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Set in a Japanese care facility, the "100-Hour Tour" uses a "tourist gaze" to strip guests' "social armor." We argue that this radical "irresponsibility" allows guests to inhabit "Crip Time," demonstrating that true coexistence is forged by accepting the raw, unmanaged reality of diversity.

Paper long abstract

In contemporary Japan, true social inclusion is often hindered by the rigid "social armor" (roles and personas) that individuals wear. In the context of disability, this armor manifests as the ethical pressure to be a "supporter," enforcing a taboo against objectifying people with disabilities. Consequently, "diversity" remains a sanitized concept where chaotic realities are hidden behind professional distance.

This paper examines a radical methodology that overturns this norm: the "Time Travel 100-Hour Tour" by Creative Support Let's in Hamamatsu. Operating at the intersection of critical disability studies and Socially Engaged Art (SEA), the tour invites guests to live with residents with severe disabilities for 100 hours. Crucially, the project explicitly encourages the "tourist gaze." Rather than asking guests to "understand" or "care for" the residents, it invites them to view the chaotic behaviors and "Crip Time" (a temporality of repetition and unpredictability) as cultural resources.

Methodologically, this study relies on participant observation and semi-structured interviews to analyze the guests' subjective experiences. The analysis reveals that legitimizing the "tourist gaze" functions as a powerful device to strip off the "social armor." By being permitted to be mere "tourists"—observers without the responsibility to care—guests are liberated from the moral obligation to be "productive supporters."

While interview data indicates that this "non-intervention" policy initially provokes anxiety or confusion due to the lack of societal scripts, the study argues that this friction is essential. This position of "irresponsibility" forces guests to confront the raw reality of diversity. The study concludes that this project successfully demonstrates a model of "Radical Diversity." By allowing guests to simply "be" in the realm of Crip Time, Let's proves that genuine coexistence is forged not through managed harmony, but by accepting the chaotic co-presence of naked existences.

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Using the sociological perspective of “stranger theory,” this presentation answers the question, “Why do ‘strangers’ contribute to the Aomori Nebuta Festival’s management?” In answering this question, the presentation considers the possibility of “strangers” continuing the traditional festival.

Paper long abstract

Japanese society is widely recognized as facing population decline and rapid aging. Despite these demographic challenges, large-scale traditional festivals continue to thrive. One reason is that participation is not limited to members of official festival management organizations but also includes “strangers,” namely individuals who are anonymous to the management organization and participate primarily for enjoyment.

The Aomori Nebuta Festival, a traditional event held in Aomori City, Aomori Prefecture, attracts a particularly large number of such “strangers.” Anyone may participate as a haneto dancer. Consequently, around the year 2000, chaos arose due to “karasu-haneto,” participants dressed in black like crows, who behaved violently and disrupted the parade. Previous studies have argued that the Aomori Nebuta Festival is inherently difficult to control because it attracts “strangers” motivated by enjoyment rather than organizational affiliation.

So, are the “strangers” who participate in the current Aomori Nebuta Festival impossible for its management organization to control? In the case of Organization A’s Nebuta parade, which serves as an example in this presentation, “strangers” known as “haneto-riders”—a traveling group with many motorcycle enthusiasts who continue to participate in the Nebuta Festival—contribute to the management of Organization A’s Nebuta parade by controlling karasu-haneto, who are also “strangers.” This phenomenon cannot be adequately explained by previous research.

Thus, using the sociological perspective of “stranger theory,” this presentation answers the question, “Why do ‘strangers’ contribute to the Aomori Nebuta Festival’s management?” In answering this question, the presentation considers the possibility of “strangers” continuing the traditional festival. Having conducted fieldwork with haneto-riders for eight years, the presenter explains that haneto-riders who wish to have a long-term relationship with Organization A demonstrate their usefulness to festival management by eliminating karasu-haneto. Contrary to earlier findings, the Aomori Nebuta Festival is shown to sustain a paradoxical structure in which enjoyment-oriented “strangers” voluntarily contribute to festival management and continuity.

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This paper explores the growing use of gender-neutral names in contemporary Japan, focusing on the motivations and decision-making processes behind their selection. Findings show that such naming reflects broader shifts in naming conventions rather than a conscious engagement with gender issues.

