Amy Borovoy

Japan’s Hidden Youths: Mainstreaming the Emotionally Distressed in Japan

One of the most talked-about social issues in Japan in recent years has been the problem of the nation’s purportedly one million “hidden” youths, known as hikikomori (literally, “the withdrawn”). Most observers agree that the category of hikikomori encompasses a wide range of problems and provocations. The fact that these various dilemmas lead to the shared outcome of shutting oneself away at home is the point of departure here. The article explores the spheres of mental health care, education and family, focusing on the reluctance to highlight underlying psychological dimensions of hikikomori and the desire on the part of schools and families to “mainstream” Japanese children, accommodating as many as possible within standardized public education. Hikikomori can perhaps be seen as a manifestation of Japanese democracy, in which the good society is imagined as cohesive, protective and secure, rather than one in which the individual can freely exercise the right to be different. Schools, families and the sphere of mental health care have focused on producing social inclusion but have discouraged citizens from being labeled as “different”—even when such a distinction might help them. The dearth of facilities and discourse for caring for the mentally ill or learning disabled is, in many respects, the darker side of Japan’s successes. Those who cannot adjust are cared for through the institutions of families, companies and various other spheres that offer spaces to rest and to temporarily “drop out”; however, the expectation is that rest will eventually lead to a re-entry into mainstream society. Often the psychological problem or disability that led to the problem goes unnamed and untreated (hikikomori, psychiatry, special education, youth, family, Japan).

Doi Takeo and the Rehabilitation of Particularism in Postwar Japan

This essay explores the persuasive power of Takeo Doi’s idea of amae. Doi’s description of Japanese cultural psychology as rooted in sensitivity, innocence, and passivity allowed him to provide a comfortable return to the values of familiality, paternalism, and beneficent authority, in a way that could be embraceable in the context of postwar democracy. The essay situates Doi’s ideas in the context of postwar liberalism and explores his engagement with Christian writers, whose ideals of humility and deference allowed Doi to link Japanese particularism with Western humanism. It also explores his analysis of Natsume Sōseki’s novels.

Between Biopolitical Governance and Care: Rethinking Health, Selfhood, and Social Welfare in East Asia

Video abstractRead the transcriptWatch the video on Vimeo In both Japan and China, health has historically been entwined with notions of morality and broader social ideals. In part, this is because...

Japan’s Public Health Paradigm: Governmentality and the Containment of Harmful Behavior

ABSTRACT In this essay, I revisit the politics of social control in the context of contemporary public health discussions, touching on the management of obesity and chronic illness. Foucault’s cautionary observations regarding the infiltration of normative social values into the terrain of healing offer a productive framework for considering the politics of public health in the industrialized world. I explore Japan’s public health paradigm and its key features of bureaucratic reform and health interventions through screening, socialization, education, and aggressive lifestyle training, and I consider the close proximity between health and socio-cultural values in the management of chronic conditions in Japan.

Robert Bellah's Search for Community and Ethical Modernity in Japan Studies

This article explores Robert Bellahs engagement with Japan in formulating his communitarian critique of American individualism. Bellahs early contribution to post–World War II modernization studies, Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan , embraced the Weberian framework of social development, but it also described a system that departed from Webers narrative of liberalization and rationalization in important ways. Bellah argued that in early modern Japan, the profit motive was contained by social obligations and ethical rules. Through his explorations of Japan, Bellah articulated a critique of liberal individualism, drawing on Japanese cultural nationalism in his search for a modern, capitalist system that could be contained by overarching cultural and moral values. One finds a surprising resonance between Bellahs ideal of American “civil religion” and the ideas of interwar philosopher Watsuji Tetsurō and Watsujis own critique of liberalism and popular democracy as lacking cultural foundations. Bellahs engagement with Watsuji reveals the tensions within Bellahs thought and in his subsequent call for community in America as a means of overcoming the excesses of American individualism. This article considers both the contributions and the limits of Bellahs attempt to invoke Japan as an alternative modernity in Japan studies.

A Disability of the Soul: An Ethnography of Schizophrenia and Mental Illness in Contemporary Japan by Karen Nakamura (review)

put to the test. This also helps to explain the absence of overt homophobia that Dasgupta observes in his subjects’ upbringing (p. 54). Homosexuality is not hated—rather, it is simply off the radar. Gay Japanese men almost never come out in the workplace, so there are almost no opportunities for confrontation. After departing the workplace, the employee may go home to his wife, to a brothel, or to a gay bar—and it is a matter of indifference to his workmates which of those he chooses. This disjuncture between work and private life has much to do with postwar Japanese urbanization, which created urban conglomerations with massive distances between home and workplace. I wondered whether the disjuncture might be less striking in Dasgupta’s anonymous “medium-sized regional city” (p. 17), but that does not seem to have been the case. Moreover, some of the interviewees had lived in the same company-run housing complex for some years, yet: “Despite a perception of dormitory life as being one of homosocial bonding, the reality was a situation where the residents were barely aware of each others’ existence” (p. 145). Even close proximity with one’s workmates outside working hours did not break down the barrier between workplace socialization and private life. That is both sad and liberating: sad, because the chummy socializing among groups of salarymen is revealed as mere “face,” discarded the moment one goes home; liberating, for exactly the same reason. Hegemonic heterosexuality is assumed in, but not actually imposed on, the private lives of salarymen.

Uneasy Warriors: Gender, Memory, and Popular Culture in the Japanese Army (review)

There are just two points of marginal criticism to be made. First, especially because of the long chapters of some 40 pages, a table of contents or a brief abstract at the beginning of each chapter would have been helpful for the reader. Second, the volume sticks to the unfortunate habit of using endnotes—instead of footnotes—and thus actively discourages the utilization of the manifold sources provided by the individual authors for each chapter. This being said, one cannot but congratulate the editor on the appealing formal design of the book—a rarity these days. Thus, “form and substance” correlate perfectly. The comprehensive index deserves special credit; unfortunately, such an index is no longer the norm with edited works. In sum, Law in Japan: A Turning Point is simply a “must have” for every library with a serious collection of Western literature on Japanese law. This landmark volume is a fi tting tribute and admirably lives up to its dedication to our unforgotten friend and colleague Dan Fenno Henderson, who, in one way or another, deeply infl uenced many of us who are active today in the fi eld of comparative law with Japan.