From mothering to othering : organization and nap time in a Japanese preschool -- The Gambaru complex : learning to overcome obstacles through individual and collective action -- Teachers' meetings : information, quality control and decisions -- A sports day in suburban Japan : leisure, artificial communities and the creation of locality -- Posing, posturing and photographic presences : a rite of passage in a Japanese commuter village -- Sake and spare time : management and imbibement in Japanese business firms -- "Not-precisely-work" : golf, entertainment and drinking among Japanese business executives in Singapore -- Coincident events of remembrance, coexisting spaces of memory : the annual memorial rites at Yasukuni Shrine -- Public events and Japanese the Self-Defense Forces : aesthetics, ritual density and the normalization of military violence breaking and creating boundaries -- Power, play and transformation.
Summary:
This book explores the multiplicity of special times and spaces in Japan within which people get together to decide, celebrate or play, gatherings such as organizational meetings, community festivities, preschool games or drinking bouts. It analyzes these gatherings in relation to the theoretical model of sociocultural frames, examining how such gatherings are put together, the unfolding stages, the interactive encounters, the relations between participants and the wider social and cultural contexts. It considers the cognitive, emotional and behavioural dimensions, the scope for manipulation and the effects, intentional and unintentional, on participants and the connections to the ways in which in society and culture change. Overall, besides describing specific rites and ceremonies in Japan, the book provides great insights into the process whereby the interactions, feelings and action of individuals and groups shape popular culture.
Series:
Routledge culture, society, business in East Asia series
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.