Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Genaro Castro-Vazquez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317265351
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
This book presents an ethnographic investigation of intimate and reproductive behaviour in current Japanese society, grounded in the viewpoints of a group of Japanese mothers. It adopts a new approach in studying the decreasing fertility rates which are contributing to the ageing population in modern Japan. Based on the accounts of 57 married Japanese women, it employs symbolic interactionism as a framework to examine the various factors affecting decision-making on childbirth. The influence of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), abortion and contraception in the daily interactions and experiences of the mothers are analysed to offer a new perspective on the Japanese demographic conundrum. With strong contextual information as the foundation, the book contributes fresh insight into how Japanese women perceive the idea of childbirth in a modernized society, and also assists our understanding of the factors causing Japan’s ageing population. Further, it places the mothers’ experiences within current global debates to highlight the salience of the Japanese case. As the first book to provide an in-depth examination of the social process underpinning the decision to become a mother in Japan, it will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, Gender Studies, and Sociology.

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Genaro Castro-Vazquez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317265351
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Get Book

Book Description
This book presents an ethnographic investigation of intimate and reproductive behaviour in current Japanese society, grounded in the viewpoints of a group of Japanese mothers. It adopts a new approach in studying the decreasing fertility rates which are contributing to the ageing population in modern Japan. Based on the accounts of 57 married Japanese women, it employs symbolic interactionism as a framework to examine the various factors affecting decision-making on childbirth. The influence of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), abortion and contraception in the daily interactions and experiences of the mothers are analysed to offer a new perspective on the Japanese demographic conundrum. With strong contextual information as the foundation, the book contributes fresh insight into how Japanese women perceive the idea of childbirth in a modernized society, and also assists our understanding of the factors causing Japan’s ageing population. Further, it places the mothers’ experiences within current global debates to highlight the salience of the Japanese case. As the first book to provide an in-depth examination of the social process underpinning the decision to become a mother in Japan, it will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, Gender Studies, and Sociology.

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan

Intimacy and Reproduction in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Genaro Castro-Vazquez
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317265343
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 214

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Book Description
This book presents an ethnographic investigation of intimate and reproductive behaviour in current Japanese society, grounded in the viewpoints of a group of Japanese mothers. It adopts a new approach in studying the decreasing fertility rates which are contributing to the ageing population in modern Japan. Based on the accounts of 57 married Japanese women, it employs symbolic interactionism as a framework to examine the various factors affecting decision-making on childbirth. The influence of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), abortion and contraception in the daily interactions and experiences of the mothers are analysed to offer a new perspective on the Japanese demographic conundrum. With strong contextual information as the foundation, the book contributes fresh insight into how Japanese women perceive the idea of childbirth in a modernized society, and also assists our understanding of the factors causing Japan’s ageing population. Further, it places the mothers’ experiences within current global debates to highlight the salience of the Japanese case. As the first book to provide an in-depth examination of the social process underpinning the decision to become a mother in Japan, it will appeal to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, Gender Studies, and Sociology.

Intimate Japan

Intimate Japan PDF Author: Allison Alexy
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 082488244X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
How do couples build intimacy in an era that valorizes independence and self-responsibility? How can a man be a good husband when full-time jobs are scarce? How can unmarried women find fulfillment and recognition outside of normative relationships? How can a person express their sexuality when there is no terminology that feels right? In contemporary Japan, broad social transformations are reflected and refracted in changing intimate relationships. As the Japanese population ages, the low birth rate shrinks the population, and decades of recession radically restructure labor markets, Japanese intimate relationships, norms, and ideals are concurrently shifting. This volume explores a broad range of intimate practices in Japan in the first decades of the 2000s to trace how social change is becoming manifest through deeply personal choices. From young people making decisions about birth control to spouses struggling to connect with each other, parents worrying about stigma faced by their adopted children, and queer people creating new terms to express their identifications, Japanese intimacies are commanding a surprising amount of attention, both within and beyond Japan. With ethnographic analysis focused on how intimacy is imagined, enacted, and discussed, the volume's chapters offer rich and complex portraits of how people balance personal desires with feasible possibilities and shifting social norms. Intimate Japan will appeal to scholars and students in anthropology and Japanese or Asian studies, particularly those focusing on gender, kinship, sexuality, and labor policy. The book will also be of interest to researchers across social science subject areas, including sociology, political science, and psychology.

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan

Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan PDF Author: Sabine Frühstück
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108356265
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Gender and Sexuality in Modern Japan describes the ever-changing manifestations of sexes, genders, and sexualities in Japanese society from the 1860s to the present day. Analysing a wide range of texts, images and data, Sabine Frühstück considers the experiences of females, males and the evolving spectrum of boundary-crossing individuals and identities in Japan. These include the intersexed conscript in the 1880s, the first 'out' lesbian war reporter in the 1930s, and pregnancy-vest-wearing male governors in the present day. She interweaves macro views of history with stories about individual actors, highlighting how sexual and gender expression has been negotiated in both the private and the public spheres and continues to wield the power to critique and change society. This lively and accessible survey introduces Japanese ideas about modern manhood, modern womenhood, reproduction, violence and sex during war, the sex trade, LGBTQ identities and activism, women's liberation, feminisms and visual culture.

