This collection of twelve life stories delves into the experiences of families of Hansen’s disease patients who tell their own stories in their own words. In detailed interviews spanning more than ten years, Ai Kurosaka presents their struggles from the previously neglected perspective of family members of patients. The storytellers tell how they were torn by experiences of separation, discrimination and broken relationships. Like fugitives, many spent years hiding the truth and deceiving others to protect themselves and their families, and they reveal how this affected their relationships with others, but also with themselves. These recollections reveal agony and repentance but are also stories of resilience that show the courage of the storytellers in speaking up and in challenging the government’s policy on Hansen’s disease. This book breaks the silence of families of Hansen’s disease patients and seeks to restore relationships for families of patients and the wider society.

Homelessness has been recognized as a serious problem in Japan since the 1990s, but the dominant model of a “homeless person” has been that of an unemployed male laborer - a model that has largely excluded women, who experience homelessness in different forms. This study gives the homeless women of Japan a voice at last. Based on extensive fieldwork, the author paints a vivid picture of the unique experiences of homeless women living in a diverse range of environments. By introducing a gender perspective to the analytic framework and challenging the conception of the homeless individual as a rational, autonomous subject, the author invites a critical reconsideration of homeless studies and of public policy.

Japan’s national identity associates the ‘Japanese people’ with the Japanese land, making the farmer the backbone of the nation. Others in Japanese Agriculture challenges this mythology, revealing the changing faces of Japanese farmers during the colonial and postwar eras. First, it traces the tangled trail of Koreans brought into farming villages as a result of war mobilization and capitalist development. Second, it discusses the plight of those who evacuated from cities as they attempted to eke out a living on marginal land. Third, it points out that settlers repatriated from the colonies were met with hostility from villagers and indifference from authorities. Finally, it explores how those who were encouraged to emigrate for ‘the good of the nation’ in postwar Japan, found themselves victims of agrarian reforms, which severed their ties. In sum, despite being lauded as the ‘backbone of the nation’ Japanese farmers have been repeatedly marginalized and othered.

Multiple discourses circulate Japanese society surrounding the relationship between Japanese people and the English language. For example, ‘Japanese people are the worst English speakers in Asia’, ‘Japanese women love the English language’ and ‘learning English leads to increased income and career opportunities’. From a sociological perspective, this book tests the veracity of these discourses, using social statistical data. The aim here is to paint an accurate picture of society to assist the argument for evidence-based policy in English language education and to challenge the myths about Japanese people and the English language propagated by various interest groups, including the government and the business community. This important book reveals that the English language discourses that exist in Japan today are largely based on misconceptions, pointing to the urgent need to challenge the education policies based on such falsehoods.

The aim of this book is to highlight the important roles that things play in our everyday lives by examining how things and humans interact. Based on ethnographical data from Asia, Africa and Oceania, we challenge the instrumentalist idea that humans alone are subjects with agency (freedom to act) while things are merely objects at their disposal. Anthropologists have, typically, viewed things through anthropocentric lenses; reducing things to social function or cultural meaning. Our approach is to shift the question from “what do things mean?” to “what do they do (cause)?” – a shift from meaning to agency. Using an interdisciplinary approach, including researchers from archaeology, ecological anthropology and primatology, as well as cultural anthropologists, and taking the broadest understanding of things, this book probes the permeable boundaries between subject and object, mind and body, and between humans and things to demonstrate that cultures and things are mutually constitutive.

‘The challenges we face today are growing conspicuously broad in scale and complex in nature’. Human Survivability Studies is a new transdisciplinary field born from the growing awareness of the urgent need to tackle the large-scale environmental and social issues at crisis point in the world today. Based at Kyoto University, the recently established Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability is seeking to develop leaders able to challenge global problems on a number of fronts. Each of the twenty chapters in this volume, written by academics from the Graduate School, looks at critical issues facing humanity from a different perspective, discussing new ideas and scientific methods that will form the basis of human survivability. The aim here is to outline the framework behind the ideas, methodology and practice of this new scientific paradigm that incorporates knowledge from both the social and natural sciences.

