Japanese Ethnography

Ethnic Boundary Enforcers: Conceptualizing Japanese Teachers’ Treatment of Migrant Latino Parents

by Robert Moorehead

2007. Shakai Fukushi Kenkyū [Social Welfare Studies] 9:77-87

As Latino workers increasingly migrate to Japan, their children are attending Japanese public schools in growing... more As Latino workers increasingly migrate to Japan, their children are attending Japanese public schools in growing numbers. This article examines Japanese teachers' efforts to socialize these Latino parents and children into the Japanese public school setting. Drawing on interviews and participant observation in an elementary school with a growing number of Latino students, this analysis conceptualizes some teachers' actions as those of "ethnic boundary enforcers" who frame violations of school customs as caused by foreign parents' resistance to Japanese norms. This framing strengthens the ethnic boundary between Japanese teachers and Latino parents by defining the category of foreign as potentially deviant and in contrast to the positively framed, normative category of Japanese. This analysis also explores the connection between these frames of the issues and teachers' professional interests, including the use of their role as custodians of the children to justify their critiques of the parents. Negative stereotypes of Latinos also legitimize teachers' actions by framing teachers as benefactors and the parents as low-status, migrant factory workers in need of help to overcome the difficult task of living in Japan.

NEW! (2011) 思想之帝国-满洲民俗学与亚洲社会科学的长期变迁

by Thomas David DuBois

Minsu yanjiu, 2011

"Empires of the Mind: Manchurian Folklore Studies and the Development of Asian Social Science." Presented at... more "Empires of the Mind: Manchurian Folklore Studies and the Development of Asian Social Science." Presented at the International Folklore Studies Conference, Shandong University. Translated by Wang Yi.

Hardy Bernal, K. A. (2011). The Lolita Complex: A Japanese Fashion Subculture and its Paradoxes. Auckland: AUT University.

by Kathryn A. Hardy Bernal

Master of Philosophy (MPhil) Thesis, 30 May 2011

My thesis investigates complex issues implied by and connected with the Japanese movement known generally as Gothic... more My thesis investigates complex issues implied by and connected with the Japanese movement known generally as Gothic & Lolita (G&L), focussing specifically on the Lolita fashion-based subculture and psychological motivations behind it. It discusses the transmigration of the movement’s ideas from Eastern to Western to Eastern societies, including differing cultural interpretations of “Lolita” and their implications in terms of the Lolita phenomenon, while examining ideologies in context with conflicting connotations and paradoxes that arise from a label that combines perceptions about “Lolita” with the “Gothic”. It also addresses the “Lolita Complex”, a term that stems from the narrative of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and is applied to a syndrome affecting older men and their attraction to young girls, and explores its associations with the Lolita subculture. The Lolita Complex, as the title of this thesis, also refers to the problematic complexities connected with and inferred by the movement. This thesis is multi-disciplinary. Although the emphasis is related to Fashion (or Design) History and Theory, my research also spans the fields of Subcultural Theory, Gothic Studies, Gender Studies, Asian Studies and Anthropology. It leans, though, more to the “theoretical” side, while my methodological approach relates closely to Analytic or Psychoanalytic Art History, based on my education and training as an Art and Design theorist. As such, this study is an analysis of the Japanese Lolita subculture. It is my theory or my reading of this cultural phenomenon, supported by evidence to state the overriding argument that the Lolita movement is symbolic of and represents a generation of young women who refuse to enter adulthood and “grow up”.

La transmusicalité : ces musiciens occidentaux qui optent pour la musique de l’« autre »

by Bruno Deschênes

Musicultures, vol 34/35, 2007/2008

La transmusicalité : ces musiciens occidentaux qui optent pour la musique de l’« autre »
Bruno Deschênesmore La transmusicalité : ces musiciens occidentaux qui optent pour la musique de l’« autre »
Bruno Deschênes
Musicultures, Vol. 34/35, 2007/2008
Résumé
Dans cet article, l’auteur développe la notion de transmusicalité telle qu’elle s’applique à la pratique par tout musicien de la musique d’une culture autre que celle de sa culture d’origine. En faisant appel à l’expérience de quatre musiciens transmusicaux, dont lui-même, l’auteur analyse les difficultés et les exigences qui entourent l’interprétation de la musique d’une culture autre dont le musicien n’est pas originaire afin de la rendre, dans la mesure du possible, authentique.

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

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.

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

by Julia Obinger

Articulating a Transnational Family: Hippo Family Language Learners in Japan and the USA. Chapter 1

by Chad Nilep

Chapter 1 of my 2009 dissertation at the University of Colorado. Full dissertation availble from ProQuest, publication AAT 3387544.

