| NOTA |
(★)(Why do the Japanese almost always go for holidays in groups? Do Japanese families experience our sort of ´family life´? Why do conversations with Japanese friends and acquaintances often seem to come to an abrupt halt just when they´re getting interesting [that is, a little controversial]? What motivates the Japanese man-in-the-street? Professor Nakane, writing with an intimate knowledge of her own people, provides in this fascinating book the answers to these and many other perplexing questions. While many sociological studies of contemporary Japan have been concerned primarily with its changing aspects, pointing to the ´traditional´and ´modern´elements as representing opposing qualities --thereby implying that when Japan is sufficiently modernized, it will or should become the same as the West-- Professor Nakane asserts that modern Japan´s progress is founded on persistent social patterns which existed centuries ago, almost as if decades of modernization have had little if any effect on the core of society. It is thus not simply that Japanese society has been torn into pieces of two kinds, but rather that one well-integrated entity remains, one aspect of which is the ´traditional.´Although capitalist and industrialized, Japanese society functions along very different lines from societies in the West. Using the structure of the society as the basis of her analysis, rather than explaining it in cultural or historical terms, Professor Nakane begins by examining one-to-one relationships, following through to the structure of the group and finally that of the society as a whole. The author shows how the vertical principles of rank and hierarchy dominate all relationships --professional, personal, industrial, political-- whatever the environment. This book is thus not a description of Japanese society or culture or the Japanese people as such ; rather, it is the author´s intention that it will offer a key (a source of intelligence and insight) to an understanding of Japanese society and those features which are specific to it and which distinguish it from other complex societies. Chie Nakane is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Institute of Oriental Culture of Tokyo University. She has also held the position of Lecturer in Asian Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and that of Visiting Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.) |
BASE de DATOS, Biblioteca del Centro Cultural de la Embajada de Japon
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