In this, the parallel volume to The Boundaries of 'the Japanese': Volume 1: Okinawa 1868–1972 (Trans Pacific Press, 2014), renowned historical sociologist Eiji Oguma further explores the fluctuating political, geographical, ethnic and sociocultural borders of ‘Japan’ and ‘the Japanese’ from the latter years of the Tokugawa shogunate to the mid-20th century. It focusses first upon the northern island of Hokkaido with its indigenous Ainu inhabitants, and then upon the mainstays of Japan’s colonial empire—Taiwan and Korea. In continuing to elaborate his theme of inclusion and exclusion, the author comprehensively recounts and analyses the events, actions, campaigns and attitudes of both the rulers and the ruled as Japan endeavoured both to be seen as a strong, civilised nation by the wider world, and to ‘civilise’ its disparate subjects on its own terms.

This title was chosen for a 2017 CHOICE OATs (Outstanding Academic Titles) award.

Noboru Hirota has produced a major historical analysis of how the field of chemistry has evolved over centuries. Spanning more than eight hundred pages, this book presents an exhaustive study of the field, showing how ground-breaking discoveries were made and innovative theories were constructed, with personal portrayals and interesting anecdotes of pioneering scholars. Positioning chemistry carefully within the natural sciences, the author rejects the traditional separation of physics, chemistry and biology, defines chemistry broadly as the ‘science of atoms and molecules,’ and traces its dynamic history with an emphasis on 20th century developments and more recent findings. Professor Hirota himself has spearheaded research in physical chemistry for more than four decades in Japan and the United States, with cutting-edge engagement with magnetic resonance, spectroscopy, and photochemistry. This publication invites specialized researchers to traverse the pathways along which the subject developed into its present form and to understand how their own research fits into the broad scope of science as a whole.

Aftermath: Fukushima and the 3.11 Earthquake is a comprehensive analysis of recovery and reconstruction following the triple disaster in Japan on 11 March, 2011. This collection addresses the question of why, despite the relative success of network governance in brokering a response to the disaster and to reconstruction, politics failed either to prepare for the disaster or to respond adequately to it. In examining Japan’s political system leading up to 3.11, Aftermath looks at the system of network governance that operated between various organizations and levels of government, and scrutinizes the political influence network that united politicians and the bureaucracy with the major corporations and created a system to promote nuclear power. Through political, policy, economic and social analysis, Aftermath aims to contribute to the development of mechanisms and structures to minimize the impact of disasters.

In this prize-winning research, Akwi Seo provides a subtle and theoretically-sophisticated exploration of Zainichi Korean women’s activism around access to literacy, education and social services. In this multi-layered study, she shows how these activists developed new subjectivities, created new social spaces, forged new forms of solidarity and achieved social transformation. Creating Subaltern Counterpublics will  be of interest to scholars of gender studies, ethnic minority studies, postcolonial studies, political science, sociology, ethnography, history and Asian studies (Vera Mackie, Senior Professor of Asian Studies, University of Wollongong).

As the sequel to Groups: The Evolution of Human Sociality (Trans Pacific Press, 2013), this book continues to present the cutting-edge studies conducted jointly by sociological primatologists and ecological anthropologists in Japan. They seek to discover the essential qualities of ‘institutions’ by tracing back to the world of apes and monkeys, where ‘natural institutions’ are formed without the medium of language. To comprehend the characteristics of contemporary institutions, the authors find it necessary to go back to the origin of the evolutionary process and then uncover the gradual development through the hunter-gathering phase to the modern era. The chapters examine institutions from a diverse range of evolutionary angles, including such topics as encounters with death, children’s games, cattle rustling and mathematical proofs, and attempt to show how the concept of institutions can be applied to these settings. This collaborative work between primatologists and anthropologists shows that the understanding of ‘pre-institutional phenomena’ in the world of non-human primates is essential to modern human institutions.

This book is a fascinating exploration into how European attitudes that measure human achievements according to the extent of control over nature is a cultural and historical product of the ancient Middle Eastern and Mediterranean world. The subject matter is the emergence of domestication, the history and role of shepherds, and the Bible. The book is comprised of two parts. Drawing on fieldwork spanning more than four decades, Part I looks at the domestication process of sheep and goats and the emergence of the profession of shepherd. Here the author analyzes the intervention techniques involved in the domestication process using Foucault’s concept of ‘pastoral power’. Part II focuses on how God’s pronouncements concerning animals in the Old Testament came to take unique forms in the ancient Middle East reflecting the relationships between city-states’ ruling chiefs as large herd owners and local pastoralists as entrusted shepherds pivoting around domesticated animal life.