Paper long abstract

Since the late 20th century and into the new millennium, Japanese given names have undergone significant changes and diversification (e.g., Kobayashi, 2009; Makino, 2012; Ogihara et al., 2015), driven by the rise of individualization, globalization, and growing attention to gender issues. Within this trend, gender-neutral names have become increasingly visible (Barešová & Nakaya, 2025). Based on a qualitative content analysis of name-selection narratives (nazuke episōdo) involving gender-neutral names submitted to a popular parenting website over a fifteen-year period (2008–2022), this paper explores the motivations and decision-making processes behind their selection.

The findings reveal that gender-neutral names are infrequently chosen with gender-related social concerns in mind. Only a minority of namegivers explicitly mentioned gender neutrality, and even fewer cited social motivations such as avoiding gender stereotypes, anticipating future gender identity, or minimizing gender-based discrimination. In many cases, such names emerged as an unintended outcome of the name-selection process and the gender-neutral character was often recognized only retrospectively or treated as an incidental advantage rather than a guiding principle.

The paper situates these findings within the evolving landscape of Japanese naming practices, arguing that gender-neutral naming often reflects broader shifts in naming conventions rather than a conscious engagement with gender issues. Even so, their increasing presence contributes to a gradual reworking of gender norms in everyday life, illustrating how naming participates in “doing gender” (Pilcher, 2017) in subtle, non-programmatic ways.

Barešová, I., & Nakaya, T. (2025). Gender-neutral names in the youngest Japanese generation: Characteristics of their phonological and graphic forms. Sociolinguistic Studies, 19(1–2), 86–106.

Kobayashi, Y. (2009). Nazuke no sesōshi. “Koseiteki na namae” o fīrudowāku. Fūkyōsha.

Makino, K. (2012). Kodomo no namae ga abunai. Besuto Serāzu.

Ogihara, Y., Fujita, H., Tominaga, H., Ishigaki, S., Kashimoto, T., Takahashi, A., Toyohara, K., & Uchida, Y. (2015). Are common names becoming less common? The rise in uniqueness and individualism in Japan. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1490.

Pilcher, J. (2017). Names and “doing gender”: How forenames and surnames contribute to gender identities, difference, and inequalities. Sex Roles, 77, 812–822.

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This paper examines how translation is socially organized and spatially situated between Japan and Korea through an ethnographic study of CUON and its book café Chekccori in Jimbochō. It shows how translation works as cultural infrastructure linking places, communities, and affect across borders.

Paper long abstract

Keywords: translation, place, publishing, Japan–Korea relations, poetry

How are practices of translation located and understood, both socially and in terms of physical place, in the space between Japan and Korea? Through participant observation and interviews, this anthropological research analyzes the spaces created by CUON, a publishing house specializing in translations of Korean literature, and its book cafe Chekccori located in Jimbocho, Tokyo. Describing the role of CUON, Zainichi Korean author Kim Sok-Pom remarked to me, "It's like a terminal. Well, not yet at the level of a terminal... but shall we say international? It's not that it is perched in a small shop in Kanda (Jimbocho), it is that it's spreading its wings from there." These metaphors of movement in place—a terminal and a bird poised to fly—point to a dynamic, multidirectional interconnection between Japan and Korea created through books. I sketch an ethnographic portrait of CUON, Chekccori, and the community of translators and authors who gather here.

Focusing on the production of a book of renshi (connected poems) written in conversation between Tanikawa Shuntaro and Shin Kyeong-Nim, mediated by translator Yoshikawa Nagi and CUON CEO Kim Sungbok, I aim to show that translation creates a multi-modal infrastructure for affective transnational connections. By tracing the evolution of the book, which grew from a taidan (conversation) event held in Jimbocho, events held in Paju, South Korea (included in the book as transcripts), and composed via correspondence, I show a social world where textual creation and translation unfold through connectivity crossing borders.

Translation studies has often approached linguistic communities as bounded entities, whereas this research foregrounds their overlap, entanglement, and mutual constitution. Drawing on Susan Gal's understanding of translation as a tool that can create "material persistence and social connection over time and space" (Gal 2015, 236), I reexamine how texts and translations restructure relationships between Korea and Japan. I frame Jimbocho and Paju as sites of translation in and the book itself as a textual and social space. Through this analysis, I shed light on intersections of place, community, and practices of translation in the relational space between Japan and Korea.