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Navigating Sexual Consent In Japan, Samara Mizutani Cesar Jan 2024

Navigating Sexual Consent In Japan, Samara Mizutani Cesar

MSU Graduate Theses

Employing an exploratory sequential research design, including focus groups and an online survey, this thesis explores the factors influencing how Japanese people navigate the gray zones of sexual consent. This study not only addresses gaps in the literature on sexual consent but also provides a preliminary understanding of Japanese individuals’ perceptions, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences in ambiguous sexual interactions, which is particularly meaningful given Japan’s recent legal revisions and changing sociocultural landscape. Findings indicated the impact of traditional sexual scripts on consent perceptions, with gender and relationship norms contributing to the dismissal of sexual assaults within specific relationships. It was …


Interrogating Households In Anticipation Of Disasters: The Feminization Of Preparedness, Chika Watanabe, Celie Hanson Nov 2023

Interrogating Households In Anticipation Of Disasters: The Feminization Of Preparedness, Chika Watanabe, Celie Hanson

Critical Disaster Studies

It is now a maxim among scholars and policy-makers alike that disaster preparedness needs to involve community-based approaches in order to be effective. These include preparedness strategies in the household. But how do disaster preparedness policies and public discourses define “the household” in the first place? In this article, we explore how particular gendered notions of the household are reproduced in disaster preparedness policies and activities in Japan and the UK. Drawing on historical and cross-cultural analyses, we suggest that household preparedness efforts place the burden of labor on people coded as women—a phenomenon we call “the feminization of preparedness.” …


Here, There, And In-Between: On The Civilizing Process And Civilizational Analysis, Michael Palencia-Roth Aug 2023

Here, There, And In-Between: On The Civilizing Process And Civilizational Analysis, Michael Palencia-Roth

Comparative Civilizations Review

This essay presents a cautionary tale about certain problems with systematization and abstraction in comparative civilizational studies. It advocates instead for the analysis of single works, limited events, or particular figures, within larger issues pertaining to what is understood as a “civilization” or “culture”. It prioritizes certain aspects of the civilizing process: the here, or the civilizing and interpretive gaze; the there, or the Other that is the object of that gaze; and the in-between. It further suggests that insights and methods from Mikhail Bakhtin, Hans-Georg Gadamer and others from the humanities, social sciences, and philosophy can …


Caron's Japan: Tokugawa State And Society Through A European Lens, Cegan Hinson Apr 2023

Caron's Japan: Tokugawa State And Society Through A European Lens, Cegan Hinson

Student Research Submissions

Dutch East India Company (VOC) merchant François Caron describes Tokugawa Japan as a rigid political hierarchy controlled by the Shogun, similar to the governments established by absolute monarchs in Europe. Caron understands and insightfully describes Tokugawa society by emphasizing perceived and real similarities between Tokugawa Japan and Early Modern Europe. He struggles to understand religious differences between these societies, but his description of Japanese religious practices still reflects how the Shogunate utilized Buddhism and anti-Christian policies to uphold their rule. Caron also depicts Tokugawa Japan as a land of plentiful resources prime for lucrative trade. He includes the writings of …


Population Aging And Healthcare Costs In China And Japan, Sean Brown May 2022

Population Aging And Healthcare Costs In China And Japan, Sean Brown

Honors Theses

This study focuses on the natural demographic phenomenon known as population aging and its intersection with healthcare expenditures. Healthcare spending can be a major burden on a country’s economy, so it is important to accurately assess the connection between these two factors. Population aging occurs when countries reach a point in their demographic transitions characterized by declining total fertility rates and high life expectancy. This natural but undesirable position has implications for virtually all aspects of society, and all countries are trending towards aging. This study examines the cases of China and Japan in an effort to assess the validity …


Section Iii: Gender-Based Violence And Society, Gavin Patrick Gray, Nidhi Shrivastava, Deepesh Nirmaldas Dayal Jan 2022

Section Iii: Gender-Based Violence And Society, Gavin Patrick Gray, Nidhi Shrivastava, Deepesh Nirmaldas Dayal

English Faculty Publications

This chapter is a transcript of an open-ended discussion that occurred between the authors when they met to discuss the subject matter of the third section of the book, which focuses on cultural and normative attitudes toward the problem of gender violence. As with the previous introductory dialogues, the discussion takes place after preliminary drafts have been completed and the authors share their thoughts on the subjects that they will each discuss in more detail in the following chapters. These include the culture of silence surrounding rape in India, the way masculine gender norms impact the treatment of women in …