This book is a comprehensive account of the nativist movement in Japan today. Naoto Higuchi uses the life histories of activists to establish that the basis of their support for the movement is their conservativism rather than social or economic stress. He reveals the logic behind the emergence of the nativist movement by highlighting its links with developments in the existing right wing and Japan’s conservative powers. A common interest in historical revisionism and conflict with neighboring countries provides a further logic that underpins the nativist movement’s particular focus on “special privileges for permanent Koreans resident in Japan. The book examines the role of the internet in the recruitment of nativist activists and in lending a veil of historical “truth” to the falsehoods concerning these special privileges. Finally, Higuchi considers the issue of voting rights for foreign residents in the context of East Asian geopolitics and increasing securitization and warns about the dangers of not resisting securitization.

'It finally dawned on us. The government was unreliable. Politicians and bureaucrats were unreliable. The media was untrustworthy. The brutal reality hit us that we had to protect ourselves… otherwise bury our heads in the sand and give up altogether.' Written in the immediate aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake and accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station of March 2011, Koichi Hasegawa’s Beyond Fukushima presents a compelling account of the events of 3/11 against the backdrop of the history and geopolitics of the nuclear industry worldwide. The book begins with the accident and its immediate impact on Japan and then expands to form a critical analysis of the global nuclear power industry, providing a framework through which to explain Japan’s continued reliance on nuclear power despite widespread public concern. He argues passionately for denuclearization and is highly critical of the Japanese Government in terms of its response to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. In the final chapter, Hasegawa outlines steps toward a post-nuclear society, arguing strongly that this transformation must be made to avoid further catastrophe.

Japanese are again struggling with their nation’s insularity. The Meiji Restoration and the end of the Asia-Pacific War gave way to concerted efforts to connect the country with the outside world. As the Japanese economy emerged from two decades of stagnant growth, there was wide consensus that the society was increasingly grappling with problems shared globally, and that both its economy and internal policy debates would benefit from being more fully engaged in discourses and research activity occurring outside its borders. Globalizing Japan considers the efforts of policy makers to reorient Japan to the outside world as the nation enters the second decade of the twenty-first century. The book discusses five strategies being pursued by Japan’s policy makers---enhancing the involvement of Japanese in global networks, improving English language skills, hiring more foreign labor, lifting the stature of tertiary education on internationally recognized league tables, and creating favourable images of Japanese cultured society abroad. The introductory chapter considers the changing geopolitical landscape and the social backdrop against which such policies are being introduced, while the final chapter assesses the prospects that Japanese will experience a “third opening” any time soon. Overall the volume provides insight into some of the critical choices likely to shape Japan’s interface with the outside world and the direction in which Japanese society moves over the next decade.

With a focus on Brazilian migrant workers in Japan, this study produces a comprehensive picture of the forces driving transnational labour migration, both in the countries of origin of foreign workers and within Japan. How are Japan s labour institutions changing under globalisation? What are the implications of these changes for the lives of people in Japan? Asking these and other questions, Kiyoto Tanno demonstrates how Japan�fs labour shortage has established a �trans-national employment system�f and shows that globalisation is the very cause of the breaking up of Japan as a middle class society. He also discusses the impact of concepts of nationality and family registration on the lives of foreign workers of Japanese descent in Japan.

The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion have operated for centuries in the island chain that constitutes Japan’s southernmost prefecture, Okinawa – otherwise known as the Ryukyu Islands. Are the people of Okinawa ‘Japanese’ or not ‘Japanese’? Answers to this puzzling question are explored in this richly-detailed volume by one of Japan’s foremost public intellectuals, historical sociologist Eiji Oguma. Here, the author addresses issues of Okinawan sovereignty and its people’s changing historical, cultural and linguistic identity over more than 150 years until its 1972 reversion to Japanese control, following its administration by the United States from the end of the Pacific War.

Japan faces multiple challenges in an era of population decline. Problems such as aging and a decreasing working-age population are expected to increase in severity, so tackling these challenges and examining the contributions that immigrants can make to society are vital for Japan’s future. What contributions do foreign residents make to Japan, especially in the labor market? How do national and local government policies effect the settlement and permanent residence of foreign nationals? Are issues such as the social mobility and quality of life of foreigners, the fertility of foreign women, and long-term trends in naturalization important? What support does Japan offer to immigrants? As a ‘new’ country of immigration, the need to examine such questions is growing. This book takes a geographical perspective in examining the necessity of immigration and how foreign residents are helping to alleviate the problem of population decline in contemporary Japan.

