Organizer, Chair and Discussant: Theodore C. Bestor, Harvard University

In the prolonged economic slump and social malaise of the post-Bubble Heisei era (1989 to the present), the situation of adolescents and young adults has been repeatedly viewed, especially within the Japanese media, as an object of "moral panic." Described as aimless, ambitionless, amoral, alienated, and anomic, people from these age groups have been dubbed the "lost generation." Such stereotypes notwithstanding, and in spite of the often gloomy economic circumstances that have surrounded the era in which they have begun their adult lives, Japanese young people are engaged in a wide variety of cultural and social practices and activities that shape a new (and vibrant) cultural economy of being young, unlike that of their parents’ generation. This panel will present papers by young researchers who examine very recent trends in employment, consumption, lifestyles, sociability, sexuality, attitudes toward child-rearing, politics, nationalism, and global awareness among the members of this not-so-lost generation.

Colin Smith, Yale University

In the 1990s, Japan’s service sector expanded, markets deregulated, and companies began to face greater competition from foreign multinationals. All the while, a mood of anxiety and uncertainty swept the nation as the economy remained mired in a decade-long recession which had begun with the bursting of the previous decade’s ‘bubble economy.’ One of the major developments accompanying these economic shifts has been the dramatic increase of young part-time and temporary workers known as "freeters," or "free workers." They work in the kind of insecure, low paying jobs that critics of neoliberlism have pointed to as examples of the inequity of the new global economy. Indeed, freeters have been represented as victims of economic recession and deregulation, and as a symbol of Japan’s so-called "lost decade." However, while it is widely recognized that there is a scarcity of good full-time jobs for new graduates, many of them appear to be going against common sense and turning down regular employment in favor of part-time work. In this paper I discuss how the choices of individual freeters are not only constrained by new economic conditions, but are also informed by cultural logics alternative to mainstream views regarding the relationship between work and identity. I argue that freeters are contributing to the changing nature of meaningful work in Heisei Japan, as well as creating alternative paths through late youth and early adulthood. In addition, I consider the implications these developments have for broader claims made about the nature of subjectivity under neoliberal capitalism.

Gavin H. Whitelaw, Yale University

Japanese young people today come of age in a world where the 24-hour convenience store, or konbini, is a given feature of the physical and social landscape. In the past decade, the number of konbini nationwide has doubled and the volume of people that these stores serve and employ has sharply increased. High school and college aged people in particular utilize konbini as places to shop, gather, and unwind, but most importantly, they dominate the ranks of the industry’s part-time, shorter-term employment force.

Drawing on dissertation fieldwork, interviews, and behind-the-counter participant observation, I examine how youth engage with and find value in konbini as workers. The paper challenges the perception that convenience stores are an unfortunate byproduct of a post-industrial economy framed by diminishing expectations and smaller returns, necessarily deskilling workers, and devoid of meaningful social interaction and experience. Above all else, the konbini is a social space supported by a complex human network. Many students themselves portray konbini employment as a formative initial work experience one that has taught them independence,  

awareness of others, and personal responsibility. By looking at konbini as an experienced reality for today’s youth and examining why people choose to work where they do, what they get from the experience, and when and why they choose to leave, konbini illustrate certain decisions and new paths that youth are taking in an era when the transitions between family, school and the workplace are growing more complicated.

Ekaterina Korobtseva, Oxford University, United Kingdom

Why has the number of lone unwed mothers in Japan hardly changed since the 1950s in spite of women’s growing sexual freedom, economic independence, and marriage age as well as legal changes reducing discrimination against illegitimate children, openness to Western media and changes in Japanese media – where single mothers appear quite regularly and are often portrayed positively?

I address this question by comparing attitudes, beliefs and perceptions of unwed motherhood among women of different birth cohorts against the backdrop of social and economic changes. In order to undertake this comparison I conducted 67 in-depth semi-structured interviews with lone unwed mothers whose age varied between 23 and 70.

Preliminary results show that outward pressure on women not to have children outside wedlock has been gradually declining for decades. Young unwed mothers are much more likely to be open about their situation than women from older birth cohorts and are also more likely to get support from friends and family.

In spite of this reduced pressure still less than 2% of all children are born outside wedlock. Comparing interviews of younger and older unwed mothers showed that internalised beliefs about suitable environment for a child to grow up in have hardly changed over past decades. I argue that this strong belief in necessity of a two-parent family for a child to grow up normally makes many women feel they should have an abortion rather than give birth to a child when they find it impossible to get married.

Ian R. Condry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

At a time when Japanese youth are often characterized as uninterested in school, work, national politics, and international relations, these some genre of popular music provide an alternative perspective on the political leanings of today’s generation of Japanese youth.  Over the past few years, several Japanese rap music groups have used their songs to question American military actions in the wake of 9/11. This paper discusses two music groups—Rhymester and King Giddra—whose representations of a "post-9/11 world" differ substantially from those expressed by the current Bush administration. Intriguingly, these Japanese rappers use ostensibly "American" popular culture, namely hip-hop music, to express "Anti-American" sentiments, especially with regard to US military policies in the Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet these groups are also not "pro-Japan": both groups criticize the Japanese government, and reject the idea that Japanese nationalism offers a positive direction for the country. I argue that this points to the need for rethinking the politics of youth culture in a way that avoids reducing political statements to national contexts of interpretation. In other words, to understand the politics of youth culture in terms of this Japanese rap music, we need an analytical language that goes beyond "localization" or "domestication," and which reformulates definitions of "anti-Americanism" (or conversely, "nationalism"). To that end, I build upon recent anthropological theories that emphasize "location" rather than "locale" as the starting point for cultural analysis.