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Social Change in Japan, 1989-2019

Author : Carola Hommerich

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 187 pages

File Size : 28,41 MB

Release : 2020-10-15

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 100020359X

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Book Description

Based on extensive survey data, this book examines how the population of Japan has experienced and processed three decades of rapid social change from the highly egalitarian high growth economy of the 1980s to the economically stagnating and demographically shrinking gap society of the 2010s. It discusses social attitudes and values towards, for example, work, gender roles, family, welfare and politics, highlighting certain subgroups which have been particularly affected by societal changes. It explores social consciousness and concludes that although many Japanese people identify as middle class, their reasons for doing so have changed over time, with the result that the optimistic view prevailing in the 1980s, confident of upward mobility, has been replaced by people having a much more realistic view of their social status.



Social Well-being, Development, and Multiple Modernities in Asia

Author : Chae-yŏl Yi

Publisher : Springer Nature

Page : 342 pages

File Size : 19,69 MB

Release : 2024

Category : Asia

ISBN : 9819738660

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Book Description

This book presents an integrated international exploration of social well-being from a comparative standpoint: how it is framed, how it is perceived by the people, and how it is exploited by the state. It provides a genuine multicultural and multidimensional understanding of social well-being in an Asian context by showing the strength of comparative analysis. The idiosyncrasy of an individual society is reinterpreted through the universality of harmonized data analysis and imaginative discussion of the findings. The book offers the reader a deep understanding of how social well-being is framed in eight Asian countries, how it is contextualized in each society, and how it is correlated with the concept of development and sustainability. Articulated by carefully chosen examples, historical background, and interpretation of the latest data analysis, this book is highly recommended to readers who seek to understand the relationship among the well-being of individuals, national development, and global sustainability.



Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan

Author : Ioannis Gaitanidis

Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing

Page : 265 pages

File Size : 45,96 MB

Release : 2022-10-20

Category : Religion

ISBN : 1350262625

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Book Description

This book critically analyses the creation and effects of spirituality as both discourse and practice in Japan. It shows how the value of spirituality has been sustained by scholars who have wished for a more civic role for religion; by the publishing industry whose exponential growth in the 1980s fashioned those who later identified as the representatives of this “new spirituality culture”; by “spiritual therapists” who have sought to eke out a livelihood in an increasingly professionalized and regulated therapeutic field; and by the cruel optimism of an increasingly precarious workforce placing its hopes in the imagined alternative that the supirichuaru represents. Ioannis Gaitanidis offers a new transdisciplinary conceptualisation of 'alternativity' that can be applied across and beyond the disciplines of religious studies, media studies, popular culture studies and the anthropology/sociology of medicine.



Women and Political Inequality in Japan

Author : Mikiko Eto

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 241 pages

File Size : 13,15 MB

Release : 2020-12-17

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1000283208

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Book Description

Why are there so few Japanese women involved in the political system? In 2019, Japanese women made up 10% of the national Lower House, 21% of the Upper House, and 14% of local assemblies. According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, this places Japan 164th out of 193 countries when it comes to women’s representation in the legislature. The percentage of women in the Lower House has only increased by fewer than two percentage points since women gained full suffrage and the right to stand for election in Japan in 1946. Eto analyses the various factors that have led to women’s low presence in the Japanese legislature. She evaluates ways in which it might be possible for Japan to catch up and, in doing so, examines how Japanese society continues to perpetuate gender-rigid expectations of people. This text is a valuable study for scholars of Japanese politics and society, and for readers with an interest in the broader issue of the representation of women in politics.



Avant-Garde Art and Non-Dominant Thought in Postwar Japan

Author : K. Yoshida

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 246 pages

File Size : 46,8 MB

Release : 2020-11-15

Category : Art

ISBN : 1000217280

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Book Description

This book offers a reassessment of how "matter" – in the context of art history, criticism, and architecture – pursued a radical definition of "multiplicity", against the dominant and hierarchical tendencies underwriting post-fascist Japan. Through theoretical analysis of works by artists and critics such as Okamoto Taro, Hanada Kiyoteru, Kawara On, Isozaki Arata, Kawaguchi Tatsuo, and Nakahira Takuma, this highly illustrated text identifies formal oppositions frequently evoked in the Japanese avant-garde, between cognition and image, self and other, human and thing, and one and many, in mediums ranging from painting and photography, to sculpture and architecture. In addition to an "aesthetics of separation" which refuses the integrationist implications of the human, the author proposes the "anthropofugal" – meaning fleeing the human – as an original concept through which to understand matter in the epistemic universe of the postwar Japanese avant-garde. Chapters in this publication offer critical insights into how artists and critics grounded their work in active disengagement, to advance an ethics of nondominance. Avant-Garde Art and Nondominant Thought in Postwar Japan will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese studies, art history, and visual cultures more widely.