The Sakha – traditional cattle and horse pastoralists and one of the largest ethnic minorities in Siberia – hold a unique position in human adaptation. This book focuses on the cultural history, productivity, and flexibility of the human–nature relationships long cultivated by the Sakha, and studies the lives of the Sakha in post-socialist Russia. Hiroki Takakura analyses how a culture was formed and experienced changes, and how it is maintained today, and combines multiple anthropological perspectives to illustrate how the Sakha have adapted as their society has become increasingly interconnected with global forces since the fall of the Soviet Union. As an ethnography of Sakha society – and of regional evolution and human adaptability in an Arctic environment – this book studies the formation of cultural diversity and uncovers unknown cultural histories in Asia across the Arctic.

The cultural and ecological foundations of ethnicity of the !Xun, a group of the San, provide a case study in this book for an intensive regional structural comparison of Ju societies. Long known to Western Europe as the ‘Bushmen’, the San consist of various groups distinguished by language, locale, and practice. This book focuses on the !Xun, who have lived in north-central Namibia for centuries, and adopts a life story approach to understand the lived histories of the people. It looks at interethnic relationships and the multidimensional associations with neighboring groups, particularly the Owambo and ǂAkhoe, Akira Takada scrutinizes kinship and naming terminologies, transitions of ethnicity, the interplay between ethnicity and familial/kin relationships, and the reorganization of environmental features that effect child socialization. This book provides a valuable research perspective in San studies and in the emerging anthropology of their life-world, and is a significant addition to the small body of anthropological studies on the !Xun.

Motivated by on-the-ground experiences during Indonesia’s period of political turmoil in the early 2000s following the collapse of the Suharto regime, in this book Ayako Masuhara systematically explains the structure of the Suharto regime while revealing its political dynamism. Her primary goal is to account for the transformations Suharto’s personal rule underwent during thirty years in power and explain its end. The book focuses on the ‘personal rule system’ that Suharto employed, analysing its transition and collapse in a groundbreaking thesis that draws on archival materials from major political institutions as well as interviews with some of the key political protagonists. The concept ‘co-opting type personal rule’ is proposed to address the following questions: What concept can best capture the Suharto regime and the diverse array of personal rule systems and better explain the characteristics of each type? How can we analyze personal rule regimes that end in relatively peaceful transitions rather than revolution or violent coup?

In this study, eight young Japanese sociologists analyse quantitative social survey data to understand the new phase of Japanese nationalism. They asked ordinary Japanese people to share their views on foreign residents, using their responses to shed light on Japanese political behaviour. Do patriotic statements reflect hostile attitudes to foreign residents? To what extent do Japanese nationals support the extension of their rights to foreigners? How can we understand political and social exclusion? In attempting to examine these issues, this book reveals the links between voter behaviour and personal orientations towards nationalism, neoliberalism, populism and the rights of foreigners, among other attitudes.

Jiro Tanaka’s The Bushmen archives nearly fifty years of research with some of Southern Africa’s remotest groups. Forming part of the canon of Japanese ecological anthropology and area studies, Tanaka’s deep connection with his subject matter is evident through his insightful and often touching stories and reflections on a rich and challenging life work. Tanaka interweaves ethnographic materials with broader reflections on the changes that have beset Bushman groups carried by waves of global political and economic developments. While some of the characteristics of the process of transformation are specific to Bushman society, many others are shared by other indigenous and minority societies around the world. This book attempts to analyze the transformation process from this perspective and at the same time serve as a catalyst for readers to look back and question the state of our own civilization.

Toshio Kawabe and his colleagues periodically lived and worked among the Gidra people of the tropical wet lowland of Papua New Guinea for twenty-five years. In this book he reports on a continuing traditional hunter-gatherer-cultivator lifestyle, describes the way of life and the major subsistence activities in the diverse environment of the Gidraland, and examines the skills that have sustained the Gidra culture since the Stone Age. The Gidra live within a treasure trove of rich flora and fauna, but the decline of tropical forests has been recognized as a global environmental issue. Kawabe examines the importance of such forests as complex ecosystems and examines lessons that developed nations can learn from people who live closely within nature about how to survive environmental changes.

Officially, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam has a total of 54 ethnic groups, including the majority Kinh and 53 ethnic minority groups. In this book, Ito Masako examines the history of the ethnic group determination process, highlighting some of the challenges the official policies pose to both the state and the affected peoples.

