1st Edition

Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy Essays in Honour of Jan van Bremen

Edited By Joy Hendry, Heung Wah Wong Copyright 2007
264 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

264 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

264 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

It has been customary in the appraisal of the different approaches to the study of Japan anthropology to invoke an East-West dichotomy positing hegemonic ‘Western’ systems of thought against a more authentic ‘Eastern’ alternative. Top scholars in the field of Japan anthropology examine, challenge and attempt to move beyond the notion of an East-West divide in the study of Japan anthropology.... Read more

Introduction  1. Japan Anthropology: A Model for Good Practice in a Global Arena?  2. Against "Hybridity" as an Analytical Tool  3. Fear and Loathing of Americans Doing Japan Anthropology  4. The Relationship between Anthropological Theory, Methods and the Study of Japanese Society  5. Japan, Anthropology and the West  6. When Soto becomes Uchi: Some Thoughts on the Anthropology of Japan  7. Anthropological Fieldwork Reconsidered: With Japanese Folkloristics as a Mirror  8. The Discipline of Context: On Ethnography among the Japanese  9. Tinkering with the Natural: Lessons from Japan for an Anthropology of the Body  10. Japanese Ryokan and an Asian Atmosphere: Always East of Somewhere  11. Joint Research Project as a Tradition in Japanese Anthropology  12. "De-Orientalizing" Rice? The Role of Chinese Intermediaries in Globalizing Japanese Ricecookers  13. Two Wests Meet Japan: How a Three-Way Comparison of Japan with Canada and the United States Shifts Culture Paradigms  14. The West in the Head: Identity Issues of Latin Americans Living in Japan  15. East and West Unite in Culture  16. Wandering Where: Between Worlds or in No-Man's-Land?  17. West/Japan Dichotomy in the Context of Multiple Dichotomies  18. Neither "Us" nor "Them": Koreans doing Japanese Anthropology  19. Re-Orient-ing the Occident: How Japanese Travellers to Asia Reveal the Changing Relationship between Eastern Membership and Perceived Western Hegemony  20. Contending with the Strong: Okinawa’s Adaptation to World History  21. When West met East and made it West: Occidentalizing the Ainu  22. Japanese Collections in European Museums  23. Dismantling the East-West Dichotomy: What Happens with Religion?  24. Legacies of East-West Fusions in Social Ecology Theory in Dismantling ‘Views of the Japanese Nation'  25. Japanese Management and Japanese Miracles: The Global Sweep of Japanese Economic and Religious Organizations  26. Somewhere In between: Toward an Interactive Anthropology in a World Anthropologies Project  27. If Anthropology is a Science, then the East-West Dichotomy is Irrelevant: Moving Towards a Global Anthropology  28. Writing for Common Ground: Rethinking Audience and Purpose in Japan Anthropology  29. Native Anthropology as a Cultural System: An Analysis of the Notion of a Native Anthropology as a Situated Response to the Anthropological Gaze  30. Japanese Anthropological Scholarship: An Alternative Model?  31. What Enlightenment can Japan Anthropology Offer to Anthropology? 

Biography

Joy Hendry is Professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University and a Senior Member of St. Antony's College, Oxford. She has worked for many years in Japan, but recently seeks to put Japanese material in a global context. Her publications include Wrapping Culture: Politeness, Presentation and Power in Japan and Other Societies and The Orient Strikes Back: A Global View of Cultural Display.

Heung Wah Wong is Associate Professor at The Department of Japanese Studies, The University of Hong Kong. His research interest lies in the study of Japanese companies. He is the author of Japanese Bosses, Chinese Workers: Power and Control in a Hong Kong Megastore.