The Age of Decline? Anxieties about Ageing in Japan

Kavedžija, Iza

doi:10.1080/00141844.2014.911769

Cited by 13 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…That many people worry about being “burdens” (Kavedžija :221; Cohen :141) on their adult children is a poignantly recurrent theme in anthropological work on aging. Such literature’s convincing argument of the necessity of capturing emic understandings of aging, thus avoiding the “othering” of older people, is tangential to my point.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drawing the Adult Child: U.S. Graphic Memoir and the Anthropologies of Kinship and Personhood

Magee

2019

Anthropology and Humanism

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Summary This article argues the usefulness of the culturally pervasive and impactful genre of graphic memoir for addressing gaps in the anthropologies of kinship and personhood. It identifies a key figure in some sections of U.S. society: the “adult child.” Adult childness emerges from the graphic memoirs discussed here as when a person finds themselves particularly conscious of having (or having had) parents. To the perennially debated question of what connects kin in a U.S. context the article proposes: the past. Key facets of U.S. personhood and kinship are founded on the tenet that what happens in the lives of one’s parents and one’s childhood go a long way to explaining who an adult is.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drawing the Adult Child: U.S. Graphic Memoir and the Anthropologies of Kinship and Personhood

Magee

2019

Anthropology and Humanism

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“…Many recent anthropological publications take a reader right into the family home and illustrate what is happening in much more depth: Ronald and Alexy (2011) contains a wealth of papers discussing how homes, household patterns, parental and kin relations have reacted to contemporary social, economic and urban transformations; Goldstein-Gidoni (2012) focuses in on the particular role of the housewife and how it has developed; Tahhan (2014) looks at the presently popular subject of touch and intimacy within the family; and Stevens (2013) examines the way that families deal with disability within their midst, as well as covering much more about disability in Japan and elsewhere. Danely (2014) and Kavedzija (2014) build on the earlier work of Trapahagan (2000), and Traphagan and Knight (2003) in examining issues associated with aging, and Boret (2014) uses a detailed analysis of changing attitudes to the family to explain new forms of burial in Japan. Death is another subject difficult to access without intensive fieldwork, as the impressive work of Boret (2014), Suzuki (2002) and her other collaborators (Suzuki 2014) has demonstrated.…”

Section: Why Anthropology Mattersmentioning

confidence: 97%

The state of anthropology in and of Japan: a review essay

Hendry

2015

Japan Forum

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As there are many anthropologists in Japan, including those who work elsewhere, the focus here is largely on foreign anthropologists who choose Japan as a field, and whose numbers have increased exponentially during the working lifetime of the author. The perspective is from Europe, but the vital cooperation of local anthropologists in Japan is acknowledged from the outset. The paper recounts ways in which these anthropologists have themselves cooperated, reviews a selection of the theory and ethnography they have espoused, and demonstrates the importance of anthropology as a discipline essential for a good understanding of Japan and its inhabitants.

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“…Older adults, especially those nearing the end of life, generally do not have the same aspirations or dreams that we expect younger people to have. While little has been written on the hopes of older adults, much has been written about ways they attend to a sense of purpose or meaning, or seek to enhance well-being (Kavedžija 2014;Mathews 1996, Mathews 2010Suzuki 2010;Thang 1997;Traphagan 2000;Wilińska and Anbäcken 2013: 442). While finding satisfaction and enjoyment in life, often with the purpose of preparing for a long and uncertain road ahead, might be part of developing a hopeful narrative of longevity, I found it more difficult to apply the same model of well-being to those aged over eighty like the Abukawas, 2 who were no longer able to participate in many of the hobbies, social activities, and family life.…”

Section: Hope After 80?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hope in an ageing Japan: transience and transcendence

Danely

2016

Contemporary Japan

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In Japan, today, longevity has not meant a reduction in years of dependence. As a result, anticipation of a long life also brings the troubling anticipation of problems like chronic illness and loneliness. How do older adults facing such a future create hope? The purpose of this paper is threefold: (i) to propose a conceptualization of hope as "lunar aesthetics," that is, not as anticipation of achievement but as a process of loss and renewal; (ii) to link this process to aesthetic forms and ritual practices from my fieldwork with older adults in Kyoto; and (iii) to critically evaluate the ways current formal longterm care diverges from "lunar" hope. Drawing on Japanese associations between the moon, hope, and rituals memorializing the spirits of the dead, this paper argues that older adults engage with an alternative interpretation of hope based on transience and transcendence. Both of these offer hope to older adults by reorienting the temporal boundaries of personhood, to experience change (including decline and death) as an inherent aspect of becoming part of a larger narrative of linked generations or the natural state of life.

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The Age of Decline? Anxieties about Ageing in Japan

Cited by 13 publications

References 18 publications

Drawing the Adult Child: U.S. Graphic Memoir and the Anthropologies of Kinship and Personhood

Drawing the Adult Child: U.S. Graphic Memoir and the Anthropologies of Kinship and Personhood

The state of anthropology in and of Japan: a review essay

Hope in an ageing Japan: transience and transcendence

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