrete examples of games utilised in school development, the article analyses how play is a way for organisations to simultaneously decide and also avoid making a decision, thus keeping flexibility and possibilities intact. In its final sections, the article discusses what happens to conditions of decision-making when organisations do not just see undecidability as a given condition, but as a limited resource indispensable for change and renewal. The article advances discussions of organisational play by exploring the consequences play has for the very conditions of organising and for key concepts in organisation theory.     

Testing the homogeneity of proportions for clustered binary data without knowing the correlation structure

A robust generalized score test for comparing groups of cluster binary data is proposed. This novel test is asymptotically valid for practically any underlying correlation configurations including the situation when correlation coefficients vary within or between clusters. This structure generally undermines the validity of the typical large sample properties of the method of maximum likelihood. Simulations and real data analysis are used to demonstrate the merit of this parametric robust method. Results show that our test is superior to two recently proposed test statistics advocated by other researchers.     

刻板印象内容模型的修正与发展——源于大学生群体样本的调查结果

刻板印象是对社会群体及其成员固定或模式化的看法。对刻板印象形成维度的研究，被系统地总结为刻板印象内容模型（Stereotype Content Model, SCM）。本文对SCM的相关理论进行了简要梳理。作者按照SCM的典范程序，进行了有效样本为115人的试验性调查和160人的正式调查，以问卷的方式要求被调查者对21个社会群体进行分类和评价，建立起了大学生关于21个社会群体的刻板印象类型，并在此基础上进行了理论层面的探讨。本文的研究试图突破以往的SCM研究仅限于发现事实的局限，尝试对形成特定群体刻板印象背后的社会心理机制进行解释。     

读《为什么餐厅里的黑人孩子都坐在一起》——兼论该书对构建中国和谐族群关系的启示

本文对塔特姆(Beverly Danjel Tatum)教授<为什么餐厅里的黑人孩子都坐在一起>一书进行了简要介绍.塔特姆指出,种族歧视是一种体系优势.通过对白人背景下黑人、白人以及其他有色人种特质的精辟分析,她深刻地揭示了美国种族关系的实质,并提出了"促进跨种族对话"来打破沉默的建议.塔特姆的理论观点对于中国的族群关系建设有重要启示.在新的时代背景下,中国不仅要在中华民族背景下了解少数民族,也要在中华民族背景下了解汉族.     

身份的困惑：律师作为政治参与的主体

运用政治学理论和律师学理论，分析了律师作为政治参与主体的特殊性，指出无论律师是否符合普通公民的身份，几乎所有类型的律师在公共决策过程中只是起着“影响”而不是“决定”的作用。     

Subcultural Identity Work in Social Movements: Barriers to Collective Identity Changes and Overcoming Them

Over time, social movements must contend with a vast array of forces that can lead to changes in the movement's collective identity. As such changes may impact the alignment of movements and their membership, this study explores how changes are perceived by members and how they are interactively addressed. Drawing on ethnographic data gathered from two Native American social movement organizations, this study specifically asks why some changes suggested by movement members might be pursued and others are not. While movement members felt that there were a number of barriers to changes in their movements, the study revealed that it was the resonance of collective memories – presented during interactions as narrative commemorations – that encouraged the pursuit of suggested changes or the maintenance of a status quo.     

Varieties of Transgender/Transsexual Lives and Their Relationship with Transphobia

The conceptualization of gender variant populations within studies have consisted of imposed labels and a diversity of individual identities that preclude any attempt at examining the variations found among gender variant populations, while at the same time creating artificial distinctions between groups that may not actually exist. Data were collected from 90 transgender/transsexual people using confidential, self-administered questionnaires. Factors like age of transition, being out to others, and participant's race and class were associated with experiences of transphobic life events. Discrimination can have profound impact on transgender/transsexual people's lives, but different factors can influence one's experience of transphobia. Further studies are needed to examine how transphobia manifests, and how gender characteristics impact people's lives.