culture-2 The Imperial Past of Anthropology in Japan Katsumi Nakao Nakao argues that to explore the history of prewar ethnographic research istantamount to remembering and confronting mo
Trang 2A Companion to the Anthropology
of Japan
Edited by Jennifer Robertson
Trang 3the Anthropology
of Japan
Trang 4Blackwell Companions to Anthropology offers a series of comprehensive syntheses ofthe traditional subdisciplines, primary subjects, and geographic areas of inquiry forthe field Taken together, the titles in the series represent both a contemporary survey
of anthropology and a cutting-edge guide to the emerging research and intellectualtrends in the field as a whole
1 A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology
edited by Alessandro Duranti
2 A Companion to the Anthropology of Politics
edited by David Nugent and Joan Vincent
3 A Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians
edited by Thomas Biolsi
4 A Companion to Psychological Anthropology
edited by Conerly Casey and Robert B Edgerton
5 A Companion to the Anthropology of Japan
edited by Jennifer Robertson
Forthcoming
A Companion to Latin American Anthropology
edited by Deborah Poole
Trang 5B L A C K W E L L P U B L I S H I N G
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia
The right of Jennifer Robertson to be identified as the Author of the Editorial Material in this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
1 2005
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A companion to the anthropology of Japan / edited by Jennifer Robertson.
p cm — (Blackwell companions to anthropology ; 5)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-10 0-631-22955-8 (hardcover : alk paper)
1 Ethnology—Japan 2 Japan—Social life and customs I Robertson, Jennifer Ellen II Series GN635.J2C65 2005
306’.0952—c22
2004022308 ISBN-13 978-0-631-22955-1
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Set in 10/12.5 pt Galliard
by Kolam Information Services Pvt Ltd, Pondicherry, India
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards.
For further information on
Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:
www.blackwellpublishing.com
Trang 61 Introduction: Putting and Keeping Japan in Anthropology 3Jennifer Robertson
Part II: Cultures, Histories, and Identities 17
2 The Imperial Past of Anthropology in Japan 19Katsumi Nakao
3 Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Properties Management:
Trang 79 The Anthropology of Japanese Corporate Management 125Tomoko Hamada
10 Fashioning Cultural Identity: Body and Dress 153Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni
Sabine Fru¨hstu¨ck
Part III: Geographies and Boundaries, Spaces and Sentiments 183
12 On the ‘‘Nature’’ of Japanese Culture, or, Is There a Japanese
Part IV: Socialization, Assimilation, and Identification 245
16 Formal Caring Alternatives: Kindergartens and Day-Care Centers 247Eyal Ben-Ari
17 Post-Compulsory Schooling and the Legacy of Imperialism 261Brian J McVeigh
18 Theorizing the Cultural Importance of Play: Anthropological
Approaches to Sports and Recreation of Japan 279Elise Edwards
19 Popular Entertainment and the Music Industry 297Shuhei Hosokawa
20 There’s More thanManga: Popular Nonfiction Books and Magazines 314Laura Miller
21 Biopower: Blood, Kinship, and Eugenic Marriage 329Jennifer Robertson
22 TheIe (Family) in Global Perspective 355Emiko Ochiai
23 Constrained Person and Creative Agent: A Dying Student’s
Susan Orpett Long
Trang 824 Nation, Citizenship, and Cinema 400Aaron Gerow
25 Culinary Culture and the Making of a National Cuisine 415Katarzyna Cwiertka
Part VI: Religion and Science, Beliefs and Bioethics 429
26 Historical, New, and ‘‘New’’ New Religions 431Ian Reader
27 Folk Religion and its Contemporary Issues 452Noriko Kawahashi
28 Women Scientists and Gender Ideology 467Sumiko Otsubo
29 Preserving Moral Order: Responses to Biomedical Technologies 483Margaret Lock
Trang 9Synopsis of Contents
Part II: Cultures, Histories, and Identities
The essays in this section critically examine the processes of history- and making along with identity formation, majority and minority alike
culture-2 The Imperial Past of Anthropology in Japan
Katsumi Nakao
Nakao argues that to explore the history of prewar ethnographic research istantamount to remembering and confronting modern Japan’s imperialist past.The apparent ‘‘historical amnesia’’ among anthropologists in Japan parallels the lowlevel of historical consciousness of Japanese people in general about Japan’s imperialpast Ethnographic research in the first half of the 20th century collectively helped
to facilitate Japan’s administration of its scattered Asian Pacific empire As Nakaoshows, Japanese anthropology of the imperial period – the late 19th century through
Trang 101945 – possessed a distinctive character that calls for wider recognition and analyticalscrutiny.
3 Japanese Archaeology and Cultural Properties Management: Prewar Ideology and Postwar Legacies
Walter Edwards
Edwards explains how, as part of Japanese efforts at modernization, the adoption
of Western academic disciplines in the late 19th century included the introduction ofscientific archaeology Early cultural properties management policies had a strongideological component, in large part a consequence of the symbolic importanceplaced on the imperial institution, taken to be a source of pride for the nation inthe modern world due to its ‘‘unique continuity from an ancient and divine origin.’’The legacy of the imperial household on archaeology today is investigated
4 Feminism, Timelines, and History-Making
of history-writing, and the contested discourses on the politics of history-writing incontemporary Japan
5 Making Majority Culture
Roger Goodman
Goodman poses the rhetorical question, ‘‘Who are ‘the Japanese’?’’ While there isevidence of attempts to construct ideas of Japanese ethnic identity that go back twomillennia, most commentators point to the Meiji period (1868–1912) as when thisprocess became particularly emphasized in Japan Faced by both internal and externalthreats, the Meiji oligarchs developed a rich litany of symbols and rituals that helped
to construct the ideas of Japaneseness that were disseminated through an educationsystem constructed, in part, for that purpose Scholarly research on Japanese ethnicidentity together with popular notions of the superiority of Japanese culture came tothe fore again in the 1980s as the Japanese economy went into overdrive Goodmanpoints out the presumption, in these dominant ideas of Japaneseness, that ‘‘culture’’
is static, timeless, and self-evident
6 Political and Cultural Perspectives on ‘‘Insider’’ Minorities
Joshua Hotaka Roth
Roth reminds us that there are a variety of ‘‘insider’’ minorities in Japan – theBurakumin, Ainu, Okinawans, Nikkeijin, the disabled, and atomic bomb victims.These groups vary widely in size, history, consciousness as groups, and criteria for
Trang 11membership Yet they have several characteristics in common that justifies theirtreatment together They are all ‘‘insiders’’ in the sense that most other Japanesecurrently do not question their status as Japanese Insider status does not, however,shield any of these groups from discrimination Roth explores and compares the twomajor perspectives – cultural and political – that are used by social scientists inanalyzing discrimination in Japan, and offers a synthesis.
7 Japan’s Ethnic Minority: Koreans
Sonia Ryang
Ryang argues that studies of ethnic minorities in Japan lag behind in the overallscheme of the anthropology of Japan Koreans in Japan, perhaps the best-exploredgroup in light of this situation, still need to be looked at from multiple angles anddimensions in terms of analysis and interpretation This has been done by Koreanand Japanese writers in Japan, but the Anglophone literature on Koreans in Japan hasmany gaps Ryang reminds us that the main purpose of studying Koreans in Japan is
to understand their position in Japanese society as an indissoluble part of Japan itself,
as well as to grasp their internal situation as ‘‘resident aliens.’’
8 Shifting Contours of Class and Status
Glenda S Roberts
Roberts looks critically at the contours of class and status in Japan, focusing inparticular on the rise of egalitarianism in the postwar era and the manifestations ofsocial class through the lens of gender She argues that we need more research on theways in which gender and ethnicity inform social class practices The contours of classand status in Japan appear to be shifting away from a large ‘‘middle-mass’’ toward
a more polarized society, characterized by less job stability even for the middle classes,and increasing concern in the media over the uncertainties that accompany thecurrent fluid situation
9 The Anthropology of Japanese Corporate Management
Tomoko Hamada
Hamada notes that during the 1960s, Japan was often cited as a case in point tosupport or refute dominant Western theories of economic development and mod-ernization, and the ‘‘Japanese style of management’’ was presented as a distinctcultural form With the bursting of Japan’s economic bubble in the early 1990s andthe consequent continuing recession emerged a new research agenda to investigatethe pathological aspects of corporate Japan As Hamada shows, in the 21st century,the theme of ‘‘globalization’’ has been affixed to this agenda, where the globalstandard as the dominant Western norm is positioned against the reality of diverseadaptative mechanisms among and within contemporary capitalistic entities ofunequal relations
Trang 1210 Fashioning Cultural Identity: Body and Dress
Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni
Goldstein-Gidoni explores the centrality of distinctions in dress in the construction ofJapanese cultural identity Modern Japanese wear both Western-style clothing(yo¯fuku) and Japanese-style attire (wafuku), although the latter is worn mainly onceremonial occasions She considers the dynamic process of the construction ofgendered cultural identities in modern Japan through both a historic perspectiveand present-day ethnography, looking closely at the gendered effects created throughclothing in the coming-of-age ceremony (seijin shiki) The sartorial politics of culturalidentity in modern Japan consists of two separate but related aspects: the culturalconstruction of what is Japanese and what is Western, and the construction of ‘‘thetraditional’’ and ‘‘the modern.’’
11 Genders and Sexualities
Sabine Fru¨hstu¨ck
Fru¨hstu¨ck identifies three main trends that have characterized anthropological studies
on sex, gender, and sexuality in Japan Studies on women as Other attempt to bringwomen’s lives into view where previously this had not been pursued as a researchobjective in its own right Gender studies since the late 1970s have been based on afeminist understanding of the sex-gender system as consisting of two distinct ifintertwined categories of biological characteristics and sociocultural attributes.These studies have also overwhelmingly focused on women, but they more criticallyexamine gender-formation processes in a variety of areas ranging from families tohealth and politics A third, recent, trend suggests that genders and sexualities inJapan are even more ambivalent and ambiguous than previously acknowledged.These most recent analyses reconsider and interrogate the integration of women’sand men’s social and sexual experience
Part III: Geographies and Boundaries, Spaces and Sentiments
The essays in this section explore the different degrees and configurations of thegeographic and sentimental boundaries delineating Japaneseness
12 On the ‘‘Nature’’ of Japanese Culture, or, Is There a Japanese Sense
of Nature?
