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- Convenor:
-
Hirofumi Utsumi
(Ca' Foscari University of Venice)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Kimio Ito
(Kyoto Sangyo University)
- Stream:
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Location:
- Bloco 1, Piso 1, Sala 1.12
- Sessions:
- Thursday 31 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
This panel is to discuss theoretically and empirically globalizing Japan based on the concept of cultural and social hybridity. It aims to reconsider the key concepts of sociology, including 'society', and globalize the research imagination of Japanese Studies.
Long Abstract:
Modern Japan has been regarded as one of the most representative instances of exogenous development. Non Euro-American exogenous development including Japan has been considered to be a deviation from European or North-American endogenous development (Koto 2011), Modernization theories typically have taken this perspective. The rise of post-modernism gradually and the trend of globalization has dramatically changed such evaluation. Exogenous development theory has now become an important perspective for theorizing social development.
The popularization of the concept of 'hybridity' in humanities and social sciences indicates the alternation of approach in order to understand contemporary globalization. The concept of 'hybridity' has been used for analyzing multiplicity or plurality of globalization since the 1990s (Ashcroft etc. 1989; García Canclini 1990; Appadurai 1996; Pieterse 2004). Post-colonialism, cultural studies, and anthropology have developed theoretically and empirically an approach based on the concept of 'hybridity' of culture. The study of cultural hybridity has groped for a new approach to culture that is, on the one hand, sensitive to political-economical unequal relationships between cultures and, on the other hand, discreetly to avoid fixing or essentialising the boundary between cultures. Japanese Studies in many fields have also begun to adopt cultural hybridity approach for modern Japan (Nakaoka 2006; Gordon 2011).
In addition to the theories of cultural hybridity, recent researches on contemporary globalization suggests that we need a theory of social hybridity, attending to the multiple or pluralistic constitution of society and the transborder interaction between macro societies. Yosuke Koto reconstructs the concept of society from the perspective of social hybridity, keeping the modern Japanese exogenous development in mind (Koto 2011). Not only in sociology but also in many disciplines including anthropology, geography, and history, some arguments on social hybridity that have a similar orientation have been emerging (Massey 2005; Ong 2006; Hunt 2014). Approaches to contemporary globalization show a convergence around the concepts of cultural and social hybridity.
This panel is to discuss theoretically and empirically contemporary globalizing Japan based on the concept of cultural social hybridity. It aims to globalize the research imagination of Japanese Studies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 31 August, 2017, -Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the conceptual potential of social hybridity applied to contemporary Japan in order to critically address the essentialising assumptions of methodological nationalism, regionalism and civilizationalism.
Paper long abstract:
In the last decades, one of the main limitations affecting academic investigation on Japan has been the different and often parallel trajectories of international or anglo-phone research in Social Sciences/Humanities on the one hand, and research both Social Sciences/Humanities in Japan and Japanese Studies, on the other. While the former discourse has built on the elaboration of theories, concepts and models intended to contribute to the self-reflective and universal principle of humanitas, the latter discourses on Japan have been mainly confined to a more domestic or particularistic, often self-referential domain of anthropos (Nishitani 2006, Sakai 2010). In this sense, it may be argued, that one of the main methodological limits of Area Studies, inspired by epistemic assumptions configuring a civilizational, regional or national unit of analysis, is not only still reproducing conceptual boundaries within Japan Studies, but may be also conditioning to a certain extent Social Sciences/Humanities in Japan.
This paper will critically address past units of analysis such as 'Japan', 'Asia' and the 'East' and its underlying and equivalent units such as 'Europe', the 'West' or the 'World', in order to focus on its modernist and asymmetrical assumptions. Secondly, it will explore how the concept of cultural and social hybridity may offer new theoretical perspectives for avoiding essentialist or substantialist configurations, especially as regards contemporary Japan. While the concept of hybridity has been so far extensively elaborated within cultural theory, it is only in recent years that the conceptual potential of hybrdity has been applied to the comprhension of society, sociality and social relations (Ong 2006, Koto 2011, Hunt 2014). The overall aim of this paper is to examine these recent investigations on social hybridity by adopting a theoretical perspective inspired by relational, intersectional and positional sociology (Emirbayer 1997, Collins 2000, Bourdieu 1984) in order to stress the mutually constitutive process shaping contemporary Japanese society within the transbordering flows of globalization.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores hybridity of bushido which reflects contradictory necessity of Japanese modernity. My aim is to demonstrate how it simultaneously served for reproduction of traditional culture and transition of hegemony from the old order to the new one.
