Anthropology of Japan

ZUR SITUATION ÄLTERER OBDACHLOSER IN URBANEN RÄUMEN JAPANS: URSACHEN, ÜBERLEBENSSTRATE

by Julia Obinger

From tachi soba to naorai: cultural implications of the Japanese meal

by Michael Ashkenazi

Cultural tensions as factors in the structure of a festival parade

by Michael Ashkenazi

Festival management and the corporate analysis of Japanese society

by Michael Ashkenazi

Anthropological Aspects of the Japanese Meal: Tradition, Internationalization, and Aesthetics

by Michael Ashkenazi

Whale meat as a component of the changing Japanese diet in Hokkaido

by Michael Ashkenazi

Festival change and continuity in a Japanese town

by Michael Ashkenazi

"Ghost in Translation: Non-Human Actors, Relationality, and Haunted Places in Contemporary Kyoto"

by Andrea De Antoni

In Japanese Review of Cultural Anthropology 12. 2012.

Abstract:
Anthropologists have long investigated beliefs in the occult, creating seductive analytics that explain... more Abstract:
Anthropologists have long investigated beliefs in the occult, creating seductive analytics that explain these phenomena as critiques to the present, the new and the neoliberal (SANDERS 2008). Although these analytics provide useful frameworks for interpretation, they do not take into sufficient consideration people’s experiences and processes of construction and negotiation of occult beliefs. Drawing on ethnographic data I collected through fieldwork in haunted places in Kyoto, in this article I propose an approach that considers beliefs and practices in relationship to their “causal milieu” (GELL 1998). I propose an analysis based on the nexus theory (GELL 1998), arguing that haunted places can be interpreted as indexes created by rumors that emerge from complex chains of translations (CALLON 1986) among actors. I focus on relationships between human and non-human actors, arguing that the latter, especially the ones related to the morphology of the place, play a major role in processes of creation of haunting.

Key words: Translation, index, association, non-human actors, rumors, occult, ghosts, haunted places, Japan.

Japanization, Internationalization and Aesthetics in the Japanese Meal'

by Michael Ashkenazi

The Architectural Spaces "Yoo" and "Wa" in the Traditional European and Japanese Cultures.Contemporary Processes of Convergence in the Conditions of Globalization

by Nadya Stamatova

Lost in Translation: from Omiyage to Souvenir, Beyond Aesthetics of the Japanese Office Ladies’ Gaze in Hawai‘i

by Guido Carlo Pigliasco

Journal of Material Culture 10(2): 177-196 2005

Diasporic Indigeneity: place and the articulation of Ainu identity in Tokyo, Japan

by Mark K. Watson

published in Environment & Planning A, 2010 - Theme Issue: The Indigenous City

Representations of Indigenous people as rooted and sedentary reinforce ideas of their presence in cities as strange... more Representations of Indigenous people as rooted and sedentary reinforce ideas of their presence in cities as strange and out of place. This is problematic. In a world where an increasing number if not majority of Indigenous people live in urban or metropolitan areas, cities are now critical sites of Indigenous negotiation, appropriation, marginalization, and emplacement. This paper opens up the analysis of urban Indigenous life from the perspective of place and its role in the articulation of urban Indigenous identities. It takes as a case study the situation of indigenous Ainu in and around Tokyo. The interrogation of place highlights how Ainu are socially active in the city and critiques the regionalization of Ainu affairs to northern Japan.

The Third Way and Beyond: Zainichi Korean Identity and the Politics of Belonging

by David Chapman

2004, Japanese Studies, Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 29-44.

Although life for Japan's zainichi Korean population has been influenced by many factors, the development of discourse... more Although life for Japan's zainichi Korean population has been influenced by many factors, the development of discourse and debate internal to the zainichi population from the early 1970s onwards reflects enormous change in perspectives of the location of zainichi identity. In this paper I trace the internal discourse produced by zainichi intellectuals and public commentators from the early 1970s until the early 2000s and argue that the genesis of this discourse can be represented by a temporal and spatial shift in power and politics from older to younger generations. This shift in power allowed for the creation of a hybrid identity away from the hegemonic control of zainichi political organisations and anti-Japanese nationalism. In particular, I focus on Kim Iong Myung's articulation of the third way and its progressive, but at the same time excusatory, characteristics and how this and subsequent debate have been concerned primarily with the location of zainichi identity.

