Sociology of the Japanese, by the Japanese, for the Japanese: A short history of unintentional indigenization of sociology in Japan

2021 ◽  
pp. 026858092110575
Author(s):  
Eiji Oguma
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Short History ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Public Demand

The majority of Japanese social scientists have treated the idea of indigenization of social sciences as unrelated to them. However, sociology in Japan also has its own characteristics shaped by the structure of the Japanese society. Since long ago, Japanese sociologists have tried to analyze the unique characteristics of Japanese society and published numerous books on this subject for the Japanese public. Even their eagerness to introduce Western theories of sociology was an integral part of this effort to elucidate Japan’s ‘uniqueness’. The fact that Japan was not colonized and managed to develop an extensive domestic education/labor/language/publishing market played an important role in this predominantly domestic focus of Japanese sociology. The specific nature of the domestic public demand also contributed to this situation. Although it has been gradually changing since 2000s, this autarky resulted in a weak presence of Japanese sociology in the global academic community.

The Problem

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mats Alvesson ◽  
Yiannis Gabriel ◽  
Roland Paulsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Prestigious Journal ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Academic Researchers ◽  
History Of ◽  
Wide Gap

This chapter introduces ‘the problem’ of meaningless research in the social sciences. Over the past twenty years there has been an enormous growth in research publications, but never before in the history of humanity have so many social scientists written so much to so little effect. Academic research in the social sciences is often inward looking, addressed to small tribes of fellow researchers, and its purpose in what is increasingly a game is that of getting published in a prestigious journal. A wide gap has emerged between the esoteric concerns of social science researchers and the pressing issues facing today’s societies. The chapter critiques the inaccessibility of the language used by academic researchers, and the formulaic qualities of most research papers, fostered by the demands of the publishing game. It calls for a radical move from research for the sake of publishing to research that has something meaningful to say.

scholarly journals The Crisis, the Humanities and Medical History

2011 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-287
Author(s):  
Bill Luckin
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Higher Education ◽  
Medical History ◽  
Cultural Landscapes ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Ideas

Non-controversially, the full version of this article argues that the crisis in British higher education will impoverish teaching and research in the arts and humanities; cut even more deeply into these areas in the post-1992 sector; and threaten the integrity of every small sub-discipline, including the history of medicine. It traces links between the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s and the near-privatisation of universities proposed by the Browne Report and partly adopted by the coalition. The article ends by arguing that it would be mistaken to expect any government-driven return to the status quo ante. New ideas and solutions must come from within. As economic and cultural landscapes are transformed, higher education will eventually be rebuilt, and the arts and social sciences, including medical history, reshaped in wholly unexpected ways. This will only happen, however, if a more highly politicised academic community forges its own strategies for recovery.

Critical Realism for Ethnography

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant Banfield
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Sociological Practice ◽  
Critical Realist ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Theoretical Developments ◽  
British Philosopher

While specific applications of critical realism to ethnography are few, theoretical developments are promising and await more widespread development. This is especially the case for progressive and critical forms of ethnography that strive to be, in critical realist terms, an “emancipatory science.” However, the history of ethnography reveals that both the field and its emancipatory potential are limited by methodological tendencies toward “naïve realism” and “relativism.” This is the antimony of ethnography. The conceptual and methodological origins of ethnography are grounded in the historical tensions between anti-naturalist Kantian idealism and hyper-naturalist Humean realism. The resolution of these tensions can be found in the conceptual resources of critical realism. Working from, and building upon, the work of British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, critical realism is a movement in the philosophy of science that transcends the limits of Kantian idealism and Humean realism via an emancipatory anti-positivist naturalism. Critical realism emerged as part of the post-positivist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. From its Marxian origins, critical realism insists that all science, including the social sciences, must be emancipatory. At its essence, this requires taking ontology seriously. The call of critical realism to ethnographers, like all social scientists, is that while they must hold to epistemological caution this does not warrant ontological shyness. Furthermore, critical realism’s return to ontology implies that ethnographers must be ethically serious. Ethnography, if it is to hold to its progressive inclinations, must be about something. Critical realism for ethnography pushes the field to see itself as more than a sociological practice. Rather, it is to be understood as a social practice for something: the universalizing of human freedom.

ISAAK RUBIN: HISTORIAN OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT DURING THE STALINIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SOVIET RUSSIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Boldyrev ◽  
Martin Kragh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Uncertainty ◽  
Soviet Russia

Research within the history of economic thought has focused only little on the development of economics under dictatorship. This paper attempts to show how a country with a relatively large and internationally established community of social scientists in the 1920s, the Soviet Union, was subjected to repression. We tell this story through the case of Isaak Il’ich Rubin, a prominent Russian economist and historian of economic thought, who in the late 1920s was denounced by rival scholars and repressed by the political system. By focusing not only on his life and work, but also on that of his opponents and institutional clashes, we show how the decline of a social science tradition in Russia and the USSR as well as the Stalinization of Soviet social sciences emerged as a process over time. We analyze the complex interplay of ideas, scholars, and their institutional context, and conclude that subsequent repression was arbitrary, suggesting that no clear survival or career strategy existed in the Stalinist system, due to a situation of fundamental uncertainty.

