Research Reports

A Pragmatic and Cultural Semiotic Approach to Japanese Advertising Discourse

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Oana-Maria BIRLEA birlea.oana[@]hotmail.com Babes-Bolyai University   My research project is concerned with the pragmatics and cultural semiotics of Japanese advertising discourse constructed around the concept kawaii. Understanding cultural keywords grants permission to cultural insights of society and moreover, the results of discourse analysis with a focus on affect words provide the necessity to discover existing … Read more

The Social Invisibility of Radiation after Fukushima

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Giulia DE TOGNI giulia.de.togni[@]ed.ac.uk University of Edinburgh     In 2016-2017, I carried out fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Japan with the populations displaced by the Fukushima disaster. In particular, I collaborated as a volunteer with NGOs that have organized recreative activities and health screenings for the nuclear evacuees living in temporary housing facilities … Read more

The Narrow Streets behind the Doors of Perception: Everyday Urban Spaces Studied through Multisensory Perception and Fragmented Discourses

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Florian PURKARTHOFER florian.purkarthofer[@]univie.ac.at University of Vienna   The lingering scent of food served in small restaurants, the clattering sounds of commuter trains running along the tracks accompanied by a slight shaking of the uneven road – these and many more sensations are transmitted via streets and public spaces, as mode of mediation (Galloway, 2012, p. … Read more

“Kimochi ga wakaranai” Recovery Standing in the Way of Recovery in Tohoku

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Anna VAINIO aevainio1[@]sheffield.ac.uk University of Sheffield    Between 2015 and 2016, I spent 13-months traveling up and down the coastline of Miyagi, talking to people in multiple locations to gauge their experiences of the recovery following the Triple Disaster of 3/11 and the imaginations and ideas they held for the future. I was carrying out … Read more

The Analyzation of the Language Revitalisation Techniques on the Ryūkyū Islands from a Multidisciplinary Perspective

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Zsófia HIDVÉGI zsohidvegi[@]gmail.com Eötvös Loránd University, Hungary   I started my research in 2011, during a yearlong scholarship at Josai Kokusai University (Tōgane, Chiba). I was examining the language use and code switch of university students of Okinawan origin, and the language shift of the younger generations toward standard Japanese, especially if they were settled … Read more

The Japanese Art of Listening: An Ethnographic Investigation into the Role of the Listener

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  Nanase SHIROTA ns637[@]cam.ac.uk University of Cambridge   What makes a good listener? What does it mean to be a good listener in contemporary Japanese society? My current ethnographic project investigates the art of listening in hostesses (escorts or contemporary geisha) and listening volunteers in Japan, in addition to analysing self-help literature on listening. In … Read more

People, Plants and Life Stance

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Emilie LETOUZEY emi.letouzey[@]gmail.com Université Toulouse 2 Jean-Jaurès My research is about practices and conceptions of plants as living things in Japan, and I have been doing my fieldwork among amateurs and professionals of domestic plants’ cultivation in urban Kansai area (esp. Ōsaka, Amagasaki, Ikeda), paying much attention to horticultural techniques. So far I have been spending … Read more

Narratives of Shamans in Contemporary Japan

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Silvia RIVADOSSI rivadossi.silvia[@]gmail.com Ca’ Foscari University of Venice Recent studies of shamanism in contemporary Japan have mainly focused on “traditional” shamans – especially itakoand yuta– who are located in peripheral areas of the country (see, for example, Chilson and Knecht 2003, Hirayama 2005, Ivy 1995, Kawamura 1994, Knecht 2004 and Shiotsuki 2012). Hence, the situation in its … Read more