Organizer: Yohko Tsuji, Cornell University
Chair: C. Scott Littleton, Occidental College
Discussant: Takie Sugiyama Lebra, University of Hawaii
This panel examines various social institutions in contemporary Japan (family, community, religion, legal and political systems), illuminating changes as well as continuities and exploring whether observed changes indicate the paradigmatic transformation of traditional Japanese social organization. The four papers cover a wide range of topics—gender, care of the elderly, funerals, graves, harmony and conflict, community identity, and a recent Supreme Court decision on the separation of religion and politics—to highlight the complexity of the process of social change in Japan, past and present.
Susan. Long and Phyllis Braudy Harris, John Carroll University
The family has been the locus of caregiving in Japan. Wives and daughters-in-law have had the day-to-day responsibility for frail elderly relatives. However, social changes are creating alternative scenarios for elder care. Men have increasingly taken on these tasks, and now constitute 15 percent of caregivers to the elderly. An exploratory study of male caregivers in Japan suggests that men come to caregiving with a different set of skills and motivations than do women. Gender differences in the personal significance of caregiving and in coping styles reflect divergent societal expectations of men and women. Yet other variations such as use of services, attitude toward caregiving, the extent of hands-on care, and relations with other family members depend more on individual circumstances than gender. Despite social change, there is continuity in the definition of what it means to be a good caregiver that appears unrelated to the gender of the caregiver. The emphasis on caregiving as an obligation is expressed by both men and women as they discuss their stress, pain, and lack of satisfaction with caregiving achievements.
Widespread use of formal care services for the elderly is expected to occur with a new long term care insurance system beginning in the year 2000. These services will provide support for family caregivers, but seem unlikely to reverse the trend toward greater involvement of husbands and sons. Continued research on caregiving into the next century will reveal whether the cultural style of caregiving provided in the past by women becomes gender neutral, or whether the new formal services precipitate altered definitions of caregiving.
Yohko Tsuji, Cornell University
This paper examines four "new" types of burial practice in contemporary Japan and explores their implications for Japanese social organization, in particular, changes and continuities in the family. Traditionally, graves have been regarded as a symbol of the ie or the family and are closely tied to ancestor worship. Thus, members of the same ie (in contemporary Japan their bones) are buried together in the family grave. In addition, the grave is passed down from one generation to another and taken care of by the descendants. The four "new" types of burial practice more or less depart from this tradition. The first type involves purchasing an individual grave rather than entering the family grave after death. The second is burial in a collective grave, not of the family, but of unrelated people. The third concerns acquiring a new grave, separate from the ancestral grave, in urban areas where the family has moved. The fourth case entirely abolishes the grave by scattering bones of the individual in the sea or mountains. The paper analyzes these "unconventional" burials in relation to various changes in the Japanese family (e.g., the diminishing numbers of the traditional stem family and children each family has), addressing whether they reflect the modification of tradition under social change or indicate that the basic social unit is being shifted from the family as a group to the individual.
Scott Schnell, University of Iowa
Japanese society is supposedly pervaded by an emphasis on harmonious integration and self-restraint. How, then, is one to account for widespread and obvious instances of sociopolitical conflict, such as the Narita Airport controversy, destructive activities staged by left-wing political organizations, and the more recent clamorings for Okinawan autonomy. This paper presents conflict as an essential element in the creation and maintenance of communal identity. It describes harmony and conflict as closely related—indeed, interacting—variables. Communal identity is achieved through the purposeful manipulation of these two variables: in other words, ignoring internal diversity and exaggerating the distinction between members and non-members. In either instance the past becomes an important source of qualifying symbols, which are selectively incorporated into the new assertions.
Drawing on several field examples, both historical and contemporary, the paper demonstrates how the boundaries of one’s perceived community can either expand or contract, depending on the situation. The resulting pattern may be envisioned as a series of concentric circles, encompassing ever-increasing numbers of people at higher levels of organizational complexity. Ultimately the boundaries can be extended to include the entire nation, resulting in assertions of a homogeneous race and culture, distinct from the rest of the world. At any given level, conflict with the outside is employed in generating a greater sense of unity within.
John Nelson, University of Texas, Austin
The Japanese postwar constitution has been a fundamental, some would say "unchanging," referent for more than fifty years in Japanese society. Emblematic of its many provisions are positions on pacifism and anti-nuclear proliferation, legal rights for individuals, and a separation of religious and state interests. However, considerable interpretive latitude (and political expediency) has tempered these provisions, allowing the state to maintain a well-funded military, to discriminate against women and certain minorities, and to subsidize religious rituals of the imperial household as well as at Yasukuni Shrine for the military dead. But signs of change are in the air, particularly regarding the last topic. This talk will examine the ramifications of a recent Supreme Court decision that designates Yasukuni Shrine as a "religious" and not a "cultural institution" as previous rulings have argued. Based on a case from Ehime prefecture, the decision challenges regional governments’ use of taxpayers’ money to make donations for offerings to Yasukuni Shrine. More generally, the ruling establishes a precedent for a renewed emphasis on seikyo bunri or the separation of religion and politics. Whether or not this is possible in a country with a rich and complex religious heritage like Japan remains to be seen. The talk will conclude with a survey of possible social changes and paradigm shifts within Shinto and Buddhist traditions in response to the Supreme Court’s concept of "religion," and what this might mean for the Japanese cultural identity at the beginning of the 21st century.