An Anthropologist in Japan

An Anthropologist in Japan is a highly personal narrative which provides unique insights into many elements of Japanese life. Joy Hendry tells the story of a nine-month period of fieldwork in a Japanese seaside town. She originally set out to study politeness, but a variety of unpredicatable events occur dramatically change the direction of her research. The anthropologist has to dela with a suicide, a volcanic erruption, and the problem of her young son's friendship with the son of a powerful local gangster. This volume exemplifies how much of anthropological knowledge is a product of chance and how moments of insight can be embedded in a mass of everyday activity. The disturbing and disordered appears alongside the nea and the beautiful, and the vignettes here illuminate the education system, religious beliefs, politics, the family and the neighbourhood in modern Japan. An Anthropologist in Japan is reflexive anthropology in action. It demonstrates how ethnographic fieldwork can uniquely provide a deep understanding of lnguitica nd cultural difference.