looking back to look forward
TRANSCRIPT
Looking Back to Look Forward
Benedict, Nakane and Ethnographic Involution
John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd.
AJJ Spring Meeting 2015
Benedict
• “The Japanese were the most alien enemy that the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle.”
• But the Japanese are not Chinese
• An important point since the USA and China were allies in WWII
Japanese vs Chinese
JAPAN CHINA
Absolute loyalty to the Emperor
Conditional loyalty The dynastic cycle
Extreme sensitivity to insults to honor
Gentlemen ignore insults
Ancestor worship restricted to those within living memory
Ancestors worshipped by many generations, the more the
better
Mistresses kept in separate households
Concubines added to households
Nakane
• Studied with Raymond Firth, did fieldwork in India
• Was surprised by how freely Indian women voiced their opinions
• And how often they won quarrels with their mothers-in-law
Japanese vs Indians
JAPAN INDIA
Social ties defined by frame (household or firm)
Social ties defined by category (caste)
Weak ties between frames Strong ties within category
Insistence on unity in thought and feeling as well as behavior
Individuals free to think and feel as they liked so long as
behavior was proper
No allies for women who fight with their mothers-in-law
Relatives ready to take the woman’s side
My purpose today
• Not to defend Benedict or Nakane
• Not to defend these particular arguments
• But to underline something that their arguments share
• What I have called in a previous slide “An Asian regional comparative perspective”
Our Conference Theme
• “Glocalizing Japanese Studies: Japanese Studies Inside and Outside Japan”
• “Glocalizing” =Globalization+Localizing
• But what does it mean in practice?
Glocalization in Practice
• “Applying” Western ideas to study something presented as characteristically Japanese
• Continuing subservience to Western models
• Ethnographic involution
Ethnographic Involution
• An idea adapted from Clifford Geertz’s Agricultural Involution.
• Agricultural Involution—Growing numbers of Javanese peasants investing more and more intensive labor in smaller and smaller fields
• Ethnographic Involution—Growing numbers of anthropologists investing more and more intensive labor on smaller and smaller topics
• Both becoming poorer in the process
Look Back to Look Forward
• Benedict and Nakane
• Both were deeply involved in the major events of their times
• Both employed what they learned about other parts of Asia to enrich their analyses of Japan
• Both wrote books that, however frequently criticized by later anthropologists, continue to be read and cited outside of anthropology
In Today’s World
• It’s no longer the 1960s or 70s, when Japan’s economic miracle was transforming Japan into the world’s second largest economy.
• It’s no longer the 1980s, when it looked like Japan might dominate the global economy
• Japan is slipping out of the global limelight
In Today’s World
• Where China’s importance is growing
• India and Indonesia are next in line
• Samsung is a bigger brand than Sony
• Can Japanese studies afford to remain parochial?
What is the alternative?
• Whatever the topic, there are fresh insights to be found by looking at what is going on outside of Japan, in China, Korea, or other parts of Asia.
• Yes, there are language and other barriers.
• But now we have the Internet
In a Digital World
• A Google search will turn up all sorts of work in other places on topics similar to our own
• Colleagues who work in those other places are just a click or an email away
• Most are very happy when someone else, anyone at all, takes an interest in their work
• The possibilities for collaborative, comparative research have never been greater