Anthropology - Routledge, An Anthropologist In Japan - Glimpses Of Life In The Field [1999 Isbn0415195748].pdf

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An Anthropologist in Japan
An Anthropologist in Japan is a highly personal narrative which provides unique
insights into many elements of Japanese life. Hendry relates her experiences
during a nine-month period of fieldwork in a Japanese seaside town. She
sets out on a study of politeness but a variety of unpredictable events,
including a volcanic eruption, a suicide and her son’s involvement with the
family of a powerful local gangster, begin to alter the direction of her
research.
This volume exemplifies how much of anthropological knowledge is a
product of chance, and how moments of insight can be embedded in a mass
of everyday activity. The disturbing and disordered appear alongside the
neat and the beautiful, and the vignettes here illuminate the education system,
religious beliefs, politics, the family and the neighbourhood in modern
Japan. An Anthropologist in Japan is reflexive anthropology in action. It
demonstrates how ethnographic fieldwork can uniquely provide a deep
understanding of linguistic and cultural difference.
An Anthropologist in Japan makes fascinating reading for anthropologists
and for everyone interested in, or studying, Japanese society.
Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes
University. She has published numerous books and articles on Japan,
including Wrapping Culture (1993), Understanding Japanese Society (Routledge,
1993) and Interpreting Japanese Society (ed.) (Routledge, 1998).
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Contents
List of illustrations
vii
Preface
viii
PART I
Settling in and making contacts
1
1 Arrival…and an invitation
3
2 The neighbourhood: a ‘world of blossom and willow’
9
3 The hospital…and a strange encounter
16
4 The school…and a fight
23
5 A pilgrims’ trail
30
6 Shiroyama, the Satomi legend and a new look at power
36
PA R T I I
Events to attend
43
7 Wrapping the body: two local festivals
45
8 The housewives’ ‘Club for Life’
53
9 Cubs, sports and a shock
60
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vi
Contents
10 Suicide, funerals and the well-wrapped gift
67
11 Paper walls and flowers at the bank
73
PART III
The role of experts
81
12 A foreigner at the ‘Culture Festival’
83
13 ‘Your Japanese is psychological torture’
91
14 A volcanic eruption
98
15 Tennis and the ‘surreal’ dinner
103
16 Concerts, cakes and spiritual communication
110
PA R T I V
Building a framework for analysis
119
17 New Year: shrine, mochi and a tea ceremony
121
18 Valentine’s Day, and the 6th years pick on Hamish
129
19 The gang-leader’s wife
135
20 Unwrapping the argument
141
21 An artistic farewell
148
Afterword
154
Index
156
Illustrations
1 Drumming at the festival
49
2 Callum dressed up for a photograph at the local
historical festival
51
3 The flower-arranging class
86
4 The tennis coach at the ‘surreal’ dinner
108
5 Well-wrapped cakes
115
6 Unwrapped offerings to the gods
116
7 Mochitsuki at New Year
127
8 Farewell at the school
151
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