Capturing contemporary Japan : differentiation and uncertainty / edited by Satsuki Kawano, Glenda S. Roberts, Susan Orpett Long.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Kawano, Satsuki, 1966- editor.

Roberts, Glenda Susan, 1955- editor.

Long, Susan Orpett, editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social conditions.

Economic conditions.

Japan--Economic conditions--21st century.

Japan.

Japan--Social conditions--21st century.

Economic history.

Physical Description:

viii, 360 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Honolulu : University of Hawaiʻi Press, [2014]

Summary:

What are people's life experiences in present-day Japan? This timely volume addresses fundamental questions vital to understanding Japan in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Its chapters collectively reveal a questioning of middle-class ideals once considered the essence of Japaneseness. In the postwar model household a man was expected to obtain a job at a major firm that offered life-long employment; his counterpart, the "professional" housewife, managed the domestic sphere and the children, who were educated in a system that provided a path to mainstream success. In the past twenty years, however, Japanese society has seen a sharp increase in precarious forms of employment, higher divorce rates, and a widening gap between haves and have-nots. Contributors draw on rich, nuanced fieldwork data collected during the 2000s to examine work, schooling, family and marital relations, child rearing, entertainment, lifestyle choices, community support, consumption and waste, material culture, well-being, aging, death and memorial rites, and sexuality. The voices in these pages vary widely: They include schoolchildren, teenagers, career women, unmarried women, young mothers, people with disabilities, small business owners, organic farmers, retirees, and the elderly. -- from back cover.

Contents:

Introduction: differentiation and uncertainty / Satsuki Kawano, Glenda S. Roberts, and Susan Orpett Long

Work and life in challenging times: a Kansai family across the generations / Glenda S. Roberts

Being a man in a straitened Japan: the view from twenty years later / Gordon Mathews

Working women of the bubble generation / Sawa Kurotani

"Making an ant's forehead of difference": organic agriculture as a lifestyle alternative in Japan / Nancy Rosenberger

Shelf lives and the labors of loss: food, livelihoods, and Japan's convenience stores / Gavin Hamilton Whitelaw

Single women in marriage and employment markets in Japan / Lynne Nakano

The aging of the Japanese family: meanings of grandchildren in old age / Susan Orpett Long

Barrier-free brothels: sex volunteers, prostitutes, and people with disabilities / Karen Nakamura

Recreating connections: nonprofit organizations' attempts to foster networking among mothers of preschoolers / Satsuki Kawano

The divination arts in girl culture / Laura Miller

Education after the "lost decade(s)": stability or stagnation? / Peter Cave

Lightweight cars and women drivers: the de/construction of gender metaphors in recessionary Japan / Joshua Hotaka Roth

The story of a seventy-three-year-old woman living alone: her thoughts on death rites

Satsuki Kawano.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780824838690

0824838696

9780824838683

0824838688

OCLC:

856518412

Publisher Number:

40023447291