Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how older Japanese navigate the tensions between intimacy and avoidance of ‘burdening others’, focusing on interactions in a community salon for the elderly. It argues that formality serves as an enabling device for creating new relationships and preserving sociality.

Paper long abstract:

In contrast to Western discourses of 'successful aging', which emphasize independence, productivity, self-maintenance, and the individual self as a project (Lamb 2014), Japanese aging emphasizes relations to others. A duty to care for aging family members on the one hand, and a moral imperative to not to be a burden on the other, form a tension at the centre of moral subjectivity for older Japanese. Based on ethnography of a community centre in the city of Osaka, the paper explores how topics and styles of conversation, modes of interaction between salon-goers, and the construction of well-being, are constituted with respect to a pervasive concern for manners and for the emotions of others. Focusing on the importance of "form" and its relevance for morality, I argue that formality serves as an enabling device for creating new relationships among older Japanese, preserving sociality while protecting oneself and others from the burdens of emotion and excessive proximity.