D P Martinez
Martinez observes that conventionally, ‘‘the Japanese’’ sense of nature is depicted asbeing both unique and homogenous: it is seen to be holistic and different from ‘‘theWestern concept.’’ She challenges this representation as one that falls back on thesimplest forms of Othering and Orientalism Yet, it must be noted, there is awidespread Orientalist assumption among many Japanese that their natureis some-how unique and that part of the experience of being Japanese includes the ‘‘unusual’’
Trang 13experience of living on islands, with the threat of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, andtyphoons, and with four very clearly marked seasons Martinez questions whether this
is really the most accurate way to understand Japanese attitudes toward nature
13 The Rural Imaginary: Landscape, Village, Tradition
Scott Schnell
Schnell writes that, although Japan has become a highly urbanized and cosmopolitansociety, its culture is still perceived as being heavily rooted in the agrarian –and specifically rice paddy – traditions of its rural villages The privileging of riceproduction as cultural exemplar, however, serves to both obscure and discredit anumber of alternative traditions, such as those of mountain communities where theland is too rugged for growing rice Many rural communities have turned to localtourism as a means of economic development, often reinforcing in the processthe stereotypes about them Schnell argues that rural residents are more knowledge-able about the metropolitan center than the center is about them, and that theflow of information from television and other nationally distributed mass media isunidirectional
14 Tokyo’s Third Rebuilding: New Twists on Old Patterns
Roman Cybriwsky
Cybriwsky reports on recent changes in Tokyo’s built environment that are strikinglyrepresented in four sites near the city’s center: the commercial center of Shinjuku;the well-known redevelopment project named Yebisu Garden Place; a new urbandistrict on fresh landfill named Daiba; and a redeveloped old residential neighbor-hood named Shioiri Collectively, these are new landscapes that provide insight tocurrent features of Japanese society He offers a critical analysis of the four sites, andpoints to the various excesses that characterized the economic bubble of the 1980sand early 1990s, the disproportionate influence on the country of the constructionindustry, the peculiar and extraordinary desire of Japanese to show themselves asbeing ‘‘international’’ and world-wise, and the persistence of various old ways inmodern Japanese life
15 Japan’s Global Village: A View from the World of Leisure
Joy Hendry
Hendry shows that leisure activities in contemporary Japan encompass an interest in
‘‘the global.’’ She offers an interpretation of the significance of foreign countrytheme parks, some apparently foreign restaurants, and longer-standing architecturalinnovations, as well as influences in contemporary music Recent trends in localtourism demonstrate the deep interest of Japanese people in many parts of theworld beyond the United States, whose influence has dominated postwar Japaneseperceptions of ‘‘abroad.’’ The choice of restaurants, theme parks, and holiday loca-tions has recently been made in a spirit of greatly increased knowledge of the places inquestion, and Hendry attempts to show how this richer awareness may have affectedaspects of daily life, internal attitudes to global issues, and sources of Japaneseidentity
Trang 14Part IV: Socialization, Assimilation, and Identification
The essays in this section introduce institutions, in the broadest sense, that bothenable and inhibit personal and cultural agency
16 Formal Caring Alternatives: Kindergartens and Day-Care Centers
Eyal Ben-Ari
Ben-Ari explores the role and rationale of the Japanese state in structuring the school system, and shows that a focus on how children constantly question differentstructures of meaning is important Japanese preschools enroll over 95 percent ofJapanese children and are differentiated into kindergartens and day-care centers.Whereas kindergartens are educational institutions, day-care centers have a custodialrole for children of working mothers The main differences between preschoolsare based on class, government versus private institutions, and religious affiliation.The trend to smaller families has led to competition centered on attracting children
pre-on the basis of each institutipre-on’s distinctive character
17 Post-Compulsory Schooling and the Legacy of Imperialism
Brian J McVeigh
McVeigh investigates how Japan’s imperial legacy relates to its post-compulsoryschooling system Vestiges of imperialism and trans-war continuities are apparent intwo ideological currents: ‘‘colonial Japan’’ and ‘‘superior Japan.’’ In order to illus-trate these currents, throughout his analysis of post-compulsory schooling McVeighweaves five themes: (1) trans-war continuity of state structures; (2) an educatio-examination system driven by economic nationalism; (3) the myth of a ‘‘homoge-neous’’ Japan; (4) confronting the wartime era; and (5) a patriarchal capitalist system.Such themes deeply implicate definitions of ‘‘Japaneseness’’ (political/citizenship,ethnocultural/heritage, or ‘‘racial’’/perceived physical traits)
18 Theorizing the Cultural Importance of Play: Anthropological Approaches to Sports and Recreation
Elise Edwards
Edwards notes that, paralleling trends in the United States and Europe, the discipline
of physical anthropology in Japan was a central force in the late 19th-centurydevelopment of physical education programs and influenced the character of sportingpractices She provides a sense of the questions and interests that have fueled anthro-pological explorations of sport and recreation in Japan, and underscores the socialscientific roots of modern athletics, highlights the political and ideological forces thathave shaped investigations into the culture of sport past and present, and identifiesthe promising possibilities of recent studies and future projects
19 Popular Entertainment and the Music Industry
Shuhei Hosokawa
Hosokawa presents ‘‘entertainment’’ as a vehicle for creation, recreation, and ization that encompasses numerous issues, including cultural agency and collective
Trang 15social-sensibility As a cultural institution, entertainment consists of production teams,products, and audiences Hosokawa deals mainly with the cultural history ofpopular music since the Meiji period (1868–1912), and emphasizes the interplay
of reproductive and audiovisual technologies, the entertainment industry and popularaudiences
20 There’s More than Manga: Popular Nonfiction Books and Magazines
Laura Miller
Miller focuses on the past and present trends in Japanese nonfiction book andmagazine publishing, and points out that the volume and breadth of print media inJapan offer scholars a rich resource for understanding contemporary cultural pro-cesses, especially shifts in the display and exercise of cultural authority Print mediapractices and representations also have much to tell us about the formation ofindividuals into productive workers, national subjects, and gendered reproducers
Part V: Body, Blood, Self, and Nation
The essays in this section highlight the confluence of the body, politics of ‘‘blood’’ – as
a metaphor for kinship, family, and nationality – social reproduction, and building
nation-21 Biopower: Blood, Kinship, and Eugenic Marriage
Jennifer Robertson
Robertson writes that in fin-de-sie`cle Japan, the ideal of ‘‘eugenic modernity,’’ or theapplication of scientific concepts and methods as a means to constitute boththe nation, its culture, and its constituent subjects (New Japanese), crystallized inthe space of imperialism The legacy and ramifications of early expressions of eugenicmodernity remain salient today Three of the main themes she explores are theapplication of eugenic principles to make connections between biology, kinship,and the plasticity of the human body; the scientific rationalization of historicalstigmas; and the promotion of ‘‘pure-bloodedness’’ and ‘‘ethnic-national endog-amy’’ as ideal modes of sexual and social reproduction
22 The Ie (Family) in Global Perspective
Emiko Ochiai
Ochiai places the ie (household) in the context of global family history andattempts to answer some of the questions raised in previous discussions on the ieand the stem family, including the questions of whether the Japanese ie is a stemfamily, and whether it can be placed in the same category as a generalized Europeanstem family Her discussion focuses on regional diversity within Japan, and takes intoconsideration various aspects of the household system, including size and structure,the living arrangements of elderly members, marriage and fertility, and headshipsuccession
Trang 1623 Constrained Person and Creative Agent: A Dying Student’s tive of Self and Others
Narra-Susan Orpett Long
Long reviews some of the central interpretations of Japanese personhood andargues that we must explore the ways in which sex, gender, age, and social classshape and constrain the construction of ‘‘the self.’’ Yet, through the narrative ofdefining who one is, broader social meaning is created and enacted as well Excerptsfrom a series of conversations Long had with a dying 21-year-old college studentdemonstrate the ways in which the young woman drew on her personal relationships,her experiences of age, gender, and class, and especially her own illness experience
to construct a narrative of personhood In the process of creating an articulateand meaningful ‘‘self’’ for the anthropologist, the young woman also established
a strong social agency, attempting to negotiate the levels of assistance andindependence she desired, thereby influencing the behaviors and practices of thosearound her
24 Nation, Citizenship, and Cinema
as language that are really modern constructions Gerow employs cinema as a sive example to illustrate the problems and transformations experienced in creatingthe nation, as well as the paradoxes posed, in the process, by a globalized worldsystem
discur-25 Culinary Culture and the Making of a National Cuisine
Katarzyna Cwiertka
Cwiertka sketches the culinary scene of contemporary Japan and provides insight intoits historical development during the last century by identifying the forces thatmolded Japanese culinary culture into its present form Food is not merely purchased
in Japan’s omnipresent supermarkets, convenience stores, vending machines, andrestaurants, it is also a favorite souvenir and seasonal gift, and frequently appears inreligious rituals Moreover, many Japanese presume that foodways are a fundamentalkey to national character and that food reflects social attributes and cultural values.Food is also a regular feature of the Japanese mass entertainment From cookerybooks, recipes, and restaurant reviews in newspapers and magazines to cookingshows and culinary documentaries on television, the entertainment value of food isenormous
Trang 17Part VI: Religion and Science, Beliefs and Bioethics
The essays in this section critically review scholarly and everyday practices with respect
to religion, science, and biotechnology
26 Historical, New, and ‘‘New’’ New Religions
Ian Reader
Reader writes that the complex structure of Japanese religion includes numeroussects of established Buddhism, Shinto, an ethnically oriented historical tradition, andnumerous ‘‘new’’ religions Japan is especially significant for anthropologists andsociologists of religion as a highly developed post-industrial society in which thevarious problems and vicissitudes of, and theoretical issues relating to, religion inmodern societies are manifest, such as questions of secularization, the relationships ofreligion, state, and society, religious reactions to modernity and globalization, and
so forth Reader shows that Japan provides a vital comparative frame of reference tothe post-industrialized Western world in such contexts – and often correctives ofWestern-derived theories
27 Folk Religion and its Contemporary Issues
Noriko Kawahashi
Kawahashi considers the kinds of questions and issues salient today that must
be considered when researching Japanese folk religion She addresses these issuesand discusses recent reassessments of folk religious terminology together with
a consideration of the ways in which the field of folklore studies itself has beencritically re-examined Special emphasis is placed on gender-related issues in folkreligion, the practice and the field of study
28 Women Scientists and Gender Ideology
Sumiko Otsubo
Otsubo observes that modern Western science enjoys a popular image as universal,objective, value-neutral, and international, and that scientific research and develop-ment is conducted in a decidedly male-dominant environment Science has perpetu-ated an androcentrically hierarchical view of sex and gender She examines the careers
of women scientists before, during, and after the Asia-Pacific War (1937–45), andreviews their education, family, employment, mentors, and social activism Her aim is
to illustrate the basic structure of Japanese scientific research and to analyze: female(Japanese) research subjects; the mechanism of constructing, deconstructing, andreconstructing gender stereotypes in scientific research; and the unintended impact ofscience in shaping gender perceptions
29 Preserving Moral Order: Responses to Biomedical Technologies
Margaret Lock
Lock emphasizes that a consideration of the ways in which the body is representedand managed in health and illness provides insights into how subjectivity, selfand other, mind and body, the individual and society, are commonly conceptualized
Trang 18in any given society She employs ethnographic data from Japan, combined with ananalysis of relevant texts in connection with death and dying, terminal care, organtransplants, and new reproductive technologies, to show how widely shared valuesand associated disputes are aired in connection with the subjective experience andmanagement of these events and conditions Lock underscores the utility of examin-ing societal reactions to the body in health and illness as an indispensable lens forgaining insights about everyday life in contemporary Japan and the broader social andpolitical forces that impinge on the lived experience of individuals.