Hippo Family Club is an international language-study organization with hundreds of local chapters around Japan, as... more Hippo Family Club is an international language-study organization with hundreds of local chapters around Japan, as well as several in the United States, Korea, and Mexico. The group also partners with other organizations in various countries to operate study-abroad and other foreign exchange programs. Hippo's primary activity, though, is the self-directed study of multiple foreign languages. The organization sells audio recordings that relate stories in multiple languages. Club members believe that by listening to these stories and repeating their content, attending weekly chapter meetings where they practice speaking, and participating with the club's exchange programs they can acquire the ability to speak many foreign languages.

This dissertation presents an ethnographic study of Hippo Family Club practices in Japan and the United States. The analysis presented here is based on ethnographic field work in several sites, including Osaka and Kanagawa prefectures in Japan and Massachusetts in the United States, between 2005 and 2009. During this time I participated as a member of Karagoku Family, a Hippo Family Club chapter in Osaka prefecture. I also participated on various occasions with several other chapters, interviewed members of the various chapters, and recorded interactions at weekly meetings. The study combines ethnography with discourse analysis.

I argue that club members in Japan and the USA view the learning of multiple languages as a means to build a form of cosmopolitan citizenship. Cosmopolitan citizenship is a view of personal identity formed not within the nation-state but as a member of a transnational group. Club members view themselves as part of a global community of fellow club members and language learners. This view of identity freed from national or ethnic groups and instead tied to an international organization is seen as a break from Japanese tradition. In contrast, even though club chapters in the United States use the same learning materials and express ideas about language learning that appear very similar to those expressed in Japan, American members do not experience the same break from tradition.  Given the differences in US and Japanese ideologies of language learning, American members view Hippo as an addition to traditional practices.

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.

Inventing subjects and sovereignty: Early history of the first settlers of the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands

by David Chapman

he Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 24-1-09, June 15, 2009

In 1877 Robert Myers and four others living on the Bonin/Ogasawara Islands became the first foreigners to be... more In 1877 Robert Myers and four others living on the Bonin/Ogasawara Islands became the first foreigners to be naturalized as Japanese subjects after more than two hundred years of Japan’s semi-exclusion from the outside world. In the space of five years, fifty-nine other first settlers became Japanese subjects/’naturalized foreigners’ through entry on the Household Family Registry (koseki). At a time when Japan was emerging from a feudal-like system to a modern nation state the Islands were one of Japan’s first attempts, in modern times, at overseas expansion. The multinational community on these islands presented the Meiji authorities with unprecedented challenges that could only be overcome through extraordinary measures. In this study I explore the circumstances and context surrounding the unusually placed Bonin Islanders in the late nineteenth century to shed light on the processes of Japanese colonization and social control. I argue that the koseki, as an instrument of ‘bio-power’ (Foucault, 1998: 140), was indispensible in successfully legitimizing and exercising sovereign power over the Islands.

Different Faces, Different Places: Identifying the Islanders of Ogasawara

by David Chapman

Social Science Journal Japan, Vol. 14(2), 2011.

The Ogasawara Islands of Japan have been a site of colonization, militarization and occupation. The islands were first... more The Ogasawara Islands of Japan have been a site of colonization, militarization and occupation. The islands were first settled by European and Pacific Islanders from 1830 and then colonized by Japan in 1875. In 1944, at the height of WWII, the islands’ inhabitants were forced to evacuate to mainland Japan. The islands were under US Navy occupation from 1945 until 1952 and then US Navy administration from 1952 until their return to Japan in 1968. This paper situates the Ogasawara Islands in their historical context and focuses on the descendants of the original settlers and their unique and unusual position within Japanese history and society. The difference embodied in the descendants coupled with over twenty years under the US Navy have had profound effects that are still present within the community even today. Using ethnographic data the paper explores the composite ways in which this community has been identified and self-identify. The paper theorises the link between space, place and identification and argues that the effects of social, cultural and political changes to the nation-space of the Ogasawara Islands have led to complex and conflicting forms of identification.

(2006) Local Religion and the Imperial Imaginary: The Development of Japanese Ethnography in Occupied Manchuria

by Thomas David DuBois

American Historical Review, 111, 1

This paper began as a retrospective on the intellectual construction of local religion, particularly by scholars conducting field studies.

It traces the discipline of ethnography as it took root in Japan during the late 19th century, and was exported to Manchuria in the 1930s. What began as a discourse of self under Yanagita Kunio transformed into one of imperial progress under his disciple Omachi Tokuzo.