Changing Japan (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology) - Softcover

Edward Norbeck

9780030534355: Changing Japan (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0030534356 ISBN 13: 9780030534355

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965

In "Changing Japan," an entry in the Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology series, Dr. Norbeck points out that internal contrasts within Japanese society have always been sharp, and they have grown rather than diminished as time has passed. There are many ways of life in Japan, and in their variety they reflect the unevenness of change in a dynamic society that has moved from feudalism since 1868 to industrial urbanization, and that has recovered since 1945 from a crushing military defeat to attain now its greatest period of prosperity. One way for the anthropologist to cope with this kind of heterogeneity is to focus on a manageable segment of the whole society - usually s small community. Where cultural heterogeneity and rapid change are both significant forces this approach has its limitations, if the purpose is to gain perspective on the contrasts apparent in the larger framework of society. Dr. Norbeck has solved this problem brilliantly. In this relatively brief case study he puts both change and variety in sharp focus. First he provides a summary introduction that sets the broad limits within which inquiry must proceed, and then penetrates directly to the central process of change in Japanese society by contrasting life in a modern rural community to life in Osaka. These contrasts are given a special poignancy by describing two different families: one an extended family household in rural Takashima; the other a small, status-achieving urban family whose male head is the second son of the village family. Though the contrasts between village and city are indeed sharp, the reader can anticipate the urban condition even as he reads about life in the Matsui family of Takashima, for rural life has not remained static and there are differences in the beliefs and attitudes of the generations in the extended family household that reflect the general secularization and urbanization of Japanese life.

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