Trang 19Notes on Contributors
Eyal Ben-Ari is Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, the HebrewUniversity of Jerusalem He has carried out fieldwork in Japan (on white-collarsuburbs, early childhood education, and the contemporary self-defense forces),Singapore (on the Japanese community), and Israel (on Jewish saint worship, theIsraeli army, and United Nations peacekeeping forces) Among his recent publica-tions areBody Projects in Japanese Childcare: Culture, Organization and Emotions in
a Preschool (1997) and Mastering Soldiers: Conflict, Emotions and the Enemy in anIsraeli Military Unit (1998)
Katarzyna Cwiertka is Post-Doctoral Researcher, Centre for Japanese and KoreanStudies, Leiden University Her primary research interests are Japanese culinaryculture in contemporary and historical contexts, Japanese communities in Europe,and the globalization of Japanese cuisine Cwiertka is the editor ofAsian Food: TheGlobal and the Local (2002), and her most recent publications are ‘‘Eating the World:Restaurant Culture in Early Twentieth Century Japan,’’ European Journal of EastAsian Studies (2003), and ‘‘Western Food and the Making of the Japanese NationState,’’ in M Lien and B Nerlich, eds,The Politics of Food (2004)
Roman Cybriwsky is Associate Dean, Temple University, Tokyo and Professor ofGeography and Urban Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia A specialist in urbansocial geography, he has written extensively about Tokyo’s recent growth and devel-opment, including Tokyo: The Shogun’s City at the Twenty-First Century (1998), aswell as about various other cities such as Philadelphia, Singapore, and Jakarta He ispresently working on the urbanization of Batam Island in Indonesia and his fourthbook about Tokyo
Elise Edwards is Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Butler sity Among her several articles is ‘‘From Boom to Bust? The Political and Cultural
Trang 20Univer-Economies of Japanese Women’s Soccer at the Turn of the 21st Century,’’ in FanHong and J A Mangan, eds,Kick Off a New Era: Women’s Football in the World –Progress and Problems (2003), and she is currently revising her dissertation,‘‘The
‘Ladies League’: Gender, Politics, National Identity, and Professional Sports inJapan’’ (University of Michigan, 2003), for publication Edwards continues to con-duct research on soccer and sport in Japan, including corporate sport, and on sportand national identity construction in Japan in the 1990s and into the present Nowprimarily a scholar of sport, Edwards once spent three seasons playing in Japan’sLadies League
Walter Edwards is Professor and Chair, Japanese Language Course Department ofAsian Studies, Tenri University He authored Modern Japan through its Weddings:Gender, Person, and Society in Ritual Portrayal (1990) His current research interestsfocus on Japanese notions of identity and how these are linked with readings of itspast, including its archaeological heritage Edwards has written many articles onJapanese archaeology, introducing the results of Japanese archaeological research,and also examining how that research relates to contemporary views of the nation’scherished traditions
Sabine Fru¨hstu¨ck is Associate Professor of Modern Japanese Cultural Studies,Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies, University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara Her research interests include modern Japanese historyand anthropology; theory and history of sexuality and gender; knowledge systems;colonial and postcolonial history; military–societal relations; violence; and mass cul-ture She is the author ofColonizing Sex: Sexology and Social Control in Modern Japan(2003) and co-editor (with Sepp Linhart) ofJapanese Culture Seen through its Leisure(1998) She is currently completing a new book, ‘‘Avant-garde: The Army of theFuture.’’
Aaron Gerow is Assistant Professor of Film Studies, Department of East AsianLanguages and Literatures, Yale University He has published widely in a variety oflanguages on early, wartime, and recent Japanese film, including articles forYuriika,Iris, Sekai, Eizo¯gaku, Iconics, Screening the Past, Image Forum, Eiga geijutsu, andGendai shiso¯ He is currently writing a book on Kitano Takeshi for the British FilmInstitute Gerow has also worked as a coordinator at the Yamagata InternationalDocumentary Film Festival and continues to write reviews of recent Japanese filmsfor theDaily Yomiuri
Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni is Senior Lecturer, Department of East Asian Studies andDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University She is the author ofPackaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides (1997) and of numerous art-icles relating to Japanese weddings, professional housewives, gender, tradition inmodern Japan, Israeli images of Japan, and globalization
Roger Goodman is Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies, Nissan Institute
of Japanese Studies and Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University
of Oxford His primary research interest is in Japanese educational and welfare
Trang 21institutions Goodman has edited several books, includingFamily and Social Policy inJapan (2002), and is the author of Japan’s ‘‘International Youth’’ (1990) andChildren of the Japanese State (2000).
Tomoko Hamada is Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology, The College
of William and Mary The primary focus of her research is the culture of complexorganizations, ethnicity at work, and organizational cultures of multinationals.Her publications includeAmerican Enterprise in Japan (1991) and AnthropologicalPerspectives on Organizational Culture (co-edited with Willis Sibley) (1994) She isthe editor ofStudies in Third World Societies
Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology and Director of the Europe JapanResearch Centre, Oxford Brookes University, and a Senior Member of St Antony’sCollege, Oxford She has carried out fieldwork several times in various parts of Japanand has published extensively on her findings Among her several books is Under-standing Japanese Society (2nd edn, 1995) Hendry’s recent research is concernedwith cultural display in a global context, and her most recent book is The OrientStrikes Back: A Global View of Cultural Display (2002)
Shuhei Hosokawa is Associate Professor, International Research Center for JapaneseStudies, Kyoto He has published several books in Japanese on the aesthetics ofrecorded sound and Japanese-Brazilian music and film history He has also co-edited(with Toru Mitsui)Karaoke around the World (1998) and has published articles inCultural Studies, Japanese Studies, The British Journal of Ethnomusicology, and otherjournals Hosokawa is currently working on a history of popular music in Japan fromthe mid-19th century to 1945
Noriko Kawahashi is Associate Professor of Religion, Nagoya Institute of ogy She has published extensively in English and Japanese on the subject of womenand religion in Japan and Okinawa, including ‘‘Jizoku (Priests’ Wives) in Soto ZenBuddhism: An Ambiguous Category’’ and ‘‘Seven Hindrances of Women? A PopularDiscourse on Okinawan Women and Religion,’’ both inJapanese Journal of ReligiousStudies, 1995 and 2000 respectively Kawahashi was guest co-editor of the JapaneseJournal of Religious Studies Fall 2003 special issue on ‘‘Feminism and Religion inContemporary Japan.’’ Her forthcoming book (in Japanese), co-authored withMasako Kuroki, is on postcolonial feminism and religion
Technol-Margaret Lock is Marjorie Bronfman Professor in Social Studies in Medicine,Department of Social Studies of Medicine and the Department of Anthropology,McGill University A medical anthropologist and author of over 150 articles, Lock’smonographs include the award-winning booksEncounters with Aging: Mythologies ofMenopause in Japan and North America (1993) and Twice Dead: Organ Transplantsand the Reinvention of Death (2002)
Susan Orpett Long is Professor of Anthropology, John Carroll University She hasconducted ethnographic research in Japan and in the United States in cultural andmedical anthropology, gender, and bioethics In addition to two edited volumes, her
Trang 22published work includesFamily Change and the Life Course in Japan (1987), and she
is completing ‘‘Final Days: Japanese Culture and Choice at the End of Life.’’
