ANTHROPOLOGY OF JAPAN*

概要

Please note: this class is open to anyone but it is designed for 1st and 2nd year students. This class will focus on key dimensions of social identity and discrimination, of order and control, of inclusion and exclusion. We will study these issues through a combination of academic articles, contemporary news and popular media, and survey and governmental reports. Sometimes we will work together, sharing our research results with each other in groups, and sometimes you will work individually on topics of your own choice, Most of our work will focus on textual sources but sometime we will do our own "fieldwork" in this big, wonderful fieldsite of Tokyo. We will both examine some of the most problematic issues in Japan today, but also learn about some of the activists who are working to address these issues and improve Japan. Part 1: Race is an important component to cultural and national identity in any country, but as Japan comes more "global" the status of foreigners and immigrants in Japan, of biracial people and even of 帰国子女 becomes more complicated. What is the definition of "Japanese" and how has this changed over time in the media and in everyday life. Part 2: Japan is supposed to be a "middle-class" country, and yet alarming rates of "poverty" have been reported in the media over the past 5 years. As the decades of relatively stable labor that characterized "Japan Inc" breaks apart, Japan is often represented as a country of winners (勝ち組) and losers (負け組). Which are you? Part Part. 3. Some gender roles Japan are changing fast, and some are remarkable ingrained. How do these shifts affect work and family, sexual identity and the politics of choice? What does it mean to be a woman? Or a man? Are those are only two options? Please note, while our course will roughly be divides into 3 parts, in fact, race, class and gender are always already overlapping, or "intersecting," in ways that allow us, indeed force us, to consider them in conjunction with each other.

目標

To become familiar with the way that anthropologists study race, social class and gender; to understand how these dynamics are present in Japan and how they have changed over time during the post-war period; to introduce you to social science research methods, in particular how to handle macro-level survey data and micro-level ethnographic data, media representation and policy or advocacy data; to construct a mini-research topic and develop an annotated bibliography to export it; and to locate topics within contemporary Japan that you might pursue in your career at the FLA. Also, please note that this will be a large class with many different sorts of students; one of the goals of this class is to learn to use this diversity as a learning resource for ourselves and others.

授業外の学習

●Preparation of class materials and reading assignments (60 minutes). ●Work on class assignments (60 minutes) ●Review class lecture and do quizzes (70 minutes)

所要時間: 190 minutes per lecture