Vietnam has proudly embraced its multiethnic identity, seeking the equality of all ethnic groups in the interests of national unity. Yet, among other things, it appears that the total number of ethnic categories was rather arbitrarily determined initially, and then fiercely defended by influential politicians and academics. Furthermore, Ito s extensive field surveys reveal that ethnic policies are frequently manipulated at the regional and local levels in pursuit of economic interests, and not infrequently, to the detriment of those they were intended to benefit.

This volume is the product of a collaborative project based at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa at the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Researchers primarily involved in three fields -- primate sociology and ecology, ecological anthropology and socio-cultural anthropology -- came together to discuss the shape and variations of groups as sympatric entities and the evolutionary historical foundations that have led to the orientation of groups in present-day human society. To that end, the chapters in this volume turn to non-human primates for comparative purposes to consider the nature of the evolutionary historical foundations of sociality.

In place of the past objective of reconstructing the ecology and society of early humans, the works in this book instead aim to re-identify the creation and evolution of that which is social and challenge the prevailing theory of groups in socio-cultural anthropology. Specialists on research into human beings and those studying non-human primates develop the debate about groups in the context of their own areas of expertise, at times in ways that extend beyond the boundaries of their fields.

Manga, anime, J-pop and other forms of Japan s mass culture are increasingly popular around the world, a situation which requires structural, demographic and communicative research from sociological perspectives. In this study, a group of young Japanese sociologists scrutinizes the sociological foundations of the ways in which the Japanese people produce and consume cultural commodities and live their everyday lives surrounded by these products. The study includes an examination of: the dependency of Japan s youth on mobile phones modes of television viewing infatuations with animation characters network-formation through rock festivals family relations local culture fashion work orientations and the national consciousness as an aspect of their everyday culture . The book presents the landscape of Japanese popular culture as depicted by the very sociologists who themselves live their cultural lives within Japan.

Japan is a rapidly aging society, with a declining birthrate and increasing lifespan. The nation s youth tend to marry late, and some never engage in this form of social contract. Further, the number of couples without children is on the rise, and the proportion of senior citizens in the age pyramid is growing at exceptional speed. Demographic change that reflects these transformations now impacts the country s system of social stratification and inequality. In this collective study, a group of leading Japanese sociologists scrutinizes hidden disparities behind the demographic shifts, asking important questions: In what ways has educational inequality been enhanced? How has household composition changed and which household types are disadvantaged? What is the relationship between class and health? How do the middle-aged unemployed experience inequality? And how does demographic change influence inheritance, pension acquisition and social welfare? Using a variety of quantitative data, the authors address these and other questions elucidating Japan s unprecedented experience from sober sociological perspectives.

Translated by Tom Gill

In order to produce sufficient quantities of food to feed the world’s growing population, we need to increase the food producing capacities of crops and to protect the environments in which they grow. Discovering untapped plant resources is an important challenge, but a haphazard increase in food production may cause environmental damage. We need good foresight and must take appropriate actions. The sago palm is a plant that might fulfill all of these requirements. The sago palm accumulates more starch than any other plant in the world, yet it continues to languish in relative obscurity in global terms. The Japan Society of Sago Palm Studies was formed in the hope of raising its profile by hosting seminars and symposiums in Japan and overseas to help it achieve the recognition it deserves. To this end, the Society’s members have worked together to produce this volume, written in an easy-to-understand style.

This is a study of Japan s home-grown concept of seikatsusha that resembles citizen, people, consumer, common man, and the public, though not exactly identical with any of them. The idea has occupied an important place in Japanese everyday life, academia and progressive movements. Masako Amano presents an extensive genealogy of the concept from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. While examining the philosophy of such thinkers as Kiyoshi Miki, Nobuyuki Onuma and Shunsuke Tsurumi, the book scrutinizes the debate over seikatsusha, which has been undertaken by a variety of political and intellectual movements, including Shiso no kagaku Science of thought , Beheiren Citizens for Peace in Vietnam and Seikatsu Club. The work points to the viability of the idea of seikatsusha in a sustainable welfare society in the twenty-first century, and is the first in English to fully investigate the concept within Japan s historical and structural context.

Though there is no biological validity to race, it continues to play a central role in various aspects of our daily lives. What, then, generates and reinforces the reality of race, and in what ways? In order to explore these questions, this book examines racial representations from both scientific and humanistic perspectives, taking into account both historical and contemporary views. This incisive anthology is the product of an interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars whose backgrounds vary from Japan to Korea, Singapore, Germany, Israel/Iraq, and the United States. The discussion consists of studies in history, literature, sociology, cultural anthropology, and genetics, while the primary focus is on racial representations in Asia. This book elucidates issues and phenomena that have been neglected or marginalized in the literature on racial representation, and serves to broaden our understanding both in the theoretical and empirical realms. Looking at these phenomena, we realize that racism has become increasingly obscure and harder to identify and articulate, thus posing the question: are we really beyond race and heading towards a future of integration ?

