Paper short abstract:

This paper will investigate how issues of identity, power and knowledge do intersect in the entangled process between the academic field of Japanese Studies, students of Japanese Studies and wider glocalising interests for 'Japan', with a particular focus on contemporary Italy.

Paper long abstract:

In the light of post Cold War globalization, neoliberal hegemony and quality assurance imperatives, Area Studies, including Japanese Studies (or Japanology), in Euro-American academia are facing an increasing sense of uncertainty. On the one hand, there have been criticism about the epistemological assumptions that have shaped Area Studies as a modern academic field: from methodological nationalism and regionalism (Richter 2007, Holbig 2015) to imperialist politics of knowledge (Sakai 2018). On the other, new glocal challenges are arising, due not only to the wider institutional crisis of the Humanities and Liberal Arts, but also due to the difficulties to cope with the changing and context specific demands, coming from contemporary economy, politics and society.

In this regard, Japanese Studies have to some extent benefited from the global success of Japanese popular media and food cultures, further sponsored by Cool Japan nation branding. This has contributed to turn 'Japan' to a mainstream object of interest, desire and consumption, as well as to increase enrollment in academic courses to study or specialize in 'Japan'. While Euro-American neo-Japanism of the XXI century among young people has been already investigated (Otmazgin 2013, Pellitteri 2018, Carlson 2018), there is still little research on how it may have affected Japanese Studies, and especially on how Japanese Studies may have adapted to this neo-Japanism, shaping both students' education and wider interpretations of 'Japan' outside the university.

The paper will explore this entangled process, by investigating how issues of identity, power and knowledge intersect in framing the status of 'Japan' in relation to its academic legitimacy as a distinctive object of study, or as subcultural capital among younger generations and Japan specialists in the public sphere. By focusing on the context of contemporary Italy, it argues how modern assumptions of 'Japan' as a unique, exclusivist and orientalised other are strategically re-activated in order to claim epistemological privilege on 'Japan'; however, it suggests that this very strategic orientalism contributes also to perpetuate subaltern and mutually enforcing self-seclusion, both of Japanese Studies from prevailing or normative academic disciplines, and of Japan-fans or Japanologists from mainstream societal relations and hegemonic public discourse.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will consider various approaches to Japanese Modernity (the convergent Modernity model; Eisenstadt's multiple modernities and the entangled/postcolonial/hybrid modernities approaches as in Therborn, Bhambra and Kōtō), and will question the validity of the dichotomy modernity/traditions.

Paper long abstract:

The relationship between Modernity and Japan has always been complicated by the status of "Japanese traditions". This complication is due to many factors, not least the importance of the development of Japanese national identity, which although intrinsically modern, is allegedly based on "traditions" more or less transformed, domesticated, selected and homogenized in the modern era. In this paper, I will deal with some theories of Modernity that in many respects thematize the relationship between Japanese "traditions" to Modernity. The first one is the theory of modernization, according to which Modernity is considered as a convergent movement toward one, specific idea of society and institutions. This approach may identify some similarities between Maruyama Masao and some Marxist theorists, behind their obvious ideological differences. The second approach is the theory of multiple modernities, developed by Samuel Eisenstadt and Robert Bellah, based on the theory of axial and non-axial civilizations, which recognized a special role to Japan in the Modern world. Whereas these two approaches define modernity in juxtaposition to "pre-modern traditions", other more recent theories explore the possibilities of bypassing or confining the dichotomy Modernity/traditions. After a brief recap of the debate on "invented traditions" by E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (1983), critically enriched by S. Vlastos' (1998) approach to Japanese modern traditions, I will focus on Göran Therborn's "entangled modernities". This model of modernity explores the possibilities of postcolonial sociology in a way comparable to Gurminder Bhambra's work and Kōtō Yōsuke's "hybrid modernity" paradigm.

Paper short abstract:

This presentation is intended to reconsider the assumptions concerning Modernity in terms of the experience of Japanese society. It aims at showing a perspective for analyzing contemporary globalisation based on Japanese Studies.

Paper long abstract:

In order to understanding contemporary globalisation, I start from a reconsideration of how to position the experience of modern Japan. Though there are many variations of modern social changes, I mainly focus on the two probably most prominent methods of looking at them: the endogenous development theory and the exogenous development theory. The two theories do not perceive the two forms of social change as equal. Purely endogenous development is seen as the normal form of social change, while exogenous development, wherein the purity of a society is lost due to exogenous factors, is perceived as a more deviant form, inferior to endogenous change. This view that puts greater value on endogenous development has been cherished by social theorists for quite a long time. Modernisation theory is a typical example of a theory stressing endogenous development.

Contrary to the assumptions of the modernisation theory, Kōtō Yōsuke points out that the transfer of modernity is not a subordinate phenomenon and proposed to call such exogenous development "hybrid modernity." (Kōtō 2011; Utsumi 2018). Kōtō analyses the experience of Japanese society as a typical case of hybrid modernity and he calls the transferable units of modernity "modules." Furthermore, Kōtō links his theory of hybrid modernity to the globalisation theory. According to his view, modernity is being exported all over the world and globalisation is the term coined to refer to this very process - only characterised by highly increased speed and scale. Globalisation is, thus, the process whereby hybrid modernity is promoted on a worldwide scale.Taking over this perspective, I analyse the transformation of post-war Japanese society, especially modularisation of social structure, and point out the world-wide penetration of modularisation of the social structure under contemporary globalisation. For understanding the worldwide penetration of modularisation of social structure, I think that Jerry Z. Muller's The Tyranny of Metrics is useful. (Muller 2018). The elucidation of the problems associated with the modularization of social structure is a research issue that has just started and I believe that the research on the experience of Japanese society will be very useful to understand contemporary globalisation.