An Anthropologist in Japan: Glimpses of Life in the Field (ASA Research Methods Series)

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 167 pages
• Published by: Routledge
• Edition: 1st Edition March 23, 1999
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0415195748
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0415195744
• Book Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Weighs: 10.2 ounces

Product Review
Highly recommendable to diverse categories of readers. It is precisely suitable as a classroom text in anthropology, social science, communication, and Japan studies not only educational but entertaining. - Journal of Japanese Studies

Well written, and captivating to the end fascinating book. - Anthropos, 95

Product Description
An Anthropologist in Japan is a highly personal narrative which draws the reader into a fascinating cross-section of Japanese life. Joy Hendry tells the story of her nine-month period of fieldwork in a Japanese seaside town. She originally sets out on a study of politeness, but a host of unpredictable events--including a volcanic eruption, a suicide and her son's involvement with the family of a powerful local gangster--dramatically changes the direction of her research.

In vignettes that illuminate the education system, religious beliefs, politics, family and neighborhood in modern Japan, the book exemplifies the role of chance in anthropology and the way that moments of insight can be embedded in a mass of everyday activity. A brilliant example of reflexive anthropology in action, An Anthropologist in Japan demonstrates how ethnographic fieldwork can uniquely provide a deep understanding of linguistic and cultural difference.

Reader Reviews
As Hendry points out in the afterword, it is becoming more and more common in anthropology today to ground your observations and anecdotes in personal experience to give the reader the ability to judge your work based on your deductions. This, however, is the first time that I have seen an anthropologist turn his or her work into what is essentially a "My Year in Japan" book. Previously mainly the realm of travel writers and JET participants, her work shows her year - and her methodology - through the eyes of someone formally trained to observe Japan. As an exercise is research methods, this makes for a fascinating book. As an anthropology student studying Japan, I find it fascinating to study other people's approaches to the same thing. As a future researcher, I found the back-door into her creative process and her perspective on Japan to have interesting similarities and differences to mine. As someone with a continual curiosity about Japan, I found her observations on politeness and wrapping in Japanese society to have interesting and far-reaching implications for the way Westerners view Japan. However, while her actual work on politeness and wrapping in Japanese society becomes something that she discusses researching and discovering, she never presents her finalized work. It would have been nice to see an article or two produced from her research added as an appendix to give the anthropologists reading the book a sense of how her creative process was synthesized into a final product. This means that ultimately, I have to look at the book as a travelogue, too, since she seems to be casting a net for a wider audience here. In this, it comes up as well researched, but a little wanting as well. It is clear that her time in Japan is well spent, but she never dives into anything completely. In most cases, it is because her reason for being there is her research, and that is what gets her primary focus. However, she never seems to fully jump into her research for fear of losing the nonacademic reader. Even a little more frustrating from both points of view is that she frequently foreshadows important points in the beginning of the book (her eventual meetings with local temple priests and yakuza, for instance), while ultimately rushing through the encounters at the end of the book. In the end, this book is left fishing for an audience. It seems to ultimately be most useful for the person studying methodology or the creative process. It is still a fascinating book - Hendry's extrapolation of the verbal and physical wrapping of Japanese culture is a point that should be discussed in greater depth by anthropologists today. Likewise, her narrative, if occasionally frustrating, is certainly enjoyable and comes from an apparently unique travelogue perspective. I would certainly recommend it unreservedly to the student studying Japan or anthropology. I might be a little more reticent on recommending it to the travel reader, though.