scholarly journals Mutual influence of the information and library environment and social sciences. Issue 3

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Mutual Influence ◽  
Library Science ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Research Libraries ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Library Support

Trends in information-library support of the social sciences are investi-gated, as well as issues in the use of the latest innovations of the social sci-ences in library science, and the interaction of research libraries in the infra-structure of social sciences; library collections as information resources, technologies for discovering information from sources and communication networks of the scientific communities are analyzed. This work is geared to library and information professionals, social scientists, as well as those who are interested in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of library science and bibliography, and humanities and social sciences, history of science, and information science.

scholarly journals A Brief History of the Future of World Society

2005 ◽  
pp. 159-169
Author(s):  
Mark Herkenrath ◽  
Claudia König ◽  
Hanno Scholtz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
International Symposium ◽  
World Society ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Degree Of Certainty ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Zurich ◽  
The University

Earlier versions of the articles in this issue were presented and discussed atthe international symposium on “The Future of World Society,” held in June 2004 at the University of Zurich.¹ The theme of the symposium implied two assumptions. One, there is in fact a world society, though still very much in formation. And two, as social scientists we are in a position to predict the future of that society with at least some degree of certainty. The ?rst of these assumptions will be addressed in Alberto Martinelli’s timely contribution, “From World System to World Society?” It is the second assumption which is of interest to us in this introduction. Are the social sciences really able to predict the future of world society?

Short History of Risk Communication in Japan

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (sp) ◽  
pp. 592-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomio Kinoshita ◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Power Plant ◽  
Risk Communication ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Initial Period ◽  
Short History ◽  
Japanese People ◽  
The West ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of

The notion of risk was introduced in Japanese academia in the 1970s. Following this initial period of interest, the Society for Risk Analysis, Japan, was launched in 1988, coinciding with the first study of “risk communication.” However, the concept was not widely embraced by the public at that time. This situation changed after the 1995 Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, and risk communication gradually came to be acknowledged in Japanese society. Following the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant incident ofMarch 11, 2011, a boom in risk communication occurred due to anxieties among residents about the possibility of low-level radiation exposure. Regrettably, however, the government’s risk communication system did not work well, and consequently, the general public did not know who or what to believe. Underlying this confusion, we can observe the differences between the “risk cultures” of Japan and the West. Thus, it remains to be seen in what manner Japanese people will come to accept risk communication.

scholarly journals Personal Documents as Data Sources for Social Sciences. A Review of History of Uses, Ethical, Methodological and Epistemological Considerations

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ozana Cucu-Oancea
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ultimate Purpose

Abstract This article envisages critically present the use of the personal documents, looking from a historical perspective at how it was practiced in different paradigms in the humanistic-social sciences. The exposé also considers the methodological and the ethical implications of using the method, underlining, in this respect, the aspects related to the preservation and reuse of the materials of this kind. By putting into balance the trumps and downsides of the personal documents method, the article highlights, in fact, the importance of using the personal documents method in studying a wide range of specific problems of the humanistic-social sciences. The ultimate purpose of the article is, therefore, that of prompting the social scientists to look more carefully and more trustingly at the alternative of choosing the personal documents method, as a potential powerful tool for sociological research, providing them, at the same time, with possible directions in discerning between the favourable and unfavourable situations for using it.

scholarly journals Monika Piątkowska as a Researcher in Sport Sciences and Sport Management

2017 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Monika Piątkowska ◽  
Jerzy Kosiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Sport Management ◽  
Far East ◽  
Physical Culture ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Far East ◽  
History Of ◽  
World Class

AbstractThis is the fifth article of the cycle of portraits of the members of the Editorial Board and Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research. These members are social scientists who research the issue of sport. Among them, there are many world-class professors, rectors, and deans of excellent universities, founders, presidents, and secretaries-general of continental and international scientific societies and editors of high-scoring journals related to social sciences focusing on sport. The idea of presenting portraits of individual editors of our writings has already gained recognition in the Far East. Editor-in-Chief Young Lee of the International Journal of Eastern Sports & Physical Education has decided to introduce Corner of Editors, which will also present all members of the Editorial Board.The biography we present here in this volume of our journal refers to a Polish scholar, educationist, and manager, Monika Piątkowska, Deputy Editor of our Journal and Head of the Department of Organization and History of Sport at the Josef Pilsudski University of Physical Education.

Can we still be at home? Agnes Heller and China

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110328
Author(s):  
Fu Qilin
Keyword(s):  
Academic Community ◽  
Short History ◽  
Aesthetic Enjoyment ◽  
History Of ◽  
At Home

This paper offers a short history of Agnes Heller’s relationship to China through three aspects: imaginative aesthetic enjoyment, real encounters with Chinese cultural spectacles and actual audiences, and the construction of an academic community through creative dialogue. These discussions suggest that Heller felt at home in China. Although Heller has passed away, a home for us remains in her work through remembering her and engaging further with her writings.

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