After the collapse of Japan�fs bubble-economy in the late 1980s, a wide range of neo-liberal reforms were introduced which dramatically affected the nature of the labor market. These reforms expanded and consolidated a two-tier market, widening the gap between those who benefit from the company citizenship of regular , long-term and secure employment conditions and those who are increasingly disadvantaged by reduced income and security in the peripheral non-regular system of casual and short-term employment. The authors of this volume use a variety of data, including the 2005 Social Stratification and Mobility SSM survey results, to analyze the effects of labor market reforms on social mobility, social welfare, incomes as well as the policy implications for homelessness.

Hiroyuki Watanabe, a young researcher based in Kyoto University, investigates how the numerous relationships between people and whales in Japan become reduced to the single relationship of killing whales for their meat. He argues that from the introduction of Norwegian whaling technology at the end of the nineteenth century, through the Russo-Japanese War and Japan s windfall acquisition of the Korea-based Russian whaling fleet, to the end of World War II, Japanese whaling was closely bound to Japanese imperialism. He questions the assertion that whaling is traditional Japanese culture and demonstrates how the same whaling discourse that in the past drove some whale species to the brink of extinction, today continues to fuel the rhetoric of the Japanese whaling debate.

The artifice of gender performance - sometimes playful, mostly conscientious - has enthralled and entertained audiences of Japan s all-female Takarazuka Revue for more than ninety years. The dashing male-role players in its musical theatre productions enjoy the adulation of a predominantly female audience for whom those handsome idols represent ideal masculinity, while those men in turn are reflected and magnified by the overwrought femininity of their female-role counterparts.

This volume resounds with the voices of those closest to Takarazuka: the girls and women who have danced, sung and acted in its limelight. Using exclusive interviews, historical records, autobiographies and years of close-hand observation, former Revue translator and voice actor Leonie Stickland extensively explores the aspirations, endeavours and experiences of Takarazuka s creators, performers and adoring fans, while simultaneously elucidating gender issues which have impacted upon the life-stages of women in Japan throughout the past century.

Reprinted again, this study traces the current instability of Thai politics back to the 1990s. The book challenges the prevailing view that the nation s democratization process in the decade was led by the active middle class and presents an alternative explanation focusing upon the appeasement of passive forces. The Japanese original of the book won an Ohira Masayoshi Memorial Prize in 2003.

ESCAPE FROM WORK is about an important evolution which has been occurring in the Japanese labor market over the past decade. As Japanese came to enjoy higher levels of affluence in the late 1980s and early 1990s, attitudes towards work and life course began to change. At the same time, globalization and heightened competition have accelerated the casualization of work in Japan. Kosugi documents the increase in the number of causal workers in Japan over the past two decades and looks at their demographics. Based on rich interview data and extensive surveys, Kosugi brings together the findings of a large research project carried out in the early years of this century. The study explores ways in which the furitaa, young persons falling outside the normal pattern in making the transition from school to employment, might better be incorporated into Japan s world of regular, full-time employment. At the same time, Kosugi calls for a reappraisal of the rather negative way in which those in the labor market for casuals have been traditionally conceived, and recommends acceptance of that market as a means of providing viable career and lifestyle options for Japanese in the twenty-first century.

Discussion paper

This book is an English translation of Tan itsu Minzoku Shinwa no Kigen, which won the Suntory Culture Award in 1996. Eiji Oguma examines the ethnic self-identity of the Japanese as represented by a vast and diverse range of authors dating from the mid-Meiji period through to the postwar years.The book presents a counter-argument to the widely held view that the Japanese have believed that they are a homogeneous nation since the Meiji period. Oguma demonstrates that the myth of ethnic homogeneity was not established during the Meiji period, nor during the Pacific War, but only after the end of World War II. The study covers a large range of areas, including archaeology, ancient history, linguistics, anthropology, ethnology, folk law, eugenics and philosophy, to obtain an overview of how a variety of authors dealt with the theme of ethnicity. It also examines how the peoples of the Japanese colonies, Korea and Taiwan, were viewed in the prewar literature on ethnic identity. The book was translated by David Askew.

Comments by the translator