Waste : consuming postwar Japan / Eiko Maruko Siniawer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Siniawer, Eiko Maruko, author.

Series:

Cornell scholarship online.

Cornell scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Consumption (Economics)--Social aspects--Japan--History.

Consumption (Economics).

Waste minimization--Japan--History.

Waste minimization.

Refuse and refuse disposal--Social aspects--Japan--History.

Refuse and refuse disposal.

Japan--Economic conditions--1945-.

Japan.

Japan--Social conditions--1945-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource.)

Place of Publication:

Ithaca ; London : Cornell University Press, 2018.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

In Waste, Eiko Maruko Siniawer innovatively explores the many ways in which the Japanese have thought about waste-in terms of time, stuff, money, possessions, and resources-from the immediate aftermath of World War II to the present. She shows how questions about waste were deeply embedded in the decisions of everyday life, reflecting the priorities and aspirations of the historical moment, and revealing people's ever-changing concerns and hopes.Over the course of the long postwar, Japanese society understood waste variously as backward and retrogressive, an impediment to progress, a pervasive outgrowth of mass consumption, incontrovertible proof of societal excess, the embodiment of resources squandered, and a hazard to the environment. Siniawer also shows how an encouragement of waste consciousness served as a civilizing and modernizing imperative, a moral good, an instrument for advancement, a path to self-satisfaction, an environmental commitment, an expression of identity, and more. From the late 1950s onward, a defining element of Japan's postwar experience emerged: the tension between the desire for the privileges of middle-class lifestyles made possible by affluence and dissatisfaction with the logics, costs, and consequences of that very prosperity. This tension complicated the persistent search for what might be called well-being, a good life, or a life well lived. Waste is an elegant history of how people lived-how they made sense of, gave meaning to, and found value in the acts of the everyday.

Contents:

Introduction : meaning and value in the everyday

Imperatives of waste

Better living through consumption

Wars against waste

A bright stinginess

Consuming desires

Living the good life?

Battling the time thieves

Greening consciousness

We are all waste conscious now

Sorting things out

Afterword : waste and well-being.

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781501778797

150177879X

9781501725852

1501725858

OCLC:

1019841333