Paper long abstract:
Studies on bushido have revealed that it is one of the most typical examples of modern invented tradition, almost invalid for actual practices and values of bushi from the middle ages to the early modernity(Kanno 2004; Taniguchi 2007; Suzuki 2001). In fact, it was already pointed out by a contemporary of Nitobe. Chamberlain(1912) claimed that Bushido was a newly invented tradition, the term itself coined in the Meiji period. In this analytical framework, however, it is overlooked that bushido is not only a consequence of contradictory trajectory of Japanese modernity but also a solution to and a source of it. It can be argued that Bushido was useful both for reproduction of old cultural order and for smoother transition of hegemony to the new one. It simultaneously played these seemingly contradictory roles. What I call hybridity of bushido is a result of this ambiguity.
This contradiction corresponds to double necessity of the newly established Meiji government. On the one hand, the project of modernization required it to be cut off from the feudal tradition, especially from that of the Tokugawa shogunate. On the other hand, for the new regime to be maintained, it was indispensable to establish legitimacy of the new order by relying on the continuing cultural tradition. This is especially true in the case that the dominant elites were mostly constituted by the former bushi class.
From this perspective, this paper examines the discourses on bushido, paying special attention to two groups of texts: the founding text of Nitobe(1899) and the related texts of his contemporaries such as Inoue(1901), Tsuda(1901), and Togawa(1906); the imperial rescripts to soldiers and their vulgarizing texts among the popular mass. The former are transcultural texts in the sense of Pratt(1992) since they represent mutually constitutive process between two cultures, the West and Japan, civilization and barbary, or modernity and tradition. The latter documents are worth of careful scrutiny because the contradicting necessity of the new regime was particularly acute in the military domain where the establishment of a unified national army was in urgent need.
Paper short abstract:
The theory of 'hybridity' has focused on 'cultural hybridity'. I suggest that in order to advance our understanding of globalization we need a study of 'social hybridity'. The purpose of this research is to theoretically refine the concept of 'social hybridity' for applying to empirical research.
Paper long abstract:
The concept of 'hybridity' has been investigated for analyzing plurality or multiplicity of globalization since the 1990s (García Canclini 1990; Appaduraiis 1996; Pieterse 2004). The theory of 'hybridity', however, has entirely focused on 'hybridity of culture' under globalization until now. I strongly suggest that in order to advance our understanding of contemporary globalization we need a study of 'social hybridity'.
One of the emerging streams in recent research on globalization is to take notice of the pluralistic constitution of society and the transborder interaction between macro societies (Massey 2005; Ong 2006; Koto 2011; Hunt 2014). For example, Doreen Massey in geography had tried to reorient the concept of space to more pluralistic direction; Ong in anthropology has analyzed 'graduated sovereignty' in East Asia in terms of the relocation of Neoliberalism; Koto in sociology has tried to rehabilitate the concept of society from the perspective of 'hybridity'; Hunt in history have indicate a necessity of the concept of society and the self. The pluralistic image of society that affords to analyze the interaction between macro-societies may have become significant for describing the dynamics of globalization.
The purpose of this research is to theoretically refine the concept of 'social hybridity' for applying it to empirical researches. For this purpose, I propose a concept of 'zone', suggested from Ong (2006). The 'zone' can be defined as spaces belonging to macro-society with border and macro-society beyond border, which forms the nucleus of 'social hybridity' (Utsumi 2016, 2017 forthcoming). The concept of 'zone' can afford to combine cultural and social hybridity perspectives, and to make developments in the analyses on plurality or multiplicity of globalization.