D P Martinez is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, School of Oriental and AfricanStudies, University of London Along with numerous articles on tourism, religion,gender, and the mass media in Japan, she is the author ofIdentity and Ritual in aJapanese Diving Village (2004), co-editor of Ceremony and Ritual in Japan (1996),and editor ofThe Worlds of Japanese Popular Culture (1998)
Brian J McVeigh is Adjunct Instructor, Department of East Asian Studies,University of Arizona, Tucson Until very recently he was Chair, Cultural andWomen’s Studies Department, Tokyo Jogakkan University He specializes in Japaneseculture, gender, education, consumerism, and political as well as psychologicalanthropology Chinese American culture is a current interest Among his five booksare Nationalisms of Japan: Managing and Mystifying Identity (2004) and WearingIdeology: State, Schooling, and Self-Presentation in Japan (2000) He is now writing
a book tentatively titled ‘‘The State Bearing Gifts: Deception, Dramatics, and change in Modern Societies.’’
Ex-Laura Miller is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Loyola University, Chicago.Her research interests include linguistic ideology, interethnic communication, appliedlinguistics, folk models, popular culture, and gender representations in media andlanguage She recently published ‘‘Media Typifications and HipBijin,’’ U.S.–JapanWomen’s Journal (2003) and ‘‘Mammary Mania in Japan,’’ in positions: east asiacultures critique (2003), and is working on a book titled ‘‘Beauty Up: Selling andConsuming Body Aesthetics in Japan.’’
Katsumi Nakao is Professor of Anthropology, Department of Literature, Osaka CityUniversity His main geographic areas of historical and anthropological research aremainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan Widely published in Japanese, Nakao’smain articles in English include ‘‘Japanese Colonial Policy and Anthropology inManchuria,’’ in Jan Bremen and Shimizu Akitoshi, eds,Anthropology and Colonialism
in Asia and Oceania (1999) and ‘‘Political Structure and Social Change in a ChineseVillage,’’Asia Political and Economic Association (1990) He is presently working onthe legacy in the Japanese academy today of anthropological research conductedunder the aegis of Japanese imperialism
Emiko Ochiai is Associate Professor of Sociology, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto sity Her main research interests are family sociology and family history, and genderstudies Ochiai’s current project, which combines family history and historical dem-ography, involves an investigation of the Japanese family before modernization.Among her English publications are the award-winning The Japanese Family System
Univer-in Transition: A Sociological Analysis of Family Change Univer-in Postwar Japan (1997),
‘‘The Reproductive Revolution at the End of the Tokugawa Period,’’ in HitomiTonomura et al., eds,Women and Class in Japanese History (1999), and ‘‘Adoption
as an Heirship Strategy under Demographic Constraints’’ (co-authored with SatomiKurosu),Journal of Family History (1995)
Trang 23Sumiko Otsubo is Assistant Professor of History, Metropolitan State University Herresearch interests include Japanese science history, eugenics, and science and gender.Among her publications are ‘‘Feminists’ Maternal Eugenics in Wartime Japan,’’U.S.–Japan Women’s Journal (1999); ‘‘Engendering Eugenics: Feminists and MarriageRestriction Legislation in the 1920s,’’ in Barbara Molony and Kathleen S Uno, eds,Gendering Modern Japanese History (forthcoming); and ‘‘Between Two Worlds:Yamanouchi Shigeo and Eugenics in Early Twentieth Century Japan,’’ Annals ofScience (forthcoming).
Ian Reader is Professor of Religious Studies, Lancaster University His researchinterests include the study of religion and religious phenomena in Japan, includingpilgrimage and the relationship between religion and violence His most recent booksincludeReligious Violence in Contemporary Japan: The Case of Aum Shinrikyo (2000)and Practically Religious: Worldly Benefits and the Common Religion of Japan (co-authored with George J Tanabe, 1998)
Glenda S Roberts is Professor of Anthropology, Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies,Waseda University She is the author ofStaying on the Line: Blue-Collar Women inContemporary Japan (1994) and co-editor of Japan and Global Migration: ForeignWorkers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society (2000) Her interests include thegender politics of class and labor relations, working women in Japan, and globaliza-tion and migrant labor in Japan and China She serves on the editorial board ofSocialScience Journal Japan
Jennifer Robertson is Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan She haspublished many articles and book chapters on a wide spectrum of subjects rangingfrom the 17th century to the present Her most recent research projects includeJapanese colonial culture-making, eugenic modernity, war art, and comparative bio-ethics Robertson is the author ofNative and Newcomer: Making and Unmaking aJapanese City (1994 [1991]), Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture inModern Japan (2001 [1998]; Japanese translation 2000), and editor of Same-SexCultures and Sexualities: An Anthropological Reader (2004) She also created and isgeneral editor of the book series ‘‘Colonialisms’’ (University of California Press) She
is finishing a new book, ‘‘Blood and Beauty: Eugenic Modernity and Empire inJapan.’’
Joshua Hotaka Roth is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Mount HolyokeCollege His research interests include Japanese Brazilian ethnicity, images of Japan
in the Brazilian context, and sports and ethnicity His recent publications includeBrokered Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan (2002) and ‘‘UrashimaTaro’s Ambiguating Practices: The Significance of Overseas Voting Rights for ElderlyJapanese Migrants to Brazil,’’ in Jeffrey Lesser, ed.,Searching for Home Abroad (2003)
Sonia Ryang is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Johns Hopkins University She
is the author of Japan and National Anthropology: A Critique (2004) and NorthKoreans in Japan: Language, Ideology, and Identity (1997), and the editor of Koreans
in Japan: Critical Voices from the Margin (2000) She is currently conducting
Trang 24research into the historical interrelation between the emergence of Japan’s nationalsovereignty and the 1923 massacre of Koreans in the aftermath of the Great Kantoearthquake, and writing a book on love under the title ‘‘Five Scenes of Love fromJapan.’’
Scott Schnell is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Iowa His search focuses on challenges to the concentration of power through the mobilization
re-of localized identities, particularly in cases involving ritual and other forms re-of tive and performance The author ofThe Rousing Drum (1999), Schnell is currentlyworking on a new book that combines anthropology with history and literature inevaluating a Japanese historical novel as both an important source of ethnographicdata and a veiled form of political dissent
narra-Tomomi Yamaguchi is Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of East Asian Languagesand Civilizations, University of Chicago Her research interests are in the culturalconstruction of gender, sexuality, and race/ethnicity in postwar Japan, and Japanesefeminism Yamaguchi is currently revising for publication her dissertation, ‘‘FeminismFractured: An Ethnography of the Dissolution and Textual Reinvention of a JapaneseFeminist Group’’ (University of Michigan, 2004), which examines the achievements
of, and problems facing, late 20th-century Japanese feminism Her recent tions include ‘‘ ‘Kekkon’ no Teigi o Meguru Tatakai: America Massachusetts-shu¯ no
publica-Do¯seikon Hanketsu’’ (Fight on the Definition of ‘‘Marriage’’: The MassachusettsGay Marriage Case), inOnna-tachi no 21-seiki (Women’s 21st Century) (2004) and
‘‘Media ko¯gi 1976-nen iko¯’’ (Media Protest after 1976) in Ko¯do¯-suru Kai Kirokushu¯Henshu¯ Iinkai, ed., Kodo-suru onna-tachi ga hiraita michi: Mexico kara New Yorkmade (The Road Cultivated by the Women of Action: From Mexico to New York)(1999)
Trang 25PART I Introduction
Edited by Jennifer RobertsonCopyright © 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Trang 26CHAPTER 1 Introduction:
Putting and Keeping Japan in Anthropology
Jennifer Robertson
AN C E S T O R S, LE G A C I E S, A N D AD U M B R AT I O N S
Thirty-five years ago, John Bennett (1970) remarked that social research on Japan
‘‘has not yet made significant contributions to social and cultural theory.’’ AlthoughBennett’s remark remains relevant, it is not quite accurate The wartime ethnograph-ies by Japan anthropology ancestors John Embree and Ruth Benedict entered themainstream of (American) anthropology where ‘‘Japan’’ became a proving groundfor debates about the pros and cons of National Character Studies and of the Cultureand Personality school (Benedict 1946; Embree 1945).1 Actually, Embree’s earliermonograph,Suye Mura: A Japanese Village (1939), the progenitor of ethnographies
of Japan, was part of a global series of comparative field studies on literate nities or villages – and the first on types of East Asian societies – orchestrated by socialanthropologists (affiliated with Harvard University and the University of Chicago)Fay-Cooper Cole, A R Radcliffe-Brown, Robert Redfield, and Lloyd Warner(Embree 1939:ix–x, xvi–xvii)
commu-Thus, as I have argued elsewhere, it was in the 1940s that ‘‘Japan’’ enteredmainstream (Anglophone) anthropological debates (Robertson 1998) And, Japan –often paired with Turkey – was also very much part of the anthropological discourse
of modernization theory in the 1950s and early 1960s (Bellah 1957; Ward and Rustow1964).2Since the 1960s, and in keeping with Bennett’s observation, ‘‘Japan’’ seems
to have passed out of, and to have been passed over by, the anthropological stream What happened? Could it be that only as, simultaneously, a militaristicimperial power – a threat to the United States and western Europe – and a nation
main-of villages (epitomized by Suye) – a quintessential anthropological subject – did Japanattract the intellectual interests of anthropologists? Where is ‘‘Japan’’ in anthropo-logical discourse today, and what are the ‘‘significant contributions to social and
Edited by Jennifer RobertsonCopyright © 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Trang 27cultural theory’’ that Japan anthropologists have made since 1970, and are makingtoday?