Wildlife, Landscape Use and Society

Author : Ken Sugimura

Publisher : Taylor & Francis

Page : 213 pages

File Size : 49,92 MB

Release : 2021-03-08

Category : Nature

ISBN : 1000300641

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Book Description

A comprehensive analysis of the various terrestrial natural landscapes and habitats within Japan, and the efforts to sustain and conserve them and sustain landscape services. In 2011, Conservation International designated the Japanese islands collectively as one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. They are rich in biodiversity, but also densely populated and so human impacts have led to many species being classed as endangered though few have become extinct during recent decades. Sugimura evaluates the effects of landscape changes, government policies and economy on the forest ecosystems and services of Japan. He then contemplates how a rich variety of wildlife species have been able to survive, albeit in limited numbers, despite the rapid expansion of Japanese economic activities in the 20th century. In addition, there appear to be correlations between uniqueness of biodiversity, types of landscape use and the attitudes of local communities towards natural landscapes. A vital introduction for international environmentalists, geographers and environmental scientists looking to understand Japan’s unique ecosystems and their experiences with human activities.



Japan’s Nationalist Right in the Internet Age

Author : Jeffrey J. Hall

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 210 pages

File Size : 19,12 MB

Release : 2021-04-07

Category : Political Science

ISBN : 1000369145

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Book Description

Japan’s nationalist right have used the internet to organize offline activism in increasingly visible ways. Hall investigates the role of internet-mediated activism in Japan’s ongoing historical and territorial disputes. He explores the emergence of two right-wing activist organizations, Nihon Bunka Channel Sakura and Ganbare Nippon, which have played a significant role in pressure campaigns against Japanese media outlets, campaigns to influence historical memorials, and campaigns to assert Japan’s territorial claim to the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach, he analyses how activists maintained cohesion, raised funds, held protests that regularly drew hundreds to thousands of participants, and used fishing boats to land activists on disputed islands. Detailing events that took place between 2004 and 2020, he demonstrates how skilled social actors built cohesive grassroots protest organizations through the creation of shared meaning for their organization and its supporters. A valuable read both for scholars seeking insight into the dynamics surrounding Japan’s history disputes and territorial issues, as well as those seeking to compare Japanese right-wing internet activism with its counterparts elsewhere.



Somaesthetics and the Philosophy of Culture

Author : Satoshi Higuchi

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 161 pages

File Size : 49,20 MB

Release : 2021-04-19

Category : History

ISBN : 1000364852

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Book Description

“I regard Higuchi’s book as particularly valuable because it highlights dimensions of somaesthetics that have not been sufficiently explored. I refer not only to the various traditional Japanese somatic disciplines whose somaesthetics aspects Higuchi reveals, but also to central topics far beyond Japanese culture.” -Foreword by Richard Shusterman Higuchi, one of the pivotal scholars in introducing Shusterman’s somaesthetics to Japanese audiences in the early 2000s, provides insight into how this philosophy has developed in Japan, and the affinity it has developed with a non-Western culture. Dividing his insights into the categories of innovation, practice, and educational implications, Higuchi presents the Japanese perspective on somaesthetics, with contributions from four of his students. They develop the philosophical discussion of areas such as the aesthetics of sport, bodily knowing, learning as mimesis, and learning culture through language. In this way, the book illuminates the philosophy of somaesthetics using Japanese experience and research while presenting a unique perspective on Japanese culture. This book will be of especial interest to scholars of Japanese culture, and of the philosophy of aesthetics and education.



Japan in the Heisei Era (1989–2019)

Author : Noriko Murai

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 499 pages

File Size : 25,55 MB

Release : 2022-02-21

Category : History

ISBN : 1000521818

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Book Description

Japan in the Heisei Era (1989–2019) provides a retrospective and multidisciplinary account of a society in flux. Featuring analyses from leading scholars around the globe, this textbook examines the evolving contexts of Japan throughout the Heisei era and how longstanding verities and values have been called into question. Asking what this holds for Japan’s future relations with the world and within its own communities, chapters delve beneath the layers of a complex and increasingly diverse society, exploring topics including simmering ethnonationalism, economic torpor, political stagnation, and cultural dynamics. Features of this textbook include: Analysis of key social issues ranging from immigration, civil society, press freedom, politics, labour and the economy, to diversity, the marginalisation of women, Shinto, and Aum Shinrikyo Evaluation of the legacy of Emperor Akihito on war memory, the imperial institution, art, regional relations, and constitutional revision Multidisciplinary insights from both the social sciences and humanities Rich illustrations for visual analysis of developments in contemporary Japanese literature, film, art, and pop culture Providing students with dynamic analyses of how contemporary Japanese society continues to transform, this textbook is essential reading for students of Japanese Studies, including Japanese culture, society, history, and politics. The Introduction and Chapter 19 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.



Mental Health and Social Withdrawal in Contemporary Japan

Author : Nicolas Tajan

Publisher : Routledge

Page : 266 pages

File Size : 26,49 MB

Release : 2021-01-04

Category : Psychology

ISBN : 1351260782

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Book Description

This book examines the phenomenon of social withdrawal in Japan, which ranges from school non-attendance to extreme forms of isolation and confinement, known as hikikomori. Based on extensive original research including interview research with a range of practitioners involved in dealing with the phenomenon, the book outlines how hikikomori expresses itself, how it is treated and dealt with and how it has been perceived and regarded in Japan over time. The author, a clinical psychologist with extensive experience of practice, argues that the phenomenon although socially unacceptable is not homogenous, and can be viewed not as a mental disorder, but as an idiom of distress, a passive and effective way of resisting the many great pressures of Japanese schooling and of Japanese society more widely. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781351260800, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CCBY-NC-ND) licence.