Internationalization of Japanese sociology

Abstract

This article tries to answer two questions: Why has Japanese sociology been so little known in the world? How do we internationalize Japanese sociology? The first point which this article raises is that Japan and Japanese sociology tend to presuppose two dichotomies: premodern–modern and particularism–universalism. Therefore Japan and Japanese sociology tend to understand Japan as unique and deviating from the West. The second point this article deals with is that Japanese sociologists are doing ‘homolingual address’ rather than ‘heterolingual address’. The article shows that reflexive endless translation is necessary for all of us, not only for Japanese sociologists but also sociologists all over the world. In this context, the article stresses the importance of Gerard Delanty’s analysis of the relationship between cultural translation and modernity. His analysis can explain how modernity becomes a form of culture and the West will lose its monopoly of universality. The last part of this article shows that sociology in Japan is intensifying the internationalization of its products, especially since the 1990s.