These questions address both the efforts made by Japan anthropologists to engagewith social and cultural, and more recently critical, theories, and also the apparentdisinterest in and ignorance of Japan of many anthropologists who, suffice it to say atthis moment, should know better.3
It would appear that anthropologists in general do not regard Japan as a ical ‘‘prestige zone’’; that is, that – unlike Bali or Morocco or the Andes, or Oaxaca,Mexico – they do not regard Japan as a cultural area of choice and theoretical cachet.The existence of prestige zones has partly to do with the distance of anthropologicaltheorizing from current affairs, and partly to do with the colonial history ofEuro-American anthropology and the canonical emphasis since the 19th century onthe cultures of peoples of color with a history of domination by ‘‘the West.’’ (Forlargely the same reason western Europe – the ‘‘Old Europe’’ – and North America arestill under-represented in anthropology.) Japan confounds the simple binarisminforming the construction of anthropology’s Other: it was never a colony of ‘‘theWest,’’ and in the first half of the 20th century Japan occupied the ambivalentposition of an anti-colonial colonizer, although its ambiguity in this regard wasovershadowed in the United States first by its status as absolute enemy and later byits unconditional surrender in 1945 Moreover, the discipline of anthropology inJapan was itself facilitated, if not motivated, by Japanese colonialism in Asian andPacific Rim countries (see chapter 2 in this volume) The rhetorical question thusarises: Is Japan, like western Europe and the United States, somehow perceived as toomuch like ‘‘us’’ to be recognized and appreciated as a worthwhile subject of anthro-pological inquiry?
geograph-At this juncture, I would like to insert, in two parts, an excerpt from a review
I wrote in 1995 (but which was published in 1998) about the place of Japan inAmerican anthropology.4 The excerpt compares the intellectual engagements andlegacies of Japan anthropology’s two renowned – especially in the United States –ancestors, Ruth Benedict and John Embree, and constitutes one response to therhetorical question I raised at the end the previous paragraph
[Gyokusai was a] wartime expression coined by military ideologues to beautify sacrifice and mass deaths in combat .Gyokusai literally means ‘‘jewel smashed.’’ Itwas precisely such baroque expressions and drastic acts that occasioned the Office of WarInformation to commission Ruth Benedict to writeThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword,
self-in which she attempted to ‘‘understand Japanese habits of thought and emotion andthe patterns into which these habits fell The Japanese were the most alien enemy theUnited States had ever fought in an all-out struggle In no other war with a major foehad it been necessary to take into account such exceedingly different habits of acting andthinking We had to understand their behavior in order to cope with it’’ (Benedict1946:4, 1)
Earlier, in 1943 Embree publishedThe Japanese as part of the Smithsonian’s WarBackground Studies series This was followed byThe Japanese Nation in 1945 Benedictcites the latter along with Embree’s more well known ethnography, Suye Mura,
A Japanese Village, published in 1939, but Embree himself is conspicuously absentfrom her acknowledgments inThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword Embree too directedhis wartime studies toward better understanding and determining Japanese attitudes and
Trang 28behavior, but whereas Benedict sought to explain ‘‘the Japanese’’ in terms of a timelesscultural profile fabricated from fragments of data, Embree, in The Japanese Nation,focused on providing a socio-historical and ethnographic ‘‘context for the interpretation
of the behavior of Japanese and some basis for an understanding of future developments
in Japan.’’
In a nutshell, Benedict’s intellectual project was one of selective incorporation andcontainment, and Embree’s one of linear unfolding She collapsed past and present,and fused shreds and patches of data in formulating a unique and timeless janusian core(aka the ‘‘chrysanthemum’’ and the ‘‘sword’’) that was ‘‘the Japanese’’ cultural person-ality He, on the other hand, acknowledged the effects of historical transformations andpolitical ideologies in shaping particular configurations of individual and collectivebehavior without denying altogether the continuity of certain cultural patterns Writingagainst national character studies, Embree historicized his portrayal of Japan and ques-tioned the validity of using culture patterns which determine individual behavior within asocial group as an ‘‘explanation’’ for national and international socio-economic-politicaldevelopments [A] summary (even when accurate) of a nation’s citizens’ behaviortraits does not provide a magic explanation for a nation’s aggressive warfare whether it
be Japanese, British, American, or Russian (1950: 443)
I do not wish to simply cast Benedict as the ‘‘bad guy’’ and Embree as the ‘‘good guy’’ –the methods of both are equally problematic, although Benedict’s work has occupiedmore mnemonic space in American anthropology Rather, I have invoked AncestorsBenedict and Embree for two basic reasons First, their work, but especially Benedict’s,might usefully be regarded as constituting the historical – perhaps even obsessive –memory shaping the practice of Japan anthropology in the United States since the end
of World War Two Second, it is through their efforts that Japan first entered themainstream of American anthropology as a contested discourse on, simultaneously, Jap-anese culture, ethnographic representation, and anthropological theory Japanese im-perialist designs in Asia and the Pacific, and the attack on Pearl Harbor; the Axis Alliance;the internment of Japanese Americans; and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki followed by the largely American occupation of Japan, were all events whichhelped to overdetermine the salience of Japan as a particularly rich and controversial site ofand for anthropological inquiry in the 1940s (Robertson 1998:300–301)
Let me reiterate the question: is Japan, like western Europe and the United States,somehow perceived as too much like ‘‘us’’ to be recognized and appreciated as aworthwhile subject of anthropological inquiry? In mulling over this question in
1995, I ventured the following response (the second part of the excerpt)
[I]t occurred to me that perhaps some – or many – people believe that there is nothingleft to learn about Japan, or nothing really new and interesting – apart from gee-whizfactoids about rampant consumerism, such as the price in square centimeters of Ginzareal estate, or the number of $500 musk melons sold at the Takano Fruit Parlor duringthe two annual gift-giving periods Perhaps they believe that Ruth Benedict said it all:Namely, that despite their hi-tech veneer, the Japanese are a people unified in theirconfidence in hierarchy, whose public acts are regulated by shame, and who put apremium on cleanliness, education, and self-discipline Ironically, Benedict never went
to Japan nor did she know the language Yet, she proceeded to construct ‘‘culturalregularities’’ from fragmentary data, including novels, movies, interviews with internedJapanese Americans, and the small and ‘‘lacking’’ (Embree 1947) – described by Bene-dict as ‘‘vast’’ – corpus of existing scholarly literature on Japan 1946: 6).5I do not wish
Trang 29to diminish Benedict’s formidable anthropological skills and scholarly legacy, but by thesame token, neither do I want to diminish the consequences of her work In a sense,Benedict made getting to know Japan look too easy, and the Japan she profiled seemedall too knowable; once inscrutable, the Japanese were suddenly crystal clear.
Embree did not attempt to encapsulate Japanese cultural history within a formula,although he acknowledged the persistence of certain cultural practices and attitudes, andhis books are certainly very formulaic in terms of their organization.6Although bothBenedict and Embree constitute the braided memory of Japan anthropology, Benedict’sbold bricolage has been far more influential in shaping people’s image of Japan than hasbeen either Embree’s rather dry, methodical ethnography or his sharp critiques ofnational character studies.7
I believe that the easy and monolithic knowability of Japan construed fromThe anthemum and the Sword is fundamentally related to the double agenda of that book
Chrys-A didactic book,The Chrysanthemum and the Sword was as much an attempt to explain ahitherto inscrutable Japan to a hostile American audience as it was an effort to evince andhighlight American national character against the foil of Japan Benedict’s humane ob-jective with her double agenda was to encourage Americans, dizzy from propagandaproclaiming the Japanese a ‘‘most alien enemy,’’ to see Japanese as human too To thisend she positioned each people as the mirror image of the other Benedict declared that
‘‘[t]he arc of life in Japan is plotted in opposite fashion to that in the United States’’:whereas Americans increase their freedom of choice during the course of their lives, ‘‘theJapanese rely on maximizing the restraints upon [them]’’ (1946:253–4, 254) In Bene-dict’s mirror, the Japanese reliance on hierarchy is reflected back as the American faith infreedom (1946:43) Whereas ‘‘sensitivity about trifles’’ is virtuous behavior in Japan, it isrecognized as ‘‘neurotic’’ and ‘‘adolescent’’ in the United States (1946:108) If theJapanese ‘‘play up suicide,’’ Americans ‘‘play up crime’’ (1946:167) And whereas inJapan performance deteriorates under competition, in the United States competitionstimulates performance, yielding socially desirable results (1946:153) These are but afew of the oppositional representations of ‘‘the Japanese’’ and ‘‘the Americans’’ developed
by Benedict, who concluded that in Japanese life, ‘‘the contradictions, as they seem to us,are as deeply based in their view of life as our uniformities are in ours’’ (1946:197).Like her colleague Clyde Kluckhohn, author ofMirror for Man (1949), Benedict usedanthropology as a mirror held before us to allow and encourage a better understanding
of ourselves through the study of others But a mirror is not an inert device and can bedeployed as an agent in the resolution of difference and opposition In the bamboomirror held before Americans, Japanese national character was rendered intelligible asAmerican national character the other way around The potential for solipsism should beobvious; the apparent wholeness of the mirrored image can deflect recognition of theneed to learn more about Japan on terms relevant to the dynamic and intertwinedhistories of localities and subjective cultural formations and practices within that country
As Embree noted in his 1947 review ofThe Chysanthemum and the Sword, the only way
to begin to really know the Japanese people, ‘‘is to accumulate comparative data on thebasis of a series of field studies in different areas of the culture So far these are lackingfor Japan’’ (1947:246)
Today, ethnographies based on fieldwork in Japan are certainly more plentiful than in
1947, but I will argue that anthropologists since then have in one way or another,continued to work both through and against a conventionalized conception of Japan
as a mirror image of, or enantiomorphic with, the United States [and, more ly] ‘‘the West.’’ The ever growing anthropological literature on ‘‘the Japanese self,’’for example, both works to locate ‘‘indigenous’’ constructions of selfhood and todistinguish the Japanese from the American (or Western) self.8 Similarly, and not