Beyond Common Sense: Sexuality And Gender In Contemporary Japan

Beyond Common Sense: Sexuality And Gender In Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Wim Lunsing
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131779303X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
First published in 2001. This volume is based on the author's visit to Japan in Summer 1986 on his findings about some of the questions he was asked whilst there. He was 25 and these questions centred around asking if he was married or had a girlfriend, when in his homeland of the Netherlands he openly identified as gay. This research is an investigation of how gay and lesbian people, women's and men's liberationaists, singles and other people, such as transsexuals, transvestites and hermaphrodites, whose ideas, feelings or lifestyles are at variance with Japanese constructions of marriage and inherently the construction of life, live in Japan.

Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)Productive Futures: Women's Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan

Sexuality, Maternity, and (Re)Productive Futures: Women's Speculative Fiction in Contemporary Japan PDF Author: Kazue Harada
Publisher: Brill's Japanese Studies Libra
ISBN: 9789004468832
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Contemporary Japanese female speculative fiction writers of novels and manga employ the perspectives of aliens, cyborgs, and bioengineered entities to critique the social realities of women, particularly with respect to reproduction, which they also re-imagine in radical ways. Harada examines the various meanings of (re)production in light of feminist and queer studies and offers close readings of works by novelists Murata Sayaka, Ohara Mariko, Ueda Sayuri and manga artists Hagio Moto and Shirai Yumiko. Scholarship of SF in Japanese studies has primarily focused on male authors, but this book shows not only how women writers have created a space in SF and speculative fiction but how their work can be seen as a response to particular social norms and government policies.

Consuming Bodies

Consuming Bodies PDF Author: Fran Lloyd
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 9781861891471
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Fran Lloyd focuses on the resurgence in the imaging of sex and consumerism in contemporary Japanese art and the connections they establish with the wider historical, social and political conditions within Japanese culture.

Active Pursuit of Pregnancy

Active Pursuit of Pregnancy PDF Author: Isabel Fassbender
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004499555
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 291

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Book Description
"What is ninkatsu? Who promotes and governs this "active pursuit of pregnancy?" Trying to answer these questions, this unprecedented publication exhibits how mass media, policymakers, and biomedical science-corporate capitalism govern the individual's reproductive choices in contemporary Japan through gendered discourses of self-improvement, life planning, and biomedical technology. Analyzing a broad range of media, popular science, and government material, it links historical and social processes with an original theoretical framework on self-governance, neoliberalism, and postfeminism. While deeply engaging with Japanese sources, this rich scholarship takes the study of reproductive politics beyond Japan. This book is not only of interest for Japanese studies scholars but more broadly also those curious about neoliberal government strategies, gender, and biomedical capitalism"--

Sustainability, Diversity, and Equality: Key Challenges for Japan

Sustainability, Diversity, and Equality: Key Challenges for Japan PDF Author: Kimiko Tanaka
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031363310
Category : Electronic books
Languages : en
Pages : 461

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Book Description
This book enables readers to understand contemporary Japanese society and culture. Since it is written by experts, it allows readers to start with any chapters they are interested in. It also provides a unique way to introduce Japanese society and culture to those who have never visited or studied Japanese society by reading articles from various authors on topics such as gender, family, economy, natural disasters and politics and laws. It provides scholars, academics, graduate students and the general educated audience all the information required to understand contemporary Japanese society and culture fully and see the diverse perspectives available.

Comparative Perspectives on Gender Equality in Japan and Norway

Comparative Perspectives on Gender Equality in Japan and Norway PDF Author: Masako Ishii-Kuntz
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000528499
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
This book compares perspectives on gender equality in Norway and Japan, focusing on family, education, media, and sexuality and reproduction as seen through a gendered lens. What can we learn from a comparison between two countries that stand in significant contrast to each other with respect to gender equality? Norway and Japan differ in terms of historical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Most importantly, Japan lags far behind Norway when it comes to the World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report. Rather than taking a narrow approach that takes as its starting point the assumption that Norway has so much ‘more’ to offer in terms of gender equality, the authors attempt to show that a comparative perspective of two countries in the West and East can be mutually beneficial to both contexts in the advancement of gender equality. The interdisciplinary team of researchers contributing to this book cover a range of contemporary topics in gender equality, including fatherhood and masculinity, teaching and learning in gender studies education, cultural depictions of gender, trans experiences and feminism. This unique collection is suitable for researchers and students of gender studies, sociology, anthropology, Japan studies and European studies.