Recent publications
Although the Republic of China (ROC) won the Second Sino-Japanese War, the national economy was exhausted, and the war was derided as a “Pyrrhic victory”.
This study examines culture-specific emotions as embodied experience. Culturally based emotions are often linguistically and conceptually unique to particular groups, which may pose translation challenges. Despite most studies focusing on linguistic and cognitive aspects of emotions, this article posits that embodiment also plays a role in understanding culture-specific emotions. We examine two cultural concepts, saudade from Portuguese-speaking cultures and ikigai from the Japanese culture, and how they can be part of an embodied experience within each culture. This study sheds light on the idea that although these concepts mean different things for people in their cultural context, the manner in which saudade and ikigai is articulated is indeed an embodied experience, a body and mind relationship and, source of body knowledge.
Ukiyo-e (浮世絵) was a genre of popular art during the Edo and Meiji periods in Japan. Moxibustion, which was introduced from China at the first place, was also in its heyday and became one of the popular topics for ukiyo-e artists at that time. Using the images as historical evidence perspective, this article focuses on the moxibustion used in daily life in Japan depicted in the ukiyo-e arts. With the perspective of acu-moxa therapy, one may identify some specific issues in the acupoint selection, leading to the discovery of special application of moxibustion used by the group of yūjo (遊女) at that time. The article concludes by exploring gender issues in ukiyo-e arts and the implications of punishment attached to moxibustion treatment.
In this study, we conduct a detailed analysis of qualitative survey data focusing on adult populations in the UK, Japan and Mexico to address the following question: How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed people’s lived experience of their bodies, other people’s bodies and the world? We identify five themes: (i) fear and danger, (ii) bodily doubt and hypervigilance, (iii) risk and trust, (iv) adapting and enduring and (v) changes in perspective. We use two theoretical frameworks: first, Mary Douglas’ anthropological work on purity, risk, danger and symbolism is applied to understand how social and cultural meanings attached to the body have changed during the pandemic. Second, we use the concept of bodily doubt developed by Havi Carel to interpret how people experience their bodies and other people’s bodies differently during the pandemic. While we recognise the significant variation in people’s embodied experience of the pandemic, our findings suggest there are commonalities that span different countries and cultures. Specifically, we look at responses to COVID-19 protective countermeasures such as national lockdowns and physical distancing which we suggest have reduced people’s ability to put faith in their own bodies, trust other people and trust the political leadership. We conclude by proposing that the changes to our lived experience during the COVID-19 pandemic have prompted changes in perspective and a renewed focus on what people consider important in life from a social, moral, cultural and political point of view.
To reduce hazards in post-disaster rebuilding, governments often first revise existing hazard maps to update land use plans and regulations. This sequence assumes that the disaster event immediately improves knowledge of the hazard. To learn from an actual case, we document PASIGALA’s rebuilding process following the 2018 Central Sulawesi earthquake. We reviewed public documents in-depth, assessed coastal hazards with new information, and reflected on our field observations. We documented the 3.5-year situation in detail and developed recovery narratives. We also found that the actual post-disaster development does not fully incorporate the planned goals of hazard risk reduction. Reasons include: i) the need to create a hazard map before knowing the hazard’s mechanism; ii) the scale of hazard mapping does not correspond to that of individual building parcels; iii) residents, out of necessity, restart their lives in the prohibited areas, and iv) relocation plans do not attract affected residents when rebuilding their lives. Governments may create simplified hazard maps to facilitate timely rebuilding, but this overlooks nuanced problems residents face, further complicating their situation. Although the hazard maps show the region’s potential hazards, the next disaster could be different. We conclude the current practice of hazard map-based rebuilding needs more deliberation.
This paper reviews the methodological evolution of urban sociology, with an emphasis on US urban sociology. Furthermore, it focuses on the development of quantitative methods for urban sociology.
First, this paper reviews the tradition of the Chicago school of sociology. The Chicago school is distinguished by social disorganization theory and ecological determinism. The theory of L. Wirth is primarily analytical. He viewed the city as an independent variable and the way of life as a dependent variable. Second, social composition theorists appear in this paper, with H. Gans serving as a representative sociologist of this approach. He believed that urbanism as a way of life is explained not only by the ecological aspect of the city, but also by the characteristics of individuals, such as social class or lifecycle. Gans' view, which distinguishes between the effects of individual and city, is overlapped with the concept of multilevel methods. Third, B. Wellman and C. S. Fischer modified Wirth's theory. They recognized Gans' perspective and refocused on the city's ecological aspects. Fourth, the trend of current urban sociology is the neighborhood effect. R. J. Sampson, a well-known sociologist in this discipline, revolutionized the methodology of urban sociology. He recognizes the city's ecological aspects, and interprets neighborhood effects as the accumulation of specific individuals, such as black or impoverished people. In short, the ecological aspect of the city and individual selection of migrating to the city are interpreted as the city's effects. The emergence of quantitative methods such as panel data analysis and social experiments methods has aided the manner of thinking of neighborhood effects research.
Finally, this paper discussed the future of Japanese quantitative urban sociology. We should make panel data for urban sociology and cooperate with urban sociologists employing qualitative methods to capture the urban dynamics.
This study offers a historical introduction to psychiatry and music therapy in Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, followed by English translations of related excerpts from Shūzō Kure’s Psychotherapy (1916). Music was used as preventive healthcare during the Edo period (1603–1867). This continued into the Meiji period (1868–1912), when European music was also employed by psychiatrists alongside traditional Japanese songs. Kure (1865–1932) is known as the father of Japanese psychiatry and his work best illustrates the links between music and psychiatry in Japan at the turn of the century, showing the integration of European and Japanese theories and practices.
Major depression is one of the most common mental health problems worldwide. More than one-third of patients suffer from treatment-resistant depression (TRD). In this study, we explored the feasibility of group compassion-focused therapy (CFT) for TRD using a randomized controlled trial with two parallel groups. Eighteen participants were randomly allocated to the intervention group (CFT and usual care) and control group (usual care alone) and a participant in each group withdrew. Participants in the intervention group received a 1.5-h session every week for 12 weeks. The effects of the intervention on the participants’ scores were calculated using a linear mixed model. There was a larger reduction in their depressive symptoms and fears of compassion for self and a greater increase in their compassion for self compared to the control group participants. The reliable clinical indices showed that in the CFT (intervention) group, three of nine participants recovered (33%), two improved (22%), two recovered but non-reliably (22%), and the condition of two remained unchanged (22%). These findings indicate adequate feasibility of group CFT for TRD in Japanese clinical settings.
Clinical trial registration
[https://clinicaltrials.gov/], identifier [UMIN 000028698].
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