Trang 30generical-surprisingly, ‘‘mirror’’ and ‘‘mask’’ are popular words in titles of books on Japan, and theobjective of revealing, unmasking, or unwrapping the ‘‘real’’ Japan has motivated many aJapan scholar.9
One last factor to consider with respect to Benedict’s central role in facilitating theknowability of ‘‘the Japanese’’ concerns the influence of The Chrysanthemum and theSword in Japan, where it was published in translation in 1948 In their 1953 review of thecritical reception of the book among Japanese scholars, John Bennett and Michio Nagaipoint out that,
[i]t should be understood that the translation ofThe Chrysanthemum and the Swordhas appeared in Japan during a period of intense national self-examination – a periodduring which Japanese intellectuals and writers have been studying the sourcesand meaning of Japanese history and character, in one of their perennial attempts todetermine the most desirable course of Japan’s development (1953: 404)
In more recent years, the Japanese social critic and philosopher Tamotsu Aoki (1991[1990]) has suggested thatThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword ‘‘helped invent a newtradition for postwar Japan’’ (see also Doak 1996) Benedict’s homogenizing andtimeless portrait of ‘‘the Japanese’’ added momentum to the growing interest in ‘‘ethnicnationalism’’ in Japan, evident in the hundreds of ethnocentricnihonjinron – treatises onJapaneseness – published since the postwar period.10 As I have argued elsewhere(Robertson 1997, 1998), the obsession today in Japan with cultural distinction mirrors
a similar obsession with internationalization; in fact, the two obsessions can be stood as enantiomorphic: that is, the same impulse the other way around.11
under-My point in this digression on the reception in Japan ofThe Chrysanthemum andthe Sword is to suggest that despite criticisms of Benedict’s failure to discriminateamong historical developments and ‘‘differing institutional contexts of data’’ (Bennettand Nagai 1953:408), Japanese culture critics were especially interested in her attempt
to portray the whole or total structure (zentai ko¯zo¯) of Japanese culture – a goalwhich, Bennett and Nagai note, had been ‘‘common enough in certain branches ofJapanese humanistic studies’’ (1953:406) In short, Benedict’s bricolage – her totalizingensemble of fragments – reinforced and was reinforced by similar efforts on the part of herJapanese counterparts, for whom the widest and thickest line of difference has been drawnbetween a unique Japan and the rest of the world (basically, ‘‘the West’’) as if both entitieswere internally coherent (cf Tamotsu 1991 [1990]:31–32) Thus, ongoing Japaneseattempts to locate cultural uniqueness mirror the attempts of non-Japanese anthropolo-gists, among others, to unmask, unwrap, and to otherwise reveal the presumptive authen-tic core or essence of Japanese society (Robertson 1998:304)
BR I C O L A G E RE D U X
Benedict’s ahistorical and homogenizing portrait of ‘‘the Japanese’’ has been cated over the past two decades by the proliferation in the number of both dominantand marginal sites, situations, and actors (including the ethnographer), in part due totheoretical attention in anthropology to such matters of late Consequently, thearchetypal peasant of Embree’s Suye Mura is now many ethnographic subjects,including weekday white-collar worker and weekend farmer; local tourist attractionand custodian of the landscape of nostalgia; youth idol; migrant worker; dispensableday laborer in the automotive and nuclear energy industries; religious cultist; political
Trang 31compli-activist; ethnic or sexual minority and resident ‘‘Other’’; and victim of industrialpollution, to name some of the more conspicuous ones (Robertson 1998:310).Nevertheless, some scholars have argued that Benedict’s unitary if Janus-faced – inthe sense of mutually antagonistic – portrait of ‘‘the Japanese’’ remains the backdrop
in front of which these new actors have debuted and back into which they arereabsorbed This was a charge which motivated the publication in 1988, and anexpanded edition in 1997, of a volume titledThe Other Japan, identified as a book
‘‘about the other side of the story’’; a book about ‘‘the unresolved conflicts beneaththe smooth surface of managed capitalism in Japan today’’ (Tsurumi 1988:3; Moore1997).12The title of and rationale for this book alerts us to the Catch-22 confound-ing the matter of representation in Japan anthropology: it seems that cultural por-traits contrary to the tenaciously normative template constructed by Benedict andsubsequently reproduced can only always be ‘‘alternative’’ or ‘‘other’’ as opposed tounacknowledged facets of the complex, composite, and integrated whole of ‘‘Japan-ese culture.’’ This crisis of representation, as it were, has as much to do with thedominant mythosin Japan of a homogenous society as it does with the perception ofJapan as knowable in opposition to ‘‘the West,’’ and more specifically, the UnitedStates (Robertson 1998:310–311)
One way to resolve this crisis is, figuratively speaking, to refabricate13the receivedand homogenous (and homogenizing) portrait of ‘‘the Japanese’’ in the multifacetedmode of a 100-headed Kannon (Bodhisattva of Compassion) This move is alreadyevident, in part influenced by the newly and loudly audible voices of Koreans, Ainu,Okinawans, and all those who may have been, and in some cases continue to be,constructed as ‘‘other.’’ They reside not below the ‘‘smooth surface’’ of Japan todaybut rather comprise an integral part of that surface, which in reality is exquisitely –and phenotypically and culturally – textured All of Kannon’s heads are different anddifferentiated, yet they all belong to the same body and collectively make up itsintegral, organic identity In a similar sense, the 29 essays comprising this volume,introduced below, all contribute ‘‘talking heads’’ to the Japanese body (kokutai), and,moreover, each represents a different ‘‘talking head’’ of that academic body, Japananthropology
Ironically, especially in light of my earlier analysis, it is Benedict the Bricoleur whooffers sage and useful advice on the method of refrabrication by way of her two-sided,albeit one-dimensional, portrait of ‘‘the Japanese.’’ Although she used data drawnfrom a broad range of sources, from archives to interviews, her inability to read orspeak Japanese, together with the fact that she had never been to Japan, coupled withher restrictively schematic theoretical framework, drastically circumscribed and de-limited her ethnographic portrait of Japan and the peoples living and working there.Today, the majority of (professional) non-Japanese ethnographers of Japan are fluent
in Japanese and have spent a number of years living and working in that country.However, to avoid creating a paint-by-numbers portrait of Japan – even if the paintsand outline are of Japanese manufacture – we need to pay attention to and addressand redress, as opposed to simply conform to, current issues and developments inanthropology, the discipline, and to thicken, layer, texture, and complicate ourrepresentations of Japan and Japanese peoples (Robertson 1998:316)
The reading and speaking fluency of most Japan anthropologists in Japanese is bestapplied toward utilizing information from a diverse number of individuals and groups
Trang 32(who are not presumed a priori to represent ‘‘the Japanese’’ voice), as well as from abroad and deep range of Japanese texts The relative dearth and narrow scope of theJapanese-language materials utilized in a significant proportion of ethnographies onJapan is dismaying, especially given the high premium placed in Japan, past andpresent, on writing and the generation of documents on every conceivable subject.Without sufficient efforts to broaden the range and scope of the Japanese-languagematerials utilized, patterns of Japanese culture canonized in the Anglophone litera-ture can be accorded, almost by default, the status of truisms which are thenreproduced by successive generations of Japan anthropologists It is not that thesepatterns and truisms are wrong or misleading per se, but that they should besubjected now and then to what is known colloquially as a ‘‘reality check.’’
If there is one gatekeeping concept that is unequivocally appropriate for Japanscholars to employ it ought to be ‘‘bibliophilia’’: the long cultural history of literacyand range and diversity of textual production in Japan are reasons compelling enough
to demand (greater) attention to bibliography In the context of bibliography, onetype of ‘‘reality check’’ would involve exploring the multifarious ways in which topicalissue, say organ transplantation, has been debated among sundry constituencies, asopposed to presenting unproblematically ‘‘the Japanese’’ position (Robertson1998:307).14The merits of bricolage – less as a type of ‘‘cultural logic’’ (Le´vi-Strauss1962a, 1962b), and more as a method of tapping a heterogeneous repertoire ofcultural resources – should be evident Bricolage is both a demanding method and amethod demanding a supple intellect, as one must draw and synthesize (fabricate)from the visual and the textual, the historical and the ‘‘now moment,’’ the voiced andthe silent (and silenced), the present and the absent (and disappeared), the ubiquitousand the scarce, the polemical and the nuanced, the actual and the potential, theanimate and inanimate, and so on
As I see it, bricolage, as simultaneously a theory of cultural resources and a methodfor tapping them, is a variant of the process of ‘‘condensation’’ developed by thatconsummate (if not recognized as such) ethnographer, Gertrude Stein Stein scrutin-ized her (human) subjects until, over time, there emerged for her a repeating pattern
to their words and actions Her literary portraits (e.g., Stein 1959) were tions of her subject’s repeatings, an ethnographic technique quite the opposite of the
condensa-‘‘social scientific’’ process of ideal typing (Robertson 1994 [1991]:1) What I wrote
in 1991 with respect to ‘‘condensation’’ versus ‘‘ideal typing’’ remains – from myobservations traveling through the fields of anthropology – quite viable today.[Robert] Nisbet has likened ideal typing to sculpting Like sculptors, social scientists,figuratively speaking, chip away at a block of marble in order to expose the Michelangel-esque sculpture within This method involves a priori knowledge of both the presenceand the exact form of the ideal-type figure trapped inside: ‘‘the object, whether structure
or personage, [is] stripped, so to speak, of all that is merely superficial and ephemeral,with only what is central and unifying left’’ (Nisbet 1977:71) Contrarily, the wholeness
of Stein’s subjects bespeaks the acquisitive – as opposed to reductive – nature of hermode of portraiture She did not presume to know beforehand what was superficial andwhat was central These are arbitrary criteria not isolable in any one individual orgroup.15 Those features labeled either ‘‘superficial’’ or ‘‘central’’ exist in a flux ofwords and actions differently repeated over time and space by individuals or groups.(Robertson 1994 [1991]:1–2)
Trang 33In her novels and essays on writing, Stein identifies what I perceive as the salientfeatures of the ethnographic process: it is personal; it requires time and patience, forknowledge and understanding are acquired gradually; and it involves a struggle toconvey critically that knowledge and understanding about a pluralistic world in fluxthrough the relatively static medium of (English) words (Dubrick 1984:93; Robert-son 1994 [1991]:2; see also Agar 1986:x).
