CALL FOR PAPERS

Ethnographies of Hope in Contemporary Japan

 

Date: October 19, 2013

Venue: University of Osaka, Graduate School of Human Sciences

Convenors: Iza Kavedžija and Scott North

 

In recent years, amidst a faltering economy, the Japanese have witnessed a proliferation of narratives of diminishing hope and decline. Social consequences range from withdrawal from the public domain into the private sphere (Zielenziger 2006), to political apathy among the young (McVeigh 1998, 2004), to the strengthening of right wing rhetoric (Japan Times, 23/5/2013; Nakano n.d.). Yet a vague sense of disillusionment or hopelessness would seem to be the most widespread public reaction. 

 

While the situation, both politically and economically undoubtedly warrants concern, such an attitude is far from the only one possible. The cross-cultural perspective afforded by anthropology indicates that people living in much more dire circumstances, in places struck by war or hunger for example, nevertheless hope and strive for better lives (e.g. Vigh 2009), and actively attempt to transform their communities. Other research indicates that positive emotions are contagious within certain limits (Fowler and Christakis 2008), suggesting that hope can be purposely increased.

 

This workshop seeks to examine ethnographically the feelings, perceptions and narratives of hopelessness in contemporary Japanese society. Furthermore, it seeks to outline some of the cases in which new approaches, organizations, or grassroots efforts have fostered renewed feelings of hope. While descriptive and ethnographic contributions are encouraged, theoretical issues to explore in terms of their relationship to hope may include the following:

 

- Knowledge and creativity. Are old categories of thought foreclosing the possibility for an emergence of hope, having become the very ‘apparatus of hopelessness’ ( e.g. in the way that association of market and capitalism forecloses the possibility of imagining viable alternatives; Graeber 2011)? Is hope primarily a form of ‘readjustment of knowledge’ (Miyazaki 2006)?

-Temporality. Is hope primarily future oriented? What is hope’s relationship to the past? When is hope merely a ‘future nostalgia’ (Zournazi 2002) that serves as a tool of governments to manipulate the feelings of its subjects?

-Agency. When does hope enable action, and when does it promote passivity or reliance on something seen as an external agent (cf. Crapanzano 2003)? To what extent can hope be fostered?

 

This call is now closed.