Asian Research

Japanese Tree Burial

Innovation, Ecology and the Culture of Death

By Sebastien Boret

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Tree burial, a new form of disposal for the cremated remains of the dead, was created in 1999 by Chisaka Genpo, the head priest of a Zen Buddhist temple in northern Japan. Instead of a conventional family gravestone, perpetuating the continuity of a household and its identity, tree burial uses vast...

To Be Published November 29th 2013 by Routledge

Becoming International in Japan

Class, Ethnicity and Early Childhood Education

By Yuki Imoto

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

International pre-schools in Japan are a growing phenomenon, used by parents who are keen to ensure that their children are fluent in English and at home with Western culture, thereby preparing their children for, as the parents see it, future success. This book, based on extensive original...

To Be Published March 30th 2014 by Routledge

Death and Dying in Contemporary Japan

Edited by Hikaru Suzuki

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book, based on extensive original research, explores the various ways in which Japanese people think about death and how they approach the process of dying and death. It shows how new forms of funeral ceremonies have been developed by the funeral industry, how traditional grave burial is being...

Published December 5th 2012 by Routledge

Language, Education and Citizenship in Japan

By Genaro Castro-Vázquez

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Based on extensive original research, this book explores the early educational experiences of foreign children in Japan. It considers foreign children’s experiences of Japanese schools, examines the special tutoring such children often have to improve their language proficiency, and explores the...

Published October 15th 2012 by Routledge

Disability in Japan

By Carolyn Stevens

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Disability and chronic illness represents a special kind of cultural diversity, the "other" to "normal" able-bodiedness. Most studies of disability consider disability in North American or European contexts; and studies of diversity in Japan consider ethnic and cultural diversity, but not the...

Published March 3rd 2013 by Routledge

Japan's Ainu Minority in Tokyo

Urban Indigeneity and Cultural Politics

By Mark K. Watson

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book is about the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan, living in and around Tokyo; it is, therefore, about what has been pushed to the margins of history. Customarily, anthropologists and public officials have represented Ainu issues and political affairs as limited to rural pockets of...

To Be Published October 30th 2013 by Routledge

Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan

Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito

By Anne Mette Fisker-Nielsen

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Presenting a study of politics at grassroots level among young Japanese, this book examines the alliance between the religious movement Soka Gakkai (the ‘Value-creation Society’) and Komeito (the ‘Clean Government Party’), which shared power with the Liberal Democratic Party from 1999 to 2009....

Published June 11th 2012 by Routledge

Tradition, Democracy and the Townscape of Kyoto

Claiming a Right to the Past

By Christoph Brumann

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

As the historic capital of the country and the stronghold of the nation’s most celebrated traditions, the city of Kyoto holds a unique place in the Japanese imagination. Widely praised for the beauty of its townscape and natural environments, it is both a popular destination for tourists and home...

Published March 20th 2012 by Routledge

Abandoned Japanese in Postwar Manchuria

The Lives of War Orphans and Wives in Two Countries

By Yeeshan Chan

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book relates the experiences of the zanryu-hojin - the Japanese civilians, mostly women and children, who were abandoned in Manchuria after the end of the Second World War when Japan’s puppet state in Manchuria ended, and when most Japanese who has been based there returned to Japan. Many...

Published November 25th 2010 by Routledge

Home and Family in Japan

Continuity and Transformation

Edited by Richard Ronald, Allison Alexy

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

In the Japanese language the word ‘ie’ denotes both the materiality of homes and family relations within. The traditional family and family house - often portrayed in ideal terms as key foundations of Japanese culture and society - have been subject to significant changes in recent years. This book...

Published November 14th 2010 by Routledge

Japanese Women, Class and the Tea Ceremony

The voices of tea practitioners in northern Japan

By Kaeko Chiba

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book examines the complex relationship between class and gender dynamics among tea ceremony (chado) practitioners in Japan. Focusing on practitioners in a provincial city, Akita, the book surveys the rigid, hierarchical chado system at grass roots level. Making critical use of Bourdieu’s idea...

Published July 21st 2010 by Routledge

Making Japanese Heritage

Edited by Christoph Brumann, Rupert A. Cox

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book examines the making of heritage in contemporary Japan, investigating the ways in which particular objects, practices and institutions are ascribed public recognition and political significance. Through detailed ethnographic and historical case studies, it analyses the social, economic,...

Published September 28th 2009 by Routledge

Japanese Tourism and Travel Culture

Edited by Sylvie Guichard-Anguis, Okpyo Moon

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book examines Japanese tourism and travel, both today and in the past, showing how over hundreds of years a distinct culture of travel developed, and exploring how this has permeated the perceptions and traditions of Japanese society. It considers the diverse dimensions of modern tourism...

Published November 27th 2008 by Routledge

Globalisation and Japanese Organisational Culture

An Ethnography of a Japanese Corporation in France

By Mitchell Sedgwick

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Globalisation – the global movement, and control, of products, capital, technologies, persons and images – increasingly takes place through the work of organisations, perhaps the most powerful of which are multinational corporations. Based in an ethnographic analysis of cross-cultural social...

Published December 20th 2007 by Routledge

Primary School in Japan

Self, Individuality and Learning in Elementary Education

By Peter Cave

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

The balance between individual independence and social interdependence is a perennial debate in Japan. A series of educational reforms since 1990, including the implementation of a new curriculum in 2002, has been a source of fierce controversy. This book, based on an extended, detailed study of...

Published November 29th 2007 by Routledge

The Culture of Copying in Japan

Critical and Historical Perspectives

Edited by Rupert Cox

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This book challenges the perception of Japan as a ‘copying culture’ through a series of detailed ethnographic and historical case studies. It addresses a question about why the West has had such a fascination for the adeptness with which the Japanese apparently assimilate all things foreign and at...

Published September 12th 2007 by Routledge

Pilgrimages and Spiritual Quests in Japan

Edited by Peter Ackermann, Dolores Martinez, Maria Rodriguez del Alisal

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

This exciting new book is a detailed examination of pilgrimages in Japan, including the meanings of travel, transformation, and the discovery of identity through encounters with the sacred, in a variety of interesting dimensions in both historical and contemporary Japanese culture, linked by the...

Published March 5th 2007 by Routledge

Psychotherapy and Religion in Japan

The Japanese Introspection Practice of Naikan

By Chikako Ozawa-de Silva

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Naikan is a Japanese psychotherapeutic method which combines meditation-like body engagement with the recovery of memory and the reconstruction of one's autobiography in order to bring about healing and a changed notion of the self. Based on original anthropological fieldwork, this fascinating...

Published August 15th 2006 by Routledge

Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy

Essays in Honour of Jan van Bremen

Edited by Joy Hendry, Heung Wah Wong

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

It has been customary in the appraisal of the different approaches to the study of Japan anthropology to invoke an East-West dichotomy positing hegemonic ‘Western’ systems of thought against a more authentic ‘Eastern’ alternative. Top scholars in the field of Japan anthropology examine, challenge...

Published July 31st 2006 by Routledge

Nature, Ritual, and Society in Japan's Ryukyu Islands

By Arne Røkkum

Series: Japan Anthropology Workshop Series

Despite their small area, the southern islands of Japan can be seen as stepping stones towards a more nuanced view of cultural osmosis between Japan and the outside world. This book presents an ethnographic portrayal of the people of the Southern Ryukyu Islands and their world. In particular it...

Published March 9th 2006 by Routledge