Unwraping Japan

Recent years have witnessed an explosive growth in the literature published about Japan. Yet it seems that the more that is written about this country its culture, society, people the more exoticised and orientalised it becomes.

This book attempts to divest Japan of some of the multiple layers of wrapping in which it has been encased by the social sciences. As well as exploring current issues related to advertising, tourism, women, festivals, the art world and much else, it attempts to show how the study of Japanese society, or aspects of it, may also contribute to anthropological theory and understanding. This task has been formulated by the contributors as one of 'unwrapping', that is as a process by which 'revelations' of Japan or things Japanese have been related to wider problems and questions prevalent in contemporary anthropological discourse.

The issues dealt with include the contribution of applied anthropology to theory; the relationship between tourism and nostalgia; the interplay of marginality and belonging; the role of advertising in reproducing gender relations; the position of women; status in the art world; and the place of Japanese genres of writing within anthropological texts. Intended for students and teachers of sociology, social anthropology, cultural studies and everyone interested in Japan today.