This paper critically examines the problems of Japan's "multicultural coexistence" policy (MCP) and explores the possibility of "imploding" the MCP. The MCP has been vigorously discussed and promoted by the Japanese government in recent years. The paper first examines the problems in the MCP based on discussions on multiculturalism by Lisa YONEYAMA [2003, 2006]. YONEYAMA identifies three categories of discourse on multiculturalism - namely, corporate multiculturalism, liberal multiculturalism, and critical multiculturalism - and critically examines the former two from the perspective of critical multiculturalism. Although the MCP has some significance in promoting a comprehensive national policy towards foreign residents, it shares similar problems with corporate multiculturalism and liberal multiculturalism. One of the most important problems of the MCP is its reification of the boundary between Japanese and foreigners, thus reinforcing the culutural hegemony of the dominant Japanese. While YONEYAMA advocates critical multiculturalism instead of corporate multiculturalism and liberal multiculturalism, some scholars argue that critical multiculturalism does not necessarily lead to the empowerment of minority people [cf. SHIOBARA 2005]. In light of such considerations, how can we envisage the possibility of imploding the MCP? The author sees the chances of that happening in the activities of "Kyojukon," a citizen group based in the Okubo district of Shinjuku ward in Tokyo. The population of foreign residents in the Okubo district has been rapidly increasing since the late 1980s. Under these circumstances, Kyojukon, established in 1992, has been engaged in various activities to promote multicultural coexistence between Japanese and foreign residents in the Okubo district. Kyojukon has also been conducting fieldwork over the years to understand the situation in the district, and as a result, they recently introduced the concept of "multidimensional culture," which takes into account not only ethnicity and nationality, but also gender, age, occupation, class, ability/disability, and other traits. In the latter part of this paper, the author argues the significance of Kyojukon's concept of multidimensional culture and its activities based on the concept from the perspective of "multiculturalism within" [MORRIS-SUZUKI 2002].

The purposes of this paper are to track the main trends of Okinawan studies by Japanese scholars from the Meiji period to the present and to discuss the prospects for future studies. Before the Asian-Pacific War, most scholars embraced and attempted to verify the hypothesis called Nichiryu dosoron in which the Okinawan and Yamato peoples were thought to have a common racial and ethnic ancestry. After the war, however, interest in the origins of the Okinawan and Japanese peoples declined while interest in the socio-religious aspects of Okinawan culture increased. In the last two decades, Okinawan studies have become more diversified and specialized than ever before under the influence of postmodernism and postcolonialism. There are still, however, important subjects that remain almost untouched in Okinawan studies. Along with exploring subjects that have been ignored in the past, practitioners of Okinawan studies should strive to provide a common platform for promoting dialogue among themselves.

<p>The concern with "media" has greatly increased over the last decade in Anglo-American anthropology. This growing interest in media has opened the way for "media anthropology", an emergent sub-field of sociocultural anthropology. This paper first examines the concept of media, and then critically reviews the two prevalent kinds of Anglo-American media anthropology. The purpose of the paper is to clarify the scope of media anthropology and to provide a new framework for future studies. Chapter two takes up the concept of "media". First, I examine the concept of media and define it broadly as "something people use as a means of encoding, transmitting, decoding, storing, or converting socially significant information". Secondly, I focus on "mass media", that is, newspapers, TV, radio, and other print and electronic media, because in Anglo-American anthropology, and for that matter in Japanese anthropology, the recent concern has been almost exclusively with mass media. Most Anglo-American anthropologists equate the word "media" with the term "mass media"; I would, however, like to make a distinction between the two, as stated above, and to take into consideration forms of media other than mass media. Broadly speaking, media theorists recognize four major forms of media : oral language, written symbol systems, print media, and electronic media. As a sub-field of the discipline with perspectives on the history of humankind, media anthropology should take all these major forms into consideration and recognize the particular characteristics of each of these forms, even if the focus is on mass media. Thirdly, I introduce the model of social communication proposed by Toshiro TAKEUCHI to clarify the scope of media anthropology. TAKEUCHI provides four ideal types of social communication in terms of anonymity of participants in communication : interpersonal communication, club (or small group) communication, organizational communication, and public communication. TAKEUCHI's model is, I think, more exhaustive than models given by other communication theorists because he does not connect each type of communication (e.g. public communication) with a particular type of medium (e.g. mass media), as other theorists often do. Using his model, we can take an overall view of carious types of communication, such as interpersonal communication by electronic media, or public communication by oral language, both of which have been frequently ignored by other theorists. I would like to include the use of mass media as a means of interpersonal communication, club communication, or organizational communication, among the scope of media anthropology. It is also important to take into account social communication by various other media that grows out of mass media (e.g. media fandom). Chapter three critically reviews the two prevalent kinds of Anglo-American media anthropology. For convenience, I would like to call one of them "Media Anthropology I", and then other "Media Anthropology II". Media Anthropology I, that has been emerging since the 1990s, comprises "ethnographically informed, historically grounded, and context-sensitive analyses of the ways in which people use and make sense of media technologies". I argue that cultural studies, especially those works by British scholars such as Raymond WILLIAMS and Stuart HALL have provided the prevalent framework for Media Anthropology I, while other media studies have been almost completely ignored. The concern with mass media as an object of anthropological study is, as stated above, only a recent affair. Media Anthropology II, however, emerged as early as the 1970s. It can be defined as a field "that synthesizes aspects of journalism and anthropology for the explicit purpose of sensitizing as many of Earth's citizens as possible to</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>