[How have Japanese primary care physicians carried out vaccinations against COVID-19? : Attempts at making the non-scalable 'scalable'].

Vaccine rollouts have been underway to combat the COVID-19 pandemic globally. Based on ongoing interviews with ten primary care physicians 'in the field', this paper elucidates how in practice the vaccinations were carried out in Japan in 2021 from a cultural anthropological perspective. We examine what the primary care physicians did to prepare for the rollouts, what problems they faced, and how they responded to these problems.

Primary care physicians' narratives on COVID-19 responses in Japan: Professional roles evoked under a pandemic.

Background: Within the vague system of primary care and COVID-19 infection control in Japan, we explored how primary care (PC) physicians exhibited adaptive performance in their institutions and communities to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic from January to May 2020.

Methods: Narrative analysis conducted by a team of medical professionals and anthropologists. We purposefully selected 10 PC physicians in community-based hospitals and clinics and conducted a total of 17 individual and group interviews.

[On two ends of minority politics: an anthropological analysis of hattatsu shōgai and hikikomori communities].

This paper provides a comparative analysis of two communities in Japan based on long-term anthropological fieldwork: one is the community of those with hattatsu shōgai (developmental disorder) and their families and the other is the community of those who have experienced hikikomori and their families. The purpose of this paper is to examine the similarities and differences between the two communities in terms of the ways in which medical diagnoses are understood, identities are formed and certain perspectives on society are shared. By doing so, we attempt to move beyond the clinical sphere to capture the sociocultural significance of "being" an individual with developmental disorder or hikikomori experience.