Paper short abstract:

In Japan taking bath is a significant everyday life activity. In order to grasp the multiple meanings of bathing and its broader reflections on the Japanese society, body should be taken as the existential ground of this practice capable of creating a way of interaction with its environment.

Paper long abstract:

Taking bath (ofuro) in Japan occupies an important place in the everyday life.This experience can take several different forms and it should be noted that throughout this presentation the practice of bathing in hot springs (onsen) and public baths (sentõ) will be particularly focused on and treated as an aspect of the general practice of bathing. Bathing in the Japanese context is not all about cleaning and washing the dirt away from the body. Sitting in a bath tub for a considerable amount of time can argued to be the most significant part of the bathing experience. On the other hand, embodied being whether taking a bath in an onsen or sentõ is creating a way of interaction, practically and technically with the resources of her/his environment. The practice of public bathing continuously reconstructs and updates itself depending on the historical and social contexts which makes it a highly flexible and an enduring practice. It not only provides a space to rest and to "reset the mind" but also makes it possible to socialize in an non hierarchic environment. Bathing with ones own children until a fairly late age is also a common characteristic of the practice. It helps creating bodily interactions among family members providing a different level of intimacy. In order to fully grasp these multiple meanings of bathing and its broader reflections on society, body should be taken as the existential ground of this practice.

Although bathing as an embodied practice and onsen/sentõ as embodied spaces have much to offer in order to understand Japanese life world, it can be argued that it is a rather neglected area of research within Japanese studies. This negligence can be partly due to the uneasiness felt by the researcher towards nakedness and an unwillingness to share the embodied space- perceived within the borders of seclusion- with the researched subjects.

Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to examine the findings of my ethnographic fieldwork in a dansō (Ftm crossdresser) escort company in Akihabara where I worked from September 2015 to July 2016. I investigate how dansō create their male self and what relationships develop between crossdressers and clients.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to examine the findings of my nine months' ethnographic fieldwork in a dansō escort company in Akihabara, Tokyo. Dansō is a Japanese word that means "male dress" and it can also be used as a noun to describe a girl or a woman who dresses up like a man. Since 2006, mainly in the Tokyo area but not only, dansō escort service companies started to offer their services to customers, giving them the possibility to enjoy a romantic date with a crossdresser woman. From September 2015 to July 2016 I worked on a voluntary basis in a dansō escort company, and I had the opportunity to observe on a daily basis dansō escorts in their working duties and in their free time. Moreover, I was also able to meet customers in the frame of paid dates and public events held by the company while presenting myself as a crossdresser too. Adopting as methodological tools face to face interviews, participant and non-participant observation and auto-ethnography, the phenomenon of dansō escorting will be represented in its whole, with a focus on the issues of personal identity, gender expression, and cross-dress escorting as an emotional labour, and I will propose an explanation about the role those crossdressers play in contemporary Japan, - i.e. a way of self-interpretation which avoids the male/female and the hetero/homosexual categorization - a new fashion trend, the creation of a place to perform a new gender identity. My thesis is that dansō, while providing a commodified intimacy to those customers who fear to be refused or do not want to be involved in a full-time relationship, could also be a safe point to experience different gender declinations for those who cannot define themselves in a heteronormative dyadic description of gender roles.

Paper short abstract:

Friendship is constituted between and through other social engagements. In meshwork, the lines of friendship knot with those of other intimate (and non-intimate) relations (Ingold 2011). This paper sketches the ways that bodily experiences and affect have shaped relationships central to my research.

Paper long abstract:

Friendship, more than just a dyadic relationship, is constituted around, between and through other social engagements. Friendships bind individuals together in what Ingold terms the "entangled lines of life, growth and movement" (2011:63). Meshwork addresses these lines: "[i]t is in the binding together of lines, not in the connecting of points, that the mesh is constituted" (2007: 152). In meshwork, the lines of friendship knot with those of other intimate (and non-intimate) relations. While these knots may be structurally supportive - so that particular relations might enable others- they also hold tensions in relation to the marital and kin (inter alia) relationships of both individuals.

Friendship and related non-romantic intimate relationships are supported by the sharing of sensory experiences enabled by bodily co-presence, and the emotional care that friendships often provide supplemented by non-verbal as well as verbal interactions (Bowlby 2011, 611). Relatedly, the affective implications of physical interactions can shape the practices and longevity of friendship: the failure to attend special events; extended avoidance or absences from contact; and frank expressions of anger, can rupture or rend friendships, in potentially permanent ways.

In the course of a project looking at intimate relationships beyond the family, I have spent approximately eight months over the last five years conducting interviews and fieldwork in a range of places in urban western Japan. Focusing on the relationships flowing from and through one such place, a café in western Japan, I became aware of the particular weight of affect on the lines of intimate engagement. How do those engaged in social research make sense of their own contribution to these relationships? What are the implications of bodily co-presence and affect in the making of relationships in the field, and in the mapping and maintenance of meshwork? This paper addresses these questions, sketching some of the ways that bodily experiences and affect have shaped relationships central to my research: both the intimate relationships formed between informants, and those between myself and informants.