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Precarious Japan
In an era of irregular labor, nagging recession, nuclear contamination, and a shrinking population, Japan is facing precarious times. How the Japanese experience insecurity in their daily and social lives is the subject of Precarious Japan . Tacking between the structural conditions of socioeconomic life and the ways people are making do, or not, Anne Allison chronicles the loss of home affecting many Japanese, not only in the literal sense but also in the figurative sense of not belonging. Until the collapse of Japan's economic bubble in 1991, lifelong employment and a secure income were within reach of most Japanese men, enabling them to maintain their families in a comfortable middle-class lifestyle. Now, as fewer and fewer people are able to find full-time work, hope turns to hopelessness and security gives way to a pervasive unease. Yet some Japanese are getting by, partly by reconceiving notions of home, family, and togetherness.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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December 25, 2020
The Pressures of Precarity In a Land Of Lost Hope
Before reading this book I had never encountered the word ‘precarity’. Precarious, yes; precariousness, of course; but precarity hit me not only as a linguistic novelty but an entirely new social condition, a ‘thing’ as popular culture has it, that I have known about sub-consciously but never bothered to articulate. Once identified this condition is obvious and disturbing. I take it from Allison’s text that the term is commonplace among sociologists and therefore will creep, or seep, into popular and political consciousness. So it seems to me likely precarity could well become a central political issue common to all democracies.
According to Allison, “Japan is becoming a place where hope has become a privilege of the socioeconomically secure. For the rest of them— the widening pool of “losers”—even the wherewithal to imagine a different there and then beyond the precarious here and now stretches thin.” This is the existential condition of the “precariat” who have replaced the 19th century proletariat. This precarious proletariat has lost even the hope of improvement in their condition: “This social and human garbage pit is precarity. And, as the sensory nature of precarious living, it is pain and unease. Life that doesn’t measure up: a future, and everydayness, as secure as a black box.”
The fact that precarity is an issue in Japan reflects something important about Japanese culture for consideration by the rest of the world. The intensity and rapidity with which the phenomenon of precarity has swept through the country make it a sort of canary in the mineshaft of 21st century global capitalism. The effects of precarity are also more visible