Section I: Gender-Based Violence, Gavin Patrick Gray, Nidhi Shrivastava Jan 2022

Section I: Gender-Based Violence, Gavin Patrick Gray, Nidhi Shrivastava

English Faculty Publications

This chapter is a transcript of an open-ended discussion that occurred between the authors when they met to discuss the subject matter of the first section of the book, which focuses on areas where serious ongoing problems of gender violence are receiving insufficient attention. The discussion took place after preliminary drafts had been completed and the authors share their thoughts on the subjects they will each discuss in more detail in the following chapters – including the cultural representation of historical gender violence in India, the treatment of women in Japan's sex industry and attitudes towards LGBTQ+ groups in South …


Going Glocal In A Pandemic: Can Japan Offer Lessons For Others?, Masaaki Takemura Jun 2021

Going Glocal In A Pandemic: Can Japan Offer Lessons For Others?, Masaaki Takemura

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This Dialogue contribution draws some lessons from the Japanese countermeasures against the COVID-19 pandemic. It approaches this issue from a social point of view. Specifically, it focuses on social and cultural understanding process of an uncertainty event – in this case the COVID-19 pandemic, but also early instances – by the Japanese.


Pandemic And Õen Consumption In Japan: Deliberate Buying To Aid The Seller, Kosuke Mizukoshi, Yuichiro Hidaka May 2021

Pandemic And Õen Consumption In Japan: Deliberate Buying To Aid The Seller, Kosuke Mizukoshi, Yuichiro Hidaka

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This dialogue contribution discusses whether it is possible to create favorable new social assistance under the market principles, based on the Ouen or Õen (aid) consumption in Japan. The meaning of consumption has changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In Japan, aid consumption is increasing. This means helping local restaurants and producers by willfully and proactively buying and consuming their services and products. This is a favorable form of new social assistance and the result of strong marketing and market functions. The penetration of market forces may surpass pure altruistic behavior such as donations and gifts, by creating new market-linked …


Pornography, Its Harms, And A New Legal Strategy: Research And Experience In Japan, Seiya Morita, Caroline Norma Mar 2021

Pornography, Its Harms, And A New Legal Strategy: Research And Experience In Japan, Seiya Morita, Caroline Norma

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In this article we describe pornography’s harms in Japan, which are known about from surveys and research, and from the outreach and consulting activities of Japanese feminist-abolitionist groups. Among these are the Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (APP) and People Against Pornography and Sexual Violence (PAPS). We then propose a renewed classification scheme for pornography’s harms that centrally considers the experiences of victims in Japan. Lastly, we consider various legal approaches to addressing the myriad harms we describe and suggest possibilities for a new legal strategy. The article’s research comes from Japanese-language materials produced by the above-mentioned activist groups, as …


Varieties Of Transnational Life: Brazilian Nikkeis’ Changing Cross-Border Ties With Two Homelands, Hiroyuki Shibata Feb 2021

Varieties Of Transnational Life: Brazilian Nikkeis’ Changing Cross-Border Ties With Two Homelands, Hiroyuki Shibata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the varieties of Brazilian Nikkei’s – Japanese emigrants to Brazil and their descendants – transnational lives throughout a century of their migration history. I propose an interactive process approach to migrant transnationalism to understand the divergence of Brazilian Nikkeis’ transnational lives between their two homelands, Japan and Brazil. First, I focus on the four macro-institutional contexts: 1) positions and development patterns of sending and receiving states within the international state system; the infrastructural power of states, more concretely 2) the diasporic bureaucracy of sending states and 3) the incorporative power of receiving states; and 4) the mobilizing …


The Yakuza: Organized Crime In Japan, Darlene N. Moorman Dec 2020

The Yakuza: Organized Crime In Japan, Darlene N. Moorman

The Downtown Review

Examining organized crime groups should not be purely economic; in other words, the culture, social structure, political contexts, and so on, are also critical in an insightful analysis of any organized crime group. For this paper, the Japanese yakuza are considered both in an economic viewpoint, such as how they make money, but also in other areas, such as its syndicates' notable cultural contributions and specific social characteristics. Moreover, this paper explores the dynamic changing of the organization overtime, especially in regards to its shifting relationship with the Japanese government.