By the same token, our attention must also be directed toward a sustained analysis
of the history of intersections, past and present, of Japanese and Euro-Americanstrategies of cultural critique Knowledge of the socio-historical constructedness ofcultural practices does not preclude either understanding or appreciating them orworking within their parameters (cf Bourdieu 1986:2, 4; Dubrick 1984:26) Thispractical knowledge, moreover, is crucial if an ethnographer is to avoid the reificationsand spurious homogeneity that ideal typologizing can promote (Robertson 1994[1991]:2)
So, for example, instead of (or, at the very least, in addition to) clamping a
‘‘Freudian’’ interpretive framework onto current Japanese sexual and gendered tices, one might fruitfully look at the history of sexology in Japan, or at the history ofFreudian theory in Japan, and its adaptations, transformations, and critiques there aswell as in Europe and the United States Many of us (Japan anthropologists) work tominimize or avoid the fallacious tendency of forcing Japanese cultural practices into
prac-‘‘Western’’ analytical categories But we must also strive to distinguish those practicesfrom the dominant ideology operating in Japan at different historical moments.Locating and historicizing theory in this way would help to temper and moderate atendency I have observed in certain recent monographs on Japan (and in critiques ofJapanese Studies) to use theory, sometimes in lieu of sufficient Japanese and otherarchival and empirical material, as a totalizing explanation, rather than as a reasonableconjecture resonant with specific historical circumstances, or as a guide for furtherinvestigations Obviously, the mere invocation of, say, a theory of practice or ofsubjectivity is not a viable substitute for exploring and recording the everydaypractices of actual subjects and their collective activities in particular geographicalplaces and historical times It is useful to remember that theories can only bedeveloped and modified by engaging with an ever-expanding body of tangible,empirical information lest they lose their value as theories and become frozen asformulaic explanations (Vance 1985:18; Robertson 2001 [1998]:24)
Other factors instrumental in generating research that works to complicate the
‘‘received’’ portrait of Japan include extended periods of residence in Japan andregular long and short return visits A familiarity with history, the product andprocess, is very important, and one must be constantly attentive to distinguishing itfrom ‘‘tradition.’’ Also, attention to the historical vicissitudes of social and culturalformations is crucial, along with, ideally, a familiarity with a wide range of idea-generating literatures outside the purview of Japanese Studies
I must also note in this context something that seems obvious to me, and that isthat to be or to become a good bricoleur or a good ethnographer or anthropologist
is unconnected to, and quite a separate matter from, one’s ethnicity or nationality
I further distinguish in this regard between phenotypic Japaneseness and culturalJapaneseness; the two are not the same thing although they can overlap The formerrefers to ancestry expressed as outward features stereotypically marked as ‘‘Japanese’’
Trang 34regardless of one’s culture [or] socialization; the latter to socialization and tion within a culture not necessarily connected to one’s ancestry Recently, phenotypehas been privileged as a marker of ‘‘positionality,’’ a ‘‘ready-to-wear’’ product of anidentity politics that has been especially endemic to American universities.16Ironic-ally, phenotype may not reveal but instead may actually camouflage and obscure one’sunique and complex genetic, personal, and family history, even as it imparts, within arigidly constructed identity politics, an illusion of self-conscious identity formation(Robertson 2002:788).17One of my points here is that confidence and effectiveness
encultura-in exercisencultura-ing one’s authorial ‘‘voice’’ ought not to lie encultura-in phenotype or genealogicalclaims or a childhood in Japan, but in the assiduous fieldwork and archival researchnecessary to generate historically resonant, thick descriptions and subtly evocativeinterpretations of people’s lives in all their messy complexity However, as someonewho was raised in Japan, I would be the last person to dismiss the advantages to anethnographer of the profound familiarity that long-term residence and socializing(and socialization) in a place can afford In my experience, though, such familiarity ismost effectively conveyed not by superficial claims to ‘‘insider’’ status and, byextension, to arcane insights, but in the thoughtful choice of an ethnographic subjectand the caliber, subtlety, and resilience of research undertaken to elucidate it
CO N T E N T S A N D CO N F I G U R AT I O N S
In a way, this book is a study in bricolage even if the individual authors neither utilizethat method nor claim to be bricoleurs Over two years ago, when I was invited toorganize and edit this volume, my idea was to treat the book as a whole as a nexus ofintersecting forces, ideas, things, and events represented by the vectors formed fromthe thematic units and constituent chapters As I wrote in my original proposal toBlackwell, the
forces, ideas, things, and events accounted [in this volume] for are those that I perceive
to be especially salient to Japan yet general enough to be the basis for both comparativeresearch and contributions to anthropological theorizing In addition to essays thatdemonstrate the salience of Japan as a place to undertake and generate innovative andexciting scholarship, the Companion also aims to make ‘‘Japan’’ in its many guisesand dimensions more easily accessible to scholars unfamiliar with that country butinterested in comparative research and information
That said, the resultant edited volume is less a product of my ideas about Japananthropology and more a portrait of Japan and the Japanese peoples, whose ‘‘repeat-ings’’ in a variety of historicized contexts are apprehended by and understoodthrough a mix of theoretical and methodological approaches employed by the diverseand international group of contributors I am very grateful to my colleagues whoaccepted the challenge of writing a concise yet comprehensive essay on their subject
or area of expertise Not everyone invited was able to contribute or to complete anessay for one reason or another Nevertheless, the 29 essays comprising this volumerepresent the application of a heterogeneous repertoire of theories and methodolo-gies to the study of Japan, the country, cultures, and peoples The subjects explored,summarized below, are equally heterogeneous
Trang 35I have divided the chapters into six thematic units I Introduction; II Cultures,Histories, and Identities; III Geography and Boundaries, Spaces and Sentiments;
IV Socialization, Assimilation, and Identification; V Body, Blood, Self, and Nation;and VI Religion and Science, Beliefs and Bioethics The first unit contains myintroduction, in which I chart the legacies of Ruth Benedict and John Embree andpropose ways in which to both critique and build on their work.18 The subjectsexplored in the second unit critically examine the processes of history- and culture-making along with identity formation, majority and minority alike Essays address therelationship between Japanese imperialism and colonialism and the development ofanthropology in Japan (Katsumi Nakao); archaeology, ideology and the management
of cultural properties (Walter Edwards); the ubiquity, in feminist and other texts,
of timelines as a mode of history-making (Tomomi Yamaguchi); the constructionand reproduction of majority culture (Roger Goodman); the formation and trans-formations of ‘‘insider’’ and ‘‘outsider’’ minorities (Joshua Hotaka Roth andSonia Ryang); vicissitudes of class and status (Glenda Roberts); myths and realities
of corporate culture (Tomoko Hamada); the sartorial fashioning of culturalidentity (Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni); and the influence of nexuses of sex, gender,and sexualities on both Japan anthropology and Japanese national identity (SabineFru¨hstu¨ck)
The third unit explores the different degrees and configurations of the geographicand sentimental boundaries delineating Japaneseness The four constituent essaysinclude a stereotype-bending analysis of the historical transformations of ‘‘nature’’
as a social construct (D P Martinez); a critical examination of the contradictoryimages and expectations of rural Japan (Scott Schnell); a discerning review of fournewly built urban landscapes in Tokyo (Roman Cybriwsky); and a meditation on thecelebration of Japanese manufactured foreignness, from restaurants to theme parks(Joy Hendry)
Institutions, in the broadest sense, that both enable and inhibit personal andcultural agency are introduced in the fourth unit The five authors report on abroad range of interrelated subjects, including the role and rationale of the state instructuring preschools (Eyal Ben-Ari); the legacy of imperialism on post-compulsoryeducation (Brian McVeigh); the place of sports and recreation in Japanese culturalhistory (Elise Edwards); the vicissitudes of popular musical entertainment and pat-terns of consumption (Shuhei Hosokawa); and the exercise of cultural authority andsubject formation through popular nonfiction books and magazines (Laura Miller).Unit V highlights the confluence of the body, politics of ‘‘blood’’ – as a metaphorfor kinship and nationality – social reproduction, and nation-building The constitu-ent essays explore the history of eugenics as one way in which scientific concepts andmethods were applied to the joint project of culture-making and nation-building(Jennifer Robertson); the regional varieties of Japanese households and their globalcontext (Emiko Ochiai); the construction of personhood through the embodiedmedium of a terminal illness (Susan Orpett Long); the historical formation andoperations of a ‘‘Japanese’’ cinema that reveals and contests ‘‘glocalization’’ (AaronGerow); and the historical beginnings and contemporary features of a national cuisine(Katarzyna Cwiertka)
Comprising the sixth unit are essays that critically review scholarly and everydaypractices with respect to religion, science, and biotechnology The four authors
Trang 36perceptively investigate the tremendous variety of religious practices in Japan andimportance of scholarship on Japanese religions as a corrective to Euro-Americanderived theories (Ian Reader); the most salient issues today in folk religion research,including terminology and gender ideologies (Noriko Kawahashi); the structure ofscientific research through the optic of gender (Sumiko Otsubo); and the processthrough which social ethics and values of moral worth are shaped by, and shape, newbiomedical technologies (Margaret Lock).
