Abstract
This book, based on fieldwork carried out in Japan between 1981 and 1983, is a study of two residential communities in the context of Japan's post-war urban and social developments. Rather than attempting a comprehensive ethnographic account of the two communities studied, it represents an effort to examine some questions bearing upon the changing qualities and dynamics of such localities. These questions, which arose while doing my fieldwork and analysing the data, sprang from the contrast I could not help but note between the dominant social scientific approaches to Japanese society which had shaped my view of the plight of postwar villages and neighbourhoods and what I was actually experiencing in the communities I was studying. The accepted views tend to lay the blame for the breakdown or dissolution of local communities on the macro forces of urbanization and modernization or on the transfer of community orientations and modes of organization to the workplace. What I saw, however, were two communities marked not only by thriving local activity but also by a high capacity to undertake joint ventures. I was thus faced with a need somehow to explain the discrepancy between the rather bleak portrayal in the literature and the more favourable circumstances I had encountered. A few words about the two communities, and about my initial attempts to account for their peculiarities, may contribute to an understanding of how this explanation - or rather the questions leading to it - were formulated.
Original language | English |
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Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
Number of pages | 328 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9780203038222 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780710303813 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1 Feb 2013 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© Eyal Ben-Ari 1991. All rights reserved.