Sealds: A Quantitative Content Analysis Of #Donttrashyourvote On Twitter, Viviek Patel Aug 2020

Sealds: A Quantitative Content Analysis Of #Donttrashyourvote On Twitter, Viviek Patel

Honors Theses

Public relations research has slowly integrated with the study of advocacy organizations, but little research has integrated this and social movements. Using the pyramid model of mobilization-driven relationship-building social media based advocacy, this study employed a quantitative content analysis to examine the prevalence of previously identified communicative functions in social media messages by SEALDs. Unlike previous research on advocacy and health organizations, action messages were the most common. This study also investigated the influence of message type on audience engagement through retweets. The results indicate that information tweets had the most retweets. This study also analyzed how social movements recruit …


Uniquely Okinawan: Determining Identity During The U.S. Wartime Occupation, Courtney A. Short Mar 2020

Uniquely Okinawan: Determining Identity During The U.S. Wartime Occupation, Courtney A. Short

History

When the U.S. military landed on the shores of Okinawa in 1945, they faced not only a fierce and battle-tested Japanese force, but also 463,000 Okinawan inhabitants. Larger than any other civilian population encountered by the Americans during previous campaigns throughout the Pacific islands, the people of Okinawa also had a unique and complex historical and political relationship with Japan. Okinawa never experienced subjugation as a colony, yet its acceptance as a prefecture did not yield equal treatment for the people because of their Ryukyuan heritage. As the U.S. military prepared for the Battle of Okinawa, they faced dangerous uncertainty …


Contemporary Japanese Career Women: Reflections On Profession, Life, And Purpose, Anne Stefanie Aronsson Aarons Mar 2020

Contemporary Japanese Career Women: Reflections On Profession, Life, And Purpose, Anne Stefanie Aronsson Aarons

The Qualitative Report

In this article, I explore what motivates Japanese women to pursue professional careers in today’s neoliberal economy and how they reconfigure notions of selfhood while doing so. I ask why and how one fourth of Japanese women stay on a career track, often against considerable odds, while the other three fourths drop out of the workforce. Employment trends indicate that more white-collar professional women are breaking through the “glass ceiling” and more women are now filling managerial posts. These trends have been supported by the recession, which has led to the liberalization of career paths that fit with women’s tendencies …


Feminist Action Against Pornography In Japan: Unexpected Success In An Unlikely Place, Caroline Norma, Seiya Morita Jan 2020

Feminist Action Against Pornography In Japan: Unexpected Success In An Unlikely Place, Caroline Norma, Seiya Morita

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

In late 2016 a feminist movement against problems of commercial sexual exploitation, and especially issues of coerced pornography filming, arose in Japan. This article describes the history of this movement as it mobilized to combat human rights violations perpetrated by the country’s pornographers. The movement’s success came not spontaneously or haphazardly; in fact, it was orchestrated earlier over a full decade-and-a-half by activists who persevered in researching and highlighting pornography’s harms in a civil environment of hostility, isolation and social derision, even among progressive groups and individuals. The Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (APP) was particularly prominent in this history. …


Beyond Their Homeland: Understanding The Experiences Of Black Women In Japan, Bernadette Tisha Benjamin Jan 2020

Beyond Their Homeland: Understanding The Experiences Of Black Women In Japan, Bernadette Tisha Benjamin

Senior Projects Spring 2020

Understanding how Black women conceptualize the role their racial and gender identities play within their experience in Japan.


American Identities And The Consumption Of Japanese Homoerotica, Caitlin Joyce Jan 2020

American Identities And The Consumption Of Japanese Homoerotica, Caitlin Joyce

Capstone Showcase

My thesis is a cross-cultural comparison of the consumption habits of Japanese and American yaoi or boy’s love (BL) fans, with a particular focus on how the motivations for consuming this type of media may differ between each group. Within my literature review, I start with the history of Japanese homoerotica, from Heian era writings and shunga artwork, to how this has evolved into the modern BL industry in Japan. Additionally, I examine where BL media fits into the landscape of both Japanese and global LGBT+ identity politics. Using identity construction and queer feminist theory, I explore how this type …


La Comunidad Nikkei En Perú: Su Historia, Sus Influencias Y Sus Relaciones Con La Comunidad Indígena En Madre De Dios, Olivia Snyder Oct 2019

