Edited Volumes
Home and Family in Japan: Continuity
and Transformation. Co-edited with Richard Ronald.
Routledge Press. 2011.
Abstract: 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
comprehensively addresses various aspects of family life
and dwelling spaces, exploring how homes, household
patterns and kin relations are reacting to contemporary
social, economic and urban transformations, and the degree
to which traditional patterns of both houses and households
are changing. The book contextualizes the shift from the
hegemonic post-war image of standard family life, to the
nuclear family and to a situation now where Japanese homes
are more likely to include unmarried singles; childless
couples; divorcees; unmarried adult children and elderly
relatives either living alone or in nursing homes. It
discusses how these new patterns are both reinforcing and
challenging typical understandings of Japanese family life.
Articles and Chapters
“Intimate Dependence and Its
Risks in Neoliberal Japan.” Anthropology Quarterly 84(4): 897-920. Part of a special
issue devoted to “The Ethics of Disconnection in
a Neoliberal Age” co-edited with Ilana Gershon.
Abstract: This paper examines how contemporary Japanese
women are negotiating neoliberal standards for independence
in relation to cultural norms and personal desires that
encourage dependence in romantic relationships. In recent
decades, neoliberal standards of maturity have become
increasingly visible in Japan, and many marital counselors
offer advice suggesting that independent, atomized selves
are a key to happiness. Yet many women express ambivalence
at this formula and instead find romantic possibility in
dependent relationships. I examine how women are contesting
these opposing standards by focusing on advice surrounding
naming practices between spouses.
The Door My Wife Closed: Houses,
Families, and Divorce in Japan. In Home and
Family in Japan: Continuity and Transformation.
Richard Ronald and Allison Alexy, eds. London:
Routledge Press. 236-253.
Abstract: This chapter describes recent patterns in
marriage and divorce to examine how literal and figurative
houses figure into marital separation. I begin by
describing demographic trends surrounding divorce, and
summarize legal processes structured by Japanese family
law. Using ethnographic examples, I analyze how literal
houses are stages for divorce, and how people attenuate,
reconfigure, and remodel the spaces within homes as a
result of marital difficulties. Next I examine how
figurative houses, and the rhetoric built from legal
constructions of family life, shape the way people
understand marriage and divorce. I conclude by suggesting
that, although marital assets are frequently invested in
family homes, houses are vitally significant in divorce as
more than economic capital. Houses, both literal and
figurative, are a key frame through which people
understand, construct, and make manifest their marital
lives.
Introduction: Continuity and Change in
Japanese Homes and Families. [co-written with
Richard Ronald]. In Home and
Family in Japan: Continuity and Transformation.
Richard Ronald and Allison Alexy, eds. London:
Routledge Press. 1-24.
Abstract: This volume deals with family change, not as a
system in decline, but rather as a complex and fragmentary
process that reflects transformation and continuity,
adaptation and assimilation, function and dysfunction.
Contributors to this edited collection blend economic,
political, social and spatial topics, echoing
multidisciplinary concerns, and nearly all draw upon recent
empirical research. Many address changes in families,
households and homes through ethnographic research while
others use documentary and quantitative sources to
demonstrate shifts in homes and household conditions. The
purpose of this chapter, as well as providing an
introduction to the other chapters of the book, is to
identify past, present and emerging features of Japanese
families. The intention is to provide a reflexive overview
of continuity and change from which to access the following
chapters.
Deferred Benefits, Romance, and the
Specter of Later-life Divorce Contemporary
Japan [Japanstudien], vol. 19: 169-188.
Abstract: In this paper, I describe how the threat of
rising divorce rates among people near retirement has
provoked conversations about ideals and expectations of
marital relationships in contemporary Japan. A change in
the pension law slated to go into effect in April 2007
enables divorced women to access up to half of their
ex-husbands‘ future pension payments, making divorce
more financially feasible for women who have not held
full-time jobs. This legal change coincides with the oldest
baby-boomers turning sixty and is generally predicted to
create a boom in “later-life divorce” (jukunen
rikon). In media images and people’s conversations,
these potential later-life divorces are dramatically
gendered. It is commonly suggested that the vast majority
will be initiated by women and will leave helpless husbands
who are unable to perform basic domestic duties. Based on
ethnographic research and participation in support groups,
this paper describes reflections on and reconsiderations of
marital ideals and family lives during the period
immediately before the legal changes. In this analysis, I
pay particular attention to media coverage, individual case
studies, and the symbolic value of women’s work and
retirement.
Reviews
2013. Review of Fragile Kinships: Family Ideologies and
Child Welfare in Japan. A dissertation by Kathryn Goldfarb.
Dissertation Reviews. www.dissertationreviews.org
2012. Review of Lovesick Japan: Sex, Marriage, Romance,
Law by Mark D. West. 2011. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press. Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 18(4): 914-915.
2011. Review of Manners and Mischief: Gender, Power, and
Etiquette in Japan. Jan Bardsley and Laura
Miller, eds. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press. Southeast Review of Asian
Studies 33: 283-285.
2011. Review of Women and Family in Contemporary
Japan by Susan Holloway. 2010. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. Contemporary
Sociology 40(3): 313-314.
2011. Review of Tough Choices: Bearing an Illegitimate
Child in Japan by Ekaterina Hertog. 2010.
Stanford: Stanford University Press. Contemporary
Sociology 40(2): 188-189.
2010. Review of Embodying Culture: Pregnancy in Japan and
Israel by Tsipy Ivry. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press. 2010. Ethos 38(4).
2007. Review of The Too-Good Wife: Alcohol, Codependency,
and the Politics of Nurturance in Postwar Japan
by Amy Borovoy. 2007. Southeast
Review of Asian Studies, vol. 29: 261-264.
2004. Review of Doing Fieldwork in Japan edited by Theodore Bestor, Patricia
Steinhoff and Victoria Lyon Bestor. 2004.
H-Net Online.
Writing in Japanese /
日本語の発表
バツとして生きるーバツイチの理論に向けて
[Living as an X: Toward a theory of the Batsu
Ichi] Paper presented at the American
Anthropological Association annual meeting. 2006.
Translated into Japanese by Junichi Machida.