We, the contributors to this edited volume, neither claim to offer exhaustivecoverage of things Japanese nor to promote our essays as the most determinative todate on a particular subject.19For scholars and readers unfamiliar with Japan as acountry but interested in comparative research and information, our collectiveintent is to make empirical and interpretive information about ‘‘Japan’’ past andpresent (more) easily accessible For anthropologists of Japan and elsewhere, ouressays represent a nexus of theories, methodologies, and modes of cultural interpret-ation that not only yield a prismatic view of Japan and Japanese peoples, but alsoprovide plenty of material for comparative scholarship And, for ourselves and allour readers, we aim to complicate the understanding and appreciation of Japanesecultures, institutions, and social practices and their layered histories and complexgenealogies
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I was very pleased when Jane Huber, Blackwell’s energetic, enterprising, and ciously patient anthropology editor, invited me to edit an anthology on Japananthropology for Blackwell’sCompanion series, and it is to her that I owe the first
gra-of many grateful thanks I also owe thanks to Emily Martin, an editorial assistant atBlackwell, from whose spirited efficiency I have greatly benefited, and to Janet Mothand Anna Oxbury for their conscientious and thorough copy-editing I owe heartyand heartfelt thanks to the 27 contributors from around the world whose essays madethis volume possible in the first place I might note here that the list of contributorschanged over the course of the two years it took to complete this edited volume
I regret that several who were invited to contribute were unable to do so, and I amvery grateful to those scholars who, despite their own busy schedules, took up thebaton
NOTES
1 See Lowie (1945) for a portrait of German national character
2 See also the five-volume series, Studies in the Modernization of Japan, published between
1965 and 1971 by Princeton University Press For a critique of modernization as ideology,see Latham (2000)
3 Even those whose geographical areas of specialty were profoundly impacted by Japanese(cultural) imperialism have tended to overlook or ignore that history Others, in conversa-tions, have categorically dismissed Japan as ‘‘uninteresting,’’ often exhibiting a disturbingtendency to invoke uninformed stereotypes about ‘‘the Japanese’’ as a rationale
Trang 374 I feel that it is especially appropriate to draw at length from my 1998 publication on theplace of Japan in American anthropology not only because what I wrote there remainsrelevant, but also because the very high price of the hardcover edited volume in which itappears seems to have precluded its wide circulation I use ‘‘American’’ in reference to aninstitutional nexus rather than as an isolable thing or unique characteristic.
5 Embree described the state of the field somewhat differently inSuye Mura: ‘‘No socialstudies of Japanese village life have been published in English and very few in Japanese’’(1939:xvii n.3)
6 It is instructive in this connection to compare the matter-of-fact table of contents inEmbree’sThe Japanese Nation: Historical Background, Modern Economic Bases, Gov-ernment Structure, Social Class System, Family and Household, Religion, etc., withBenedict’s more evocative and psychological headings inThe Chrysanthemum and theSword: Taking One’s Proper Station, Repaying One-In-Thousandth, Clearing One’sName, The Dilemma of Virtue, Self-Discipline, The Child Learns, etc
7 The Women of Suye Mura, published by Robert J Smith and Ella Lury Wiswell (the widow
of John Embree) based on Wiswell’s field notes of 1935–6, adds flesh to Embree’ssomewhat skeletal account of everyday life inSuye-mura (Wiswell and Smith [1982])
8 In this connection, William W Kelly has remarked that ‘‘Selfhood is a field of argumentamong multiple, competing, and shifting cultural representations, and the best of theserecent studies underscore this Where they have stressed the ideological construction andinstitutional nexus of self-expression, they succeed in problematizing the relation betweencultural construct and social praxis Where they remain cast in broad and ahistorical terms,they are dangerously essentialist and suspiciously Orientalist’’ (Kelly 1991:403)
9 Ian Buruma has capitalized on the salience of both tropes: his 1984 bookJapanese Mirrorwas republished a year later under the titleBehind the Mask Joy Hendry (1993) writes ofJapan as the epitome of ‘‘wrapping,’’ which she describes as a ‘‘veritable cultural template’’and a ‘‘cultural design.’’
10 For a thorough analysis ofnihonjinron, see Befu (1993) and Goodman (chapter 5 in thisvolume) A recent dissertation on the fetishization of ‘‘women’s language’’ innihonjinron
is Fair (1996)
11 See also Sonia Ryang’s impassioned critique of Benedict’s legacy (2004)
12 The journalBulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars (BCAS), recently retitled Critical AsianStudies, is an excellent source for articles ‘‘that challenge the accepted formulas forunderstanding Asia, the world, and ourselves,’’ as noted on the inside cover of everyissue Ampo and positions: east asia cultures critique are similarly oriented if differentlyconceptualized Generally speaking, the former, along withBCAS/Critical Asian Studies,tends to deal more directly, empirically, and analytically with practices and policies ofsocial, economic, and political consequence, while the latter tends to offer articles of amore ‘‘current’’ literary and critical theoretical bent
13 ‘‘Fabricate’’ in the sense of a making that unites many parts into a whole
14 In this connection, see Margaret Lock and Susan Long (chapters 29 and 23, respectively,
in this volume) See also Hardacre (1994), Lock and Honde (1990), Lock (2002), andOhnuki-Tierney (1994)
15 This sentence effectively dispatches superficial similarities between Benedict’s bricolageand Stein’s condensation
16 Over the past two or three decades, persons representing a hitherto under-representedsex, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, religion, socioeconomic status, and so forth,collectively and steadily have complicated, thankfully and for the better, the social texture
of American institutions Recently, however, buffeted by market forces, those sameidentity categories have been packaged as ‘‘ready-to-wear’’ consumables guaranteed to
Trang 38clarify one’s location or position within the undulating academic landscape (Robertson2002:788).
17 See Robertson (2002) for the complete context and nuances of my argument See Tirosh(2004) for a similar argument from a legal perspective
18 It goes without saying that both Benedict and Embree, but especially Benedict, exerted aninfluence on Japan anthropology far outside the boundaries of the American university Infact, the perceived dominance of American scholars, institutions, and publishers in thefield of Japan anthropology has been a recurring topic of ‘‘discussion’’ at the annual,European-based Japan Anthropology Workshop (JAWS) meetings
19 The constituent essays were submitted over period of two years and thus the most recentpublications in a given field may not be acknowledged
REFERENCES
Agar, M 1986 Foreword In Self, Sex, and Gender in Cross-Cultural Fieldwork T L.Whitehead and M.E Conaway, eds Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Befu, Harumi 1993 Nationalism and Nihonjinron In Cultural Nationalism in East Asia:Representation and Identity Befu Harumi, ed pp 107–135 Institute of East Asian Studies,University of California
Bellah, Robert 1957 Tokugawa Religion: The Values of Pre-Industrial Japan Glencoe, NY:The Free Press
Benedict, Ruth 1946 The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture.Cambridge, MA: Houghton Mifflin
Bennett, John 1970 Some Observations on Western Anthropological Research on Japan.InThe Study of Japan in the Behavioral Sciences Edward Norbeck and Susan Parman, eds
pp 11–27 Rice University Studies 56
Bennett, John, and Michio Nagai 1953 The Japanese Critique of the Methodology ofBenedict’sThe Chrysanthemum and the Sword American Anthropologist 55:404–411.Bourdieu, P 1986 Outline of a Theory of Practice Trans R Nice Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press
Buruma, Ian 1984 Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture London:Jonathan Cape
—— 1985 Behind the Mask: On Sexual Demons, Sacred Mothers, Transvestites, Gangstersand Other Japanese Cultural Heroes New York: Meridian
Doak, Kevin 1996 Ethnic Nationalism and Romanticism in Early Twentieth-Century Japan.Journal of Japanese Studies 22(Winter):77–103
Dubrick, R 1984 The Structure of Obscurity: Gertrude Stein, Language, and Cubism.Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press
Embree, John 1939 Suye Mura: A Japanese Village Chicago: University of Chicago Press
—— 1945 The Japanese Nation: A Social Survey New York: Farrar & Rinehart
—— 1947 Review of Benedict (1946) American Sociological Review 1(1):245–246
—— 1950 A Note on Ethnocentrism in Anthropology American Anthropologist 52(3):430–432
Fair, Janet Kay 1996 Japanese Women’s Language and the Ideology of Japanese Uniqueness.Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago
Hardacre, Helen 1994 Response of Buddhism and Shinto¯ to the Issue of Brain Death andOrgan Transplant Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 3:585–601
Hendry, Joy 1993 Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and Power in Japan and OtherCultures Oxford: Clarendon Press
Trang 39Kelly, William 1991 Directions in the Anthropology of Contemporary Japan Annual Review
of Anthropology 20:395–431
Latham, Michael 2000 Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and ‘‘NationBuilding.’’ Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press
Le´vi-Strauss, Claude 1962a La Pense´e sauvage Paris: Presses Universitaires de France
—— 1962b Le Totemisme aujourd’hui Paris: Presses Universitaires de France
Lock, Margaret 2002 Twice Dead: Organ Transplants and the Reinvention of Death ley: University of California Press
Berke-Lock, Margaret, and Christine Honde 1990 Reaching Consensus about Death: Heart plants and Cultural Identity in Japan In Social Science Perspectives on Medical Ethics
Trans-G Weisz, ed pp 99–119 Dordrecht and Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers
Lowie, Robert 1945 The German People: A Social Portrait to 1914 New York andToronto: Farrar & Rinehart
Moore, Joe, ed 1997 The Other Japan: Conflict, Compromise, and Resistance Since 1945,new edn Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe
Nisbet, R 1977 Sociology as an Art Form London: Oxford University Press
Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko 1994 Brain Death and Organ Transplantation: Cultural Bases ofMedical Technology Current Anthropology 35(3):233–254
Robertson, Jennifer 1994 [1991] Native and Newcomer: Making and Remaking a JapaneseCity Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
—— 1997 Empire of Nostalgia: Rethinking Internationalization in Japan Today Theory,Culture and Society 14(4):97–122
—— 1998 When and Where Japan Enters: American Anthropology, 1945 to the Present.InPostwar Development of Japanese Studies Helen Hardacre, ed pp 295–335 New York:
Stein, Gertrude 1959 Picasso Boston: Beacon Press
Tamotsu, Aoki 1991 [1990] Nihon bunkaron no hen’yo (The Transformation of Treatises onJapanese Culture) Tokyo: Chu¯o¯ Ko¯ronsha
Tirosh, Yofi 2004 Adjudicating Appearance: Law, Culture and the Predicaments of Identity.Ph.D dissertation, University of Michigan Law School, 280 pages
Tsurumi, Patricia, ed 1988 The Other Japan Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe
Vance, Carol 1985 Pleasure and Danger: Toward a Politics of Sexuality In Pleasure andDanger: Exploring Female Sexuality Carol Vance, ed pp 1–27 Boston: Routledge & KeganPaul
Ward, Robert, and Dankwart Rustow 1964 Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey.Princeton: Princeton University Press
Trang 40PART II Cultures, Histories,
and Identities
Edited by Jennifer RobertsonCopyright © 2005 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd