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This book argues that sound - as it is created, transmitted, and
perceived - plays a key role in the constitution of space and
community in contemporary Japan. The book examines how sonic
practices reflect politics, aesthetics, and ethics, with
transformative effects on human relations. From right-wing sound
trucks to left-wing protests, from early 20th century jazz cafes to
contemporary avant-garde art forms, from the sounds of U.S.
military presence to exuberant performances organized in
opposition, the book, rich in ethnographic detail, contributes to
sensory anthropology and the anthropology of contemporary Japan.
This book argues that sound - as it is created, transmitted, and
perceived - plays a key role in the constitution of space and
community in contemporary Japan. The book examines how sonic
practices reflect politics, aesthetics, and ethics, with
transformative effects on human relations. From right-wing sound
trucks to left-wing protests, from early 20th century jazz cafes to
contemporary avant-garde art forms, from the sounds of U.S.
military presence to exuberant performances organized in
opposition, the book, rich in ethnographic detail, contributes to
sensory anthropology and the anthropology of contemporary Japan.
Since the 1980s, arguments for a multicultural Japan have gained
considerable currency against an entrenched myth of national
homogeneity. Working Skin enters this conversation with an
ethnography of Japan's Buraku" people. Touted as Japan's largest
minority, the Buraku are stigmatized because of associations with
labor considered unclean, such as leather and meat production. That
labor, however, is vanishing from Japan: Liberalized markets have
sent these jobs overseas, and changes in family and residential
record-keeping have made it harder to track connections to these
industries. Multiculturalism, as a project of managing difference,
comes into ascendancy and relief just as the labor it struggles to
represent is disappearing. Working Skin develops this argument by
exploring the interconnected work of tanners in Japan, Buraku
rights activists and their South Asian allies, as well as cattle
ranchers in West Texas, United Nations officials, and international
NGO advocates. Moving deftly across these engagements, Joseph
Hankins analyzes the global political and economic demands of the
labor of multiculturalism. Written in accessible prose, this book
speaks to larger theoretical debates in critical anthropology,
Asian and cultural studies, and examinations of liberalism and
empire, and it will appeal to audiences interested in social
movements, stigmatization, and the overlapping circulation of
language, politics, and capital.
Since the 1980s, arguments for a multicultural Japan have gained
considerable currency against an entrenched myth of national
homogeneity. Working Skin enters this conversation with an
ethnography of Japan's Buraku" people. Touted as Japan's largest
minority, the Buraku are stigmatized because of associations with
labor considered unclean, such as leather and meat production. That
labor, however, is vanishing from Japan: Liberalized markets have
sent these jobs overseas, and changes in family and residential
record-keeping have made it harder to track connections to these
industries. Multiculturalism, as a project of managing difference,
comes into ascendancy and relief just as the labor it struggles to
represent is disappearing. Working Skin develops this argument by
exploring the interconnected work of tanners in Japan, Buraku
rights activists and their South Asian allies, as well as cattle
ranchers in West Texas, United Nations officials, and international
NGO advocates. Moving deftly across these engagements, Joseph
Hankins analyzes the global political and economic demands of the
labor of multiculturalism. Written in accessible prose, this book
speaks to larger theoretical debates in critical anthropology,
Asian and cultural studies, and examinations of liberalism and
empire, and it will appeal to audiences interested in social
movements, stigmatization, and the overlapping circulation of
language, politics, and capital.
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