Tagged: Japan

Figure 1: A child abuse awareness and prevention poster, part of a public campaign managed by the national government. Image created by Riko Mukuta and the National Network for the Prevention of Child Abuse, 2023.

Applied Sociology / Opinion / Research Methodologies / Social Movements / Social Change / Sociology of Children

Care equity and the welfare state in Japan: Contextualizing what the child protection system seeks to safeguard

The child abuse crisis: Japan has a lively arena of research on children’s social care. Yet, there has been relatively little attention given to social constructions of childhood, abuse, and other pressing topics of debate, particularly in relation to structural and cross-cultural contexts. This is interesting considering how widespread visual and discursive representations of child abuse have proliferated throughout Japan in the past 30 years. I recently wrote a paper on the social-cultural construction of child abuse and its possible...

Political & Economic Sociology / Sociology of Organizations & Work

Economic Growth Despite Global Downturn

China aims to experience 8% economic growth in 2010, even after accounting for the global downturn. Since Beijing has targeted 8% economic growth in the past several years and has reached its goal each year, analysts consider China’s target as reasonable. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects China to exceed its goal, experiencing at least 9% economic growth in 2010. Meanwhile, the IMF only expects India to grow by 6.4%, Canada by 2.1%, Japan by 1.7%, the United States by...

Sociology of Culture / Sociology of Media & Communication

Orientalism, Globalism, Hybridization

by linanne10 Tokyo may be one of the most extreme examples of a hybridized international city, in an age of rapid globalization. Cultural negotiation and reconciliation between Western notions of modernization and traditional Japanese civilization (or to some extent, Asian civilization) found their way in this kaleidoscopical urban space, whether in tension or in peace. The film, Tokyo! (opening on March, 6 in New York City), is a triptych by three foreign directors, Bong Joon-ho, Leos Carax and Michel Gondry,...