Paper short abstract:

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative methods, this paper examines the ways that COVID has modified, amplified and challenged pre-existing ideas about being single and doing things alone in a familialist “hyper-solo-society”.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper we draw on qualitative and quantitative date to examine changes in the notion of “doing things alone” (sorokatsu), as well as perceptions of being single, since the turn of the century and, in particular, in the context of the ongoing pandemic in Japan. Based on findings from our large-scale survey on COVID and practices of intimacy among unmarried Japanese aged 25 to 49 years (n=4000), we explore the gendered ways that the pandemic has affected Japanese individuals’ social practices as well as their socio-spatial implications. We contextualize these findings using data from long-term ethnographic fieldwork and media and popular literature before and during COVID-time, to demonstrate the ways that COVID has modified, amplified and challenged pre-existing ideas about being single and doing things alone in a familialist “hyper-solo-society” (Arakawa 2017). Preliminary findings point to a parallel but diachronic development: on the one hand an increase in loneliness, social isolation and the longing to be with others and a (partial) normalization of acting alone in public and a shared sense of community – of being alone together – on the other hand.