Multiethnic Japan
Multiethnic Japan

Author: John Lie

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-07

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780674040175

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Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence--historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture--John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society. Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity. Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post-World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification.

Hegemony of Homogeneity
Hegemony of Homogeneity

Author: Harumi Befu

Publisher: Japanese Society

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13:

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Nihonjinron is the Japanese term for Japanese national character, or the way the Japanese characterize themselves. Befu, a bilingual anthropologist who has studied Japan for 40 years, examines hundreds of original Japanese sources, and argues that Nihonjinron is a civil religion for the Japanese and that it responds to the country's political and economic environment. Befu is professor emeritus at Stanford University and has taught at universities in Japan, Europe, and Latin America. The book is distributed by ISBS. c. Book News Inc.

Multicultural Japan
Multicultural Japan

Author: Donald Denoon

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2001-11-20

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780521003629

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This book challenges the conventional view of Japanese society as monocultural and homogenous. Unique for its historical breadth and interdisciplinary orientation, Multicultural Japan ranges from prehistory to the present, arguing that cultural diversity has always existed in Japan. A timely and provocative discussion of identity politics regarding the question of 'Japaneseness', the book traces the origins of the Japanese, examining Japan's indigenous people and the politics of archaeology, using the latter to link Japan's ancient history with contemporary debates on identity. Also examined are Japan's historical connections with Europe and East and Southeast Asia, ideology, family, culture and past and present.

Japan's Minorities
Japan's Minorities

Author: Michael Weiner

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 041577263X

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Examining the ways in which the Japanese have manipulated historical memory, the contributors reveal the presence of an underlying concept of 'Japaneseness' that excludes members of the principal minority groups in Japan.

An Introduction to Japanese Society
An Introduction to Japanese Society

Author: Yoshio Sugimoto

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-06-22

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 113948947X

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Essential reading for students of Japanese society, An Introduction to Japanese Society now enters its third edition. Here, internationally renowned scholar, Yoshio Sugimoto, writes a sophisticated, yet highly readable and lucid text, using both English and Japanese sources to update and expand upon his original narrative. The book challenges the traditional notion that Japan comprises a uniform culture, and draws attention to its subcultural diversity and class competition. Covering all aspects of Japanese society, it includes chapters on class, geographical and generational variation, work, education, gender, minorities, popular culture and the establishment. This new edition features sections on: Japan's cultural capitalism; the decline of the conventional Japanese management model; the rise of the 'socially divided society' thesis; changes of government; the spread of manga, animation and Japan's popular culture overseas; and the expansion of civil society in Japan.

A Genealogy of 'Japanese' Self-images
A Genealogy of 'Japanese' Self-images

Author: Eiji Oguma

Publisher: ISBS

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 486

ISBN-13: 9781876843045

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Eiji 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. Oguma also examines how the peoples of the Japanese colonies were viewed in prewarliterature on ethnic identity.