Blackwell Reference Online

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“Who are the Japanese?” became the question that dominated the study of Japan in the 1980s. As the Japanese economy expanded and looked set to become the largest in the world by the end of the century, the government, under the direction of then prime minister, Nakasone Yasuhiro, established and generously funded the International Research Center for Japanese Studies (known popularly as Nichibunken) in Kyoto to look at the origins and development of what constituted Japanese culture. The publication of works about what constituted the key characteristics of Japanese society and culture flourished and, rather than being categorized by disciplinary background, were increasingly shelved in bookshops under the generic heading of nihonjinron (literally, “theories about the Japanese people”). Some of the authors of these works, such as the psychologist Doi Takeo and the anthropologist Nakane Chie, found that they had written best-sellers which went into many editions. Towards the end of the decade a powerful critique of this genre also appeared – most notably in the work of sociologists of Japan such as Yoshio Sugimoto and Ross Mouer and the anthropologist Harumi Befu – which suggested that, rather than critically exploring theories of Japanese culture, the nihonjinron literature actually contributed to its mystification. This chapter explores this tension between the analysis and ... log in or subscribe to read full text