Tama-chan and Sealing Japanese identity

by David Chapman

2008, Critical Asian Studies, Volume 40 Issue 3 September, pages 423 - 443.

On 22 February 2003 a group of foreign residents of Japan gathered in Yokohama's Nishi Ward next to the Katabira River... more On 22 February 2003 a group of foreign residents of Japan gathered in Yokohama's Nishi Ward next to the Katabira River to protest the awarding of a residency certificate (juminhyō) to a seal called Tama-chan. Tama-chan had frequented the river and as such was awarded the certificate because he was “more or less like a fellow resident.” The group of foreign residents criticized what they believed to be discrimination by the Japanese state because, whilst a seal is able to gain a residency certificate, foreign residents are legislatively excluded from obtaining one. The Tama-chan protest provides an opportunity for investigating not only the residency registration system, but also other population registries such as the Japanese family registration system and alien registration system. The author of this article argues that a deeper and more informed understanding of the processes of marginalization of foreign residents in Japan can be achieved through a comprehensive investigation of Japan's population registries and their respective histories. The author explains how these population registries are sites of tension in which contained notions of Japanese citizenship and national identity are being contested by foreign resident populations with vested interests in Japan as home, thus revealing the inadequacies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities of these registration systems.

Zainichi Koreans in History and Memory

by David Chapman

2009, Book Chapter in M. Weiner (ed.) Japan's Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity 2nd Edition, Routledge, London, pp. 162-187.

Discourses of Multicultural Coexistence (kyosei) and the old-comer Korean Residents in Japan

by David Chapman

2006. Asian Ethnicity, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 89-102.

This paper explores the discourses of 'old-comer' Korean communities (zainichi) in Japan in relation to the recent... more This paper explores the discourses of 'old-comer' Korean communities (zainichi) in Japan in relation to the recent advent of notions of coexistence (kyōsei) and multiculturalism (tabunka). I adopt an analytical framework that has been used to critically examine Australian multiculturalism, recognising that although the Australian context is different, this analytical framework is useful for the examination in hand. I argue that although the discursive recognition of Japan as multicultural is an important step away from ubiquitous notions of monoculturality, this relatively new direction needs to be balanced with critical interrogation of how it is being represented. The results of this research clarify the positions adopted by the Korean diaspora in Japan and offer a possible alternative perspective on the way forward.

David Chapman, Geographies of Self and Other: Mapping Japan through the Koseki

by David Chapman

David Chapman, Geographies of Self and Other: Mapping Japan through the Koseki, The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9, Issue 29 No 2, July 18, 2011.

This paper traces the social history of the household registration system (koseki seido) in Japan from its beginning... more This paper traces the social history of the household registration system (koseki seido) in Japan from its beginning to the present day. The paper argues that the koseki has been an essential tool of social control used at various stages in history to facilitate the political needs and priorities of the ruling elite by constructing and policing the boundaries of Japanese self. This self has been mediated through the principles of family as defined by the state and has created diverse marginalised and excluded others. The study includes social unrest and agency of these others in furthering understanding of the role of the koseki in Japanese society. The paper also contributes understanding of nationality and citizenship in contemporary Japan in relation to the koseki.

"Hafu"

by Jane H. Yamashiro

2008. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society, ed. Richard T. Schaefer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

"Nikkeijin"

by Jane H. Yamashiro

2008. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity and Society, ed. Richard T. Schaefer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Endurance of Neighborhood Associations in a Japanese Commuter City.

by Kalman Applbaum

Urban Anthropology, 25(1): 1-37.

This paper cites two instances of weak, apparently dispirited jichikai (neighborhood associations) in metropolitan... more This paper cites two instances of weak, apparently dispirited jichikai (neighborhood associations) in metropolitan Japan in order to analyze the conditions for the persistence of this abiding Japanese institution. In the absence of neighborhood cohesiveness and sense of communality, strong function, or sustained manipulation by government or other external agencies, the continuation of these jichikai is problematic. I outline the continuous forces for cohesion: quotidian civic functions; a mechanism of group formation in Japanese society; efforts of certaih neighborhood residents who benefit from a strong jichikai; the prescribed role of women as maintainers of everyday neighborhood interaction; and received ideology about neighborhood social organization. In conclusion, I discuss the potential role of the jichikai in the crystallization of communal relations in Japanese commuter city neighborhoods
in the future.