Working skin : making leather, making a multicultural Japan / Joseph D. Hankins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hankins, Joseph D., author.

Series:

Asia Pacific modern ; 13.

Asia Pacific Modern ; 13

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Buraku people--Social conditions.

Buraku people.

Buraku people--Government policy.

Multiculturalism--Japan.

Multiculturalism.

Labor--Japan.

Labor.

Working class--Japan.

Working class.

Japan--Social conditions.

Japan.

Japan--Politics and government.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (300 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oakland, California : University of California Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Since the 1980's, arguments for a multicultural Japan have gained considerable currency against an entrenched myth of national homogeneity. Working Skin enters this conversation with an ethnography of Japan's "Buraku" people. Touted as Japan's largest minority, the Buraku are stigmatized because of associations with labor considered unclean, such as leather and meat production. That labor, however, is vanishing from Japan: Liberalized markets have sent these jobs overseas, and changes in family and residential record-keeping have made it harder to track connections to these industries. Multiculturalism, as a project of managing difference, comes into ascendancy and relief just as the labor it struggles to represent is disappearing. Working Skin develops this argument by exploring the interconnected work of tanners in Japan, Buraku rights activists and their South Asian allies, as well as cattle ranchers in West Texas, United Nations officials, and international NGO advocates. Moving deftly across these engagements, Joseph Hankins analyzes the global political and economic demands of the labor of multiculturalism. Written in accessible prose, this book speaks to larger theoretical debates in critical anthropology, Asian and cultural studies, and examinations of liberalism and empire, and it will appeal to audiences interested in social movements, stigmatization, and the overlapping circulation of language, politics, and capital.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Illustrations

Preface: Hailing from Texas

Acknowledgments

Part One. Recognizing Buraku Difference

Part Two. Choice and Obligation in Contemporary Buraku Politics

Part Three. International Standards and the Possibilities of Solidarity

Conclusion: The Disciplines of Multiculturalism

Epilogue: Texas to Japan, and Back

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520959163

0520959167

OCLC:

966859804