Looking Back to Look Forward

Benedict, Nakane and Ethnographic Involution

John McCreery The Word Works, Ltd.

AJJ Spring Meeting 2015

Two Extraordinary Women

Nakane Chie Ruth Benedict

They Attempted the Impossible

But both included something missing from most current

research on Japan

An Asian Regional Comparative Perspective

Benedict

• “The Japanese were the most alien enemy that the United States had ever fought in an all-out struggle.”

• But the Japanese are not Chinese

• An important point since the USA and China were allies in WWII

Japanese vs Chinese

JAPAN CHINA

Absolute loyalty to the Emperor

Conditional loyalty The dynastic cycle

Extreme sensitivity to insults to honor

Gentlemen ignore insults

Ancestor worship restricted to those within living memory

Ancestors worshipped by many generations, the more the

better

Mistresses kept in separate households

Concubines added to households

Nakane

• Studied with Raymond Firth, did fieldwork in India

• Was surprised by how freely Indian women voiced their opinions

• And how often they won quarrels with their mothers-in-law

Japanese vs Indians

JAPAN INDIA

Social ties defined by frame (household or firm)

Social ties defined by category (caste)

Weak ties between frames Strong ties within category

Insistence on unity in thought and feeling as well as behavior

Individuals free to think and feel as they liked so long as

behavior was proper

No allies for women who fight with their mothers-in-law

Relatives ready to take the woman’s side

My purpose today

• Not to defend Benedict or Nakane

• Not to defend these particular arguments

• But to underline something that their arguments share

• What I have called in a previous slide “An Asian regional comparative perspective”

Our Conference Theme

• “Glocalizing Japanese Studies: Japanese Studies Inside and Outside Japan”

• “Glocalizing” =Globalization+Localizing

• But what does it mean in practice?

Glocalization in Practice

• “Applying” Western ideas to study something presented as characteristically Japanese

• Continuing subservience to Western models

• Ethnographic involution

Ethnographic Involution

• An idea adapted from Clifford Geertz’s Agricultural Involution.

• Agricultural Involution—Growing numbers of Javanese peasants investing more and more intensive labor in smaller and smaller fields

• Ethnographic Involution—Growing numbers of anthropologists investing more and more intensive labor on smaller and smaller topics

• Both becoming poorer in the process

Look Back to Look Forward

• Benedict and Nakane

• Both were deeply involved in the major events of their times

• Both employed what they learned about other parts of Asia to enrich their analyses of Japan

• Both wrote books that, however frequently criticized by later anthropologists, continue to be read and cited outside of anthropology

In Today’s World

• It’s no longer the 1960s or 70s, when Japan’s economic miracle was transforming Japan into the world’s second largest economy.

• It’s no longer the 1980s, when it looked like Japan might dominate the global economy

• Japan is slipping out of the global limelight

In Today’s World

• Where China’s importance is growing

• India and Indonesia are next in line

• Samsung is a bigger brand than Sony

• Can Japanese studies afford to remain parochial?

What is the alternative?

• Whatever the topic, there are fresh insights to be found by looking at what is going on outside of Japan, in China, Korea, or other parts of Asia.

• Yes, there are language and other barriers.

• But now we have the Internet

In a Digital World

• A Google search will turn up all sorts of work in other places on topics similar to our own

• Colleagues who work in those other places are just a click or an email away

• Most are very happy when someone else, anyone at all, takes an interest in their work

• The possibilities for collaborative, comparative research have never been greater

Think About It Thank You