Japan is heterogeneous and culturally diverse, both historically through ancient waves of immigration and in recent years due to its foreign relations and internationalization. However, Japan has socially, culturally, politically, and intellectually constructed a distinct and homogeneous identity. More recently, this identity construction has been rightfully questioned and challenged by Japan's culturally diverse groups. This book explores the discursive systems of cultural identities that regenerate the illusion of Japan as a homogeneous nation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches investigate the ways in which Japan's homogenizing discourses are challenged and modified by counter-homogeneous message systems. They examine the discursive push-and-pull between homogenizing and heterogenizing vectors, found in domestic and transnational contexts and mobilized by various identity politics, such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, foreign status, nationality, multiculturalism, and internationalization. After offering a careful and critical analysis, the book calls for a complicating of Japan's homogenizing discourses in nuanced and contextual ways, with an explicit goal of working towards a culturally diverse Japan. Taking a critical intercultural communication perspective, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Japanese Culture and Japanese Society.

Japan is heterogeneous and culturally diverse, both historically through ancient waves of immigration and in recent years due to its foreign relations and internationalization. However, Japan has socially, culturally, politically, and intellectually constructed a distinct and homogeneous identity. More recently, this identity construction has been rightfully questioned and challenged by Japan's culturally diverse groups. This book explores the discursive systems of cultural identities that regenerate the illusion of Japan as a homogeneous nation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches investigate the ways in which Japan's homogenizing discourses are challenged and modified by counter-homogeneous message systems. They examine the discursive push-and-pull between homogenizing and heterogenizing vectors, found in domestic and transnational contexts and mobilized by various identity politics, such as gender, sexuality, ethnicity, foreign status, nationality, multiculturalism, and internationalization. After offering a careful and critical analysis, the book calls for a complicating of Japan's homogenizing discourses in nuanced and contextual ways, with an explicit goal of working towards a culturally diverse Japan. Taking a critical intercultural communication perspective, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Japanese Studies, Japanese Culture and Japanese Society.

Intercultural Health Communication brings together the fields of health and intercultural research in new work from leading communication scholars. This book is based on two premises: neither health nor culture is a neutral concept. The authors of this collection employ critical, qualitative, and interpretive research methodologies in order to engage the political and intersectional nature of health and culture simultaneously. Changing notions of healthy behaviors (or ill health) are not just a matter of knowledge; they live inside discourses about the body, aesthetics, science, and the world. We see this book as an important step towards developing a more transnational view of health communication. Intercultural Health Communication ties together the critical public health with critical intercultural communication. Through these connections, the authors engage the health research in, amongst others: HIV, cancer, trauma, celiac disease, radioactive pollution, food politics, and prenatal care. Intercultural Health Communication emerges from a broad need to address connections and challenges to incorporating health communication with intercultural communication approaches. After compiling this book, we see ready connections to public health, global studies, gender and sexuality studies and ethnic studies. In this day and age, nation states have to be considered within the broader frameworks of globalization, transnationalism and global health. We recognize that the contemporary health issues require an understanding of culture as integral towards eliminating health disparities.

Critical Intercultural Communication Pedagogy constructs a theoretical frame through which critical intercultural communication pedagogy can be dreamed, envisioned, and realized as praxis. Its chapters provide answers to questions surrounding the relationship of intercultural communication pedagogy to critical race theory, queer theory, critical ethnography, and narrative methodology, among others. Utilizing a diverse array of theoretical and methodological approaches within critical intercultural communication research, this collection is creatively engaging, theoretically innovating, and pedagogically encouraging.

Intercultural Health Communication brings together the fields of health and intercultural research in new work from leading communication scholars. This book is based on two premises: neither health nor culture is a neutral concept. The authors of this collection employ critical, qualitative, and interpretive research methodologies in order to engage the political and intersectional nature of health and culture simultaneously. Changing notions of healthy behaviors (or ill health) are not just a matter of knowledge; they live inside discourses about the body, aesthetics, science, and the world. We see this book as an important step towards developing a more transnational view of health communication. Intercultural Health Communication ties together the critical public health with critical intercultural communication. Through these connections, the authors engage the health research in, amongst others: HIV, cancer, trauma, celiac disease, radioactive pollution, food politics, and prenatal care. Intercultural Health Communication emerges from a broad need to address connections and challenges to incorporating health communication with intercultural communication approaches. After compiling this book, we see ready connections to public health, global studies, gender and sexuality studies and ethnic studies. In this day and age, nation states have to be considered within the broader frameworks of globalization, transnationalism and global health. We recognize that the contemporary health issues require an understanding of culture as integral towards eliminating health disparities.

Critical Intercultural Communication Pedagogy constructs a theoretical frame through which critical intercultural communication pedagogy can be dreamed, envisioned, and realized as praxis. Its chapters provide answers to questions surrounding the relationship of intercultural communication pedagogy to critical race theory, queer theory, critical ethnography, and narrative methodology, among others. Utilizing a diverse array of theoretical and methodological approaches within critical intercultural communication research, this collection is creatively engaging, theoretically innovating, and pedagogically encouraging.