Disability Publics: Making Accessibility in Modern Japan

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Over the last 150 years, activists and policymakers have tried to improve access to Japan's built environment, education, employment, entertainment, and medical care systems for disabled persons, but these attempts have frequently excluded as many impaired individuals as they have empowered. Their technological and legislative interventions have not only structured the everyday lives of disabled individuals, but also women, children, old people, migrant laborers, wounded veterans, and members of other vulnerable groups, by both creating and removing obstacles to social participation.

Why and how have stakeholders pursued these accessibility projects for different demographics in modern Japan? To unpack this question, this book investigates the history of Japan's "disability publics": coalitions of activists, government officials, and other interested parties who have advanced policy agendas for specific communities by responding to social, political, and economic circumstances. It demonstrates that pressures tied to macrosocial processes such as industrialization, urbanization, militarization, globalization, and population ageing have played a key role in defining Japan's disability publics. Equally influential have been international flows of information, products, and people working in the welfare sphere, which have inspired Japan's disability publics to implement domestic reforms. A final contributing factor arose from social crises and mega-events (such as the "triple disaster" at Fukushima, the global COVID-19 pandemic and the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics) which have provided windows of opportunity for catalyzing policy changes.

Disability Publics uses this history to intervene in current debates about inclusion and will guide future policymaking efforts by asking stakeholders to consider who has a seat at the table, how they come to be there, and what they fail to imagine when developing accessibility measures. In so doing, and by unravelling the politics of Japan's disability publics in this comprehensive way, the book outlines a path towards a more equitable society.

Mark R. Bookman

Before his untimely passing in 2022, Mark R. Bookman was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Tokyo College, the University of Tokyo. His research examines the history of disability policy and connected social movements in Japanese and global contexts. Mark held PhD and MA degrees from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a BA from Villanova University. Mark's scholarship on disability inclusion can be found in peer-reviewed journals such as Japan Focus: The Asia-Pacific Journal and public-facing media outlets like the Japan Times and Japan Today. Outside of the academy, Mark also worked as an accessibility consultant, working with government agencies and corporate entities in Japan, the United States, and Canada, as well as the International Paralympic Committee and United Nations, on projects related to inclusive education, equitable environments, and disaster risk management for diverse demographics of disabled people. For additional author information, see www.bookmanresearch.com

Carolyn S. Stevens is an anthropologist of contemporary Japan with degrees from Harvard College and Columbia University. After serving at the University of Melbourne and Monash University for thirty years, she is currently Emeritus Professor of Japanese Studies at Monash University, Australia. Her research to date has focused on social problems in Japan, disability studies and music/sensory studies. Her recent monographs include Disability in Japan (2013), and the coauthored Sounding Out Japan: A Sensory Ethnographic Tour (2021). She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the interdisciplinary journal Japanese Studies, a Routledge imprint.