La Comunidad Nikkei En Perú: Su Historia, Sus Influencias Y Sus Relaciones Con La Comunidad Indígena En Madre De Dios, Olivia Snyder

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Usando los métodos de observación directo y entrevistas personales, esta tesis analiza el contexto histórico y moderno de la migración japonesa a Perú, específicamente al departamento de Madre de Dios. Este análisis incluye las influencias y cambios provocados por los migrantes japoneses, la pregunta de identidad y doble herencia y la relación entre los descendientes japoneses y las comunidades nativas de Madre de Dios. Los resultados revelan que la primera generación de los migrantes japoneses, los “ isseis ”, generalmente tenía una relación muy cercana con los nativos. Algunas familias japonesas vivían y trabajaban en el Río Tambopata para escapar …


Orientalism, Resistance Or Global Harmony? Entangled Strands In The Film Isle Of Dogs, Soonkwan Hong Aug 2019

Orientalism, Resistance Or Global Harmony? Entangled Strands In The Film Isle Of Dogs, Soonkwan Hong

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.


Education, Enterprise Capitalism, And Equity Challenges: The Continuing Relevance Of The Correspondence Principle In Japan, Masaaki Takemura Aug 2019

Education, Enterprise Capitalism, And Equity Challenges: The Continuing Relevance Of The Correspondence Principle In Japan, Masaaki Takemura

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This paper revisits the correspondence principle of Bowles and Gintis (1976) – which refers to the mutual mimicking of the capitalist hierarchy in the workplace and the school. The Bowles-Gintis model still appears to be working in the context of schooling in Japan. In the international comparative educational assessment called PISA (Program for International Student Assessment), created by OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the association of advanced democratic nations), Japanese students achieve better results than most countries. Japanese students excel in PISA performance, especially in mathematics. Such excellence, however, has negative correlations with students’ creativity, positive attitudes, and …


Virtual Idol Hatsune Miku: Case Study Of New Production/Consumption Phenomena Generated By Network Effects In Japan’S Online Environment, Hajime Kobayashi, Takashi Taguchi Aug 2019

Virtual Idol Hatsune Miku: Case Study Of New Production/Consumption Phenomena Generated By Network Effects In Japan’S Online Environment, Hajime Kobayashi, Takashi Taguchi

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Using Hatsune Miku, a vocaloid or a Desktop Music (DTM) software using voice synthesizer technology, as a case study, this paper explores how consumer generated media (CGM) and user generated content (UGC) diffused in Japan – rapidly at first and then at an erratic and not-so-rapid pace. The creative environment ushered in by the vocaloid platform, it appears, represents a form of "managed creativity", and not a rosy future characterized by a participatory turn to a widespread democratization of creative activity.


A Critical Marketing Practitioner In Japan: Philosophy And Marketing Activities Of Seiji Tsutsumi, Kazuo Usui Aug 2019

A Critical Marketing Practitioner In Japan: Philosophy And Marketing Activities Of Seiji Tsutsumi, Kazuo Usui

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This paper explores some features of marketing activities and marketing thought of a Japanese critical marketing practitioner, Dr. Seiji Tsutsumi. The approach of the paper is biographical. Somewhat paradoxically, the paper finds – in the practices and thoughts of Dr. Seiji Tsutsumi – a refreshingly critical mindset, despite his huge commercial success in retail business in Japan. Similar biographical research should be done in other national contexts, to develop links between practices and critical theories.


Critical Thinking From Japan: Additional Perspectives, Masaaki Takemura, Nikhilesh Dholakia Aug 2019

Critical Thinking From Japan: Additional Perspectives, Masaaki Takemura, Nikhilesh Dholakia

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

No abstract provided.


Japan’S Policy On The Trans-Pacific Partnership (Tpp) In Light Of Ir Theory And Analytical Eclecticism, Daisuke Akimoto Ph.D. Jun 2019

Japan’S Policy On The Trans-Pacific Partnership (Tpp) In Light Of Ir Theory And Analytical Eclecticism, Daisuke Akimoto Ph.D.

