The new illegal immigration in Japan, 1980-1992

"This article presents some of the latest available figures on illegal immigration in Japan, a process that did not assume significant proportions until the mid-1980s. It also discusses briefly the latest developments around 'immigration' policy--more precisely, the law on the entry and exit of aliens."     

The Global Street: Making the Political

This article explores key vectors in the uprisings of the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region from an urban perspective. The aim is to open up a larger conceptual field to understand the complex interactions between power and powerlessness as they get shaped in urban space. I argue that the city makes visible the limits of superior military power and, most importantly, that cities enable powerlessness to become complex, not simply elementary. In this complexity lies the possibility of making history and remaking the political. The question of public space is central to giving the powerless rhetorical and operational openings. But that public space needs to be distinguished from the concept of public space in the European tradition. This leads me to the concept of The Global Street.

Este artículo explora los vectores claves en los levantamientos de la región del Medio Oriente y África del Norte (MENA, por sus siglas en inglés) desde una perspectiva urbana. El objetivo es abrir un campo conceptual mayor para entender las interacciones complejas entre el poder y la impotencia, a medida que se forman dentro de un espacio urbano. Sostengo que la ciudad expone los límites del poder militar superior y más importante aún, que las ciudades permiten que la impotencia se vuelva compleja y no simplemente elemental. En esta complejidad reside la posibilidad de hacer historia y rehacer la política. El asunto del espacio público es primordial para darle a los impotentes una apertura retórica y operacional. Pero ese espacio público necesita distinguirse del concepto del espacio público en la tradición europea. Esto me conduce al concepto de la Calle Global (The Global Street).

本文从一个城市的视角探究了中东和北非（MENA）地区起义的关键向量。文章旨在开辟一个更加广泛的概念领域,以便理解强权与无权势之间复杂的互动,正如它们在城市空间中被塑造的那样。我认为,城市使得优势军事权力的限度显现,更重要的是,城市使得无权势变得复合化,不单单是不可再分。在这种错综复杂中存在着创造历史和重塑政治的可能。公共空间问题对于为无权势者提供言辞和操作机会来说至关重要。然而,这一公共空间需要与欧洲传统中的公共空间概念区别开来。这导致我确立了“全球街”的概念。     

New frontiers facing urban sociology at the Millennium

The article examines some of the major challenges facing urban sociology at century's end given its traditions and lineages. These challenges arise out of the intersection of major macrosocial trends and their particular spatial patterns. The city and the metropolitan region emerge as one of the strategic sites where these macrosocial trends materialize and hence can be constituted as an object of study. Among these trends are globalization and the rise of the new information technologies, the intensifying of transnational and translocal dynamics, and the strengthening presence and voice of specific types of socio‐cultural diversity. Each one of these trends has its own specific conditionalities, contents and consequences for cities, and for theory and research. Cities are also sites where each of these trends interacts with the others in distinct, often complex manners, in a way they do not in just about any other setting. The city emerges once again as a strategic lens for the study of major macrosocial transformations as it was in the origins of sociology. Can urban sociology address these challenges and in so doing once again produce some of the analytic tools for understanding the broader transformation?     

Voluntary disclosure of sustainability reports by Canadian universities

In contrast to corporate firms, voluntary sustainability reporting by universities is still in its infancy. Against this background, we have investigated which Canadian universities report their sustainability performance and what specifically is reported. Our study applies content analyses as a methodological approach to determine the relative importance of disclosure topics by using a university-specific catalogue of indicators. This unique study completely covers all sustainability reports published between 2011 and 2015 by Canadian universities and as such provides evidence and analyses of voluntary sustainability reporting by universities, which has been the subject of very little research to date. The findings show that sustainability reporting by Canadian universities diverges considerably and the range of aspects included is relatively narrow. Overall, the results show a clear focus on the environmental dimension and very weak coverage of the social dimension. The environmental orientation of many Canadian universities seems to be a result of their participation in the STARS program.     

Black and White Photography as Theorizing: Seeing What the Eye Cannot See

This article is part of a panel discussion addressing the sociological relevance of Sebastião Salgado’s work as well as documentary photography in general. ²     

Economic internationalization: the new migration in Japan and the United States

"The general proposition argued in this paper is that international migrations are embedded in larger social, economic and political processes.... The first section of the paper addresses the impact of economic internationalization on the formation of new immigration flows into the U.S. during the last 25 years. The second section examines both the magnitude and forms of Japan's recent economic presence in South and Southeast Asia. The third and fourth sections briefly review questions of policy in the U.S. and Japan during the last few years.... The fifth section conveys evidence of illegal immigration to Japan. The sixth section discusses conditions in receiving countries that make possible the adaptation of immigrants with a view to understanding how illegal immigrants in Japan could become part of the Japanese economy involving Japanese employers deeply steeped in an anti-immigration culture." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)