Kinship And Economic Organisation In Rural Japan

In this essay the author presents the principles of one important sector of social organization in Japan, and establish its framework. Japanese kinship structure, with its multiple historical and local factors, and unlike that of the Chinese or of the Hindus, does not belong to the category of unilineal systems, nor to any kind of descent pattern found in the published literature of social anthropology. Social anthropology, developed by micro-synchronic studies of simpler societies, and with its major analysis devoted to descent systems, has to face in Japan a critical methodological test. In this essay, the author, as a social anthropologist, want to overcome these drawbacks of anthropological method, and to demonstrate one of the new approaches by which an anthropologist can cope with the data from a sophisticated society

Study of family structure within the social structure of agriculture in Japan - covers sociological aspects of land tenure, religion, tradition and social change affecting landowners, tenant farmers, and other rural workers, rural development, etc. Map, and bibliography pp. 173 to 197.

In the historical literature on Japan, rural people have tended to be regarded as the exploited victims of the industrialisation process. This book provides an alternative view of the role and significance of the rural economy in Japan’s emergence as an economic power prior to World War II. Using theories and approaches derived from development studies and economic history the book describes the nineteenth-century development of a diversified, proto-industrial rural economy, focusing on the strategies employed by households as they sought to secure and improve their livelihoods. The book argues that rural people, through their ‘industrious revolution’, played an active part in determining the course of Japan’s agrarian transition and, eventually, the distinctive features of industrial Japan’s political economy, with the result that rural life still figures largely in the reality and imagination of contemporary Japan.

First published in 1986, Interpreting Japanese Society became something of a classic in the field. In this newly revised and updated edition, the value of anthropological approaches to help understand an ancient and complex nation is clearly demonstrated. While living and working in Japan the contributors have studied important areas of society. Religion, ritual, leisure, family and social relations are covered as are Japanese preconceptions of time and space - often so different from Western concepts. This new edition of Interpreting Japanese Society shows what an important contribution research in such a rapidly changing industralised nation can make to the subject of anthropology. It will be welcomed by students and scholars alike who wish to find refreshing new insights on one of the world's most fascinating societies.

Through provocative essays by specialists in different aspects of Japanese culture, this book provides an historical and analytical survey of the presence of Goddesses in Japanese audiovisual culture from its origins to the present day. It shows how these feminine myths are represented in Japan; not only as beneficial or creative deities, but also the archetypal strong or dominant woman that sometimes overshadows masculine figures and heroes, or as influential figures. Therefore, it analyzes this rich dialectic of the feminine and how the audiovisual culture has represented it thus far in film, TV series, and video games made in Japan. While many theories have been proposed to explain the presence of Goddesses in Japan, this book’s focus on audiovisual culture explores how this corpus challenges the traditional conceptions of the feminine as related to Goddesses.

This book approaches its subject from two angles. First, there is a detailed and descriptive analysis of the social organisation of, and place of marriage in, one community in Kyushu. To this extent, the study is a regional one and provides valuable ethnographic information. The second angle, however, is to analyse this material in the light of other historical ethnographical writings on Japan, which puts the regional material in a national context, and brings together a great deal of information about Japanese marriage hitherto unpublished in English.

The spectacular economic and technological achievements of certain Far Eastern countries have attracted world wide attention. The markets of the West are dominated by the products of countries with no traditions of industrialisation and few natural resources. The reaction to this phenomenon has been a mixture of amazement, admiration, envy and, curiosity to know how it was done. This book addresses these questions through a study of the modernisation of three of the most successful Asian societies - Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

As Japan enters the 21st century with a new emperor, this title continues to be an indispensable guide through often enigmatic and historical idiosyncrasies of Japanese culture and politics that are often confusing to the outsider. This title includes information on the latest social developments, customs, rituals, business culture, medicine and arts.