Journal of International and Global Studies

Japan’s policy toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement has been controversial at the political, academic, and public levels. The domestic debate on the TPP literally split public opinion in Japan, and academic analyses are apt to be argumentatively divided into pros and cons. Likewise, earlier studies regarding the TPP in the field of international relations offered particular theoretical perspectives, yet tended not to conduct eclectic theoretical examination. In order to overcome the research gap, this paper attempts to provide both narrative and theoretical explanations by applying international relations (IR) theory in combination with “analytical eclecticism” as a research method in …


The Japanese Way In America: A Comparison Of The Spiritual Beliefs, Habits, And Ideas Of The American Religious ‘Nones’ And Contemporary Japanese Nationals, Jarrett Stalinger May 2019

The Japanese Way In America: A Comparison Of The Spiritual Beliefs, Habits, And Ideas Of The American Religious ‘Nones’ And Contemporary Japanese Nationals, Jarrett Stalinger

Honors Program Projects

There has been growing interest in the religiously unaffiliated within America. This growing interest has caused a new name to come about, the Nones. The present discussion attempts to give context to the rise of the Nones and to compare the religious beliefs and habits of these American Nones with the Japanese Nationals who inhabit Japan. There are many similarities between these two groups relating to ethics, interactions with people, and connection with nature. These comparisons show that there is a possible connection between people which explains spiritual experience, even outside that of normalized, institutional religions. This “intuition of the …


The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered In - A Comparative Analysis Of Social Withdrawal In Japan And Taiwan, Kelly Lee Armetta Feb 2019

The Nail That Sticks Out Gets Hammered In - A Comparative Analysis Of Social Withdrawal In Japan And Taiwan, Kelly Lee Armetta

Senior Theses

This undergraduate senior thesis analyzes the phenomenon of social withdrawal and the conditions that foster it in Japan and Taiwan. I argue that hikikomori, which is the infamous lifestyle of young Japanese men who isolate themselves in their rooms, is not unique to Japanese culture. My findings indicate that hikikomori is a social disease that arises from socio-economic circumstances. I believe the presence of hikikomori in Japan is due most to postmodernity combined with a foundation of Confucian familial values. Taiwan shares the same history of Confucian familial values but is not considered a postmodern society. There is little research …


Perils Of Hollywood Whitewashing?: A Review Of 'Ghost In The Shell' Movie, Kosuke Mizukoshi Sep 2018

Perils Of Hollywood Whitewashing?: A Review Of 'Ghost In The Shell' Movie, Kosuke Mizukoshi

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

'Ghost in the Shell' was first produced as a Japanese animated film in 1995. The movie and its sequels established a cult status due to the philosophical depth in portraying the posthuman condition. It was remade as a live action Hollywood film in 2017; and this version failed at the box office. One reason had to be the “whitewashing” issue – that the female protagonist was played by a white actress in the Hollywood movie, rather than a Japanese character as in the original anime. This review essay critically discusses issues of whitewashing, racial ‘identity’, the shifting identity of the …


Revisiting The Creation Of Meaning By Media: A Perspective From Japan, Satoko Suzuki Sep 2018

Revisiting The Creation Of Meaning By Media: A Perspective From Japan, Satoko Suzuki

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This paper revisits the role of media in the meaning-construction system. In consumer research, media are often regarded as gatekeepers in the system. This paper focuses on the media’s other role -- as the creator of meanings. In this paper, an interpretive analysis of magazine articles regarding the ‘jibun e no gohoubi’ [self-reward] consumption since 1990 has been conducted. The findings indicate that the media had created the meanings of sacred and profane consumption acts, in the domain of self-reward consumption. In addition, the paper explores the influence of media in liberating and empowering Japanese women.


From Social Marketing To Societal Perversion: History Of Hometown Tax In Japan, Yuichiro Hidaka, Kosuke Mizukoshi Sep 2018

From Social Marketing To Societal Perversion: History Of Hometown Tax In Japan, Yuichiro Hidaka, Kosuke Mizukoshi

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

This paper considers social marketing from a critical perspective. The paper traces the history of the donation system named ‘hometown tax’ that the Japanese government introduced to promote local revitalization of relatively marginal communities. Owing to the lavish reciprocal gifts to “donors” by the administrators of these communities, the system resulted in a quasi-market that allowed donors to avoid paying taxes and to receive special benefits. Our analysis reveals the divergence of the intents and effects of this social marketing intervention. The findings indicate that during social marketing attempts to carry out effective and well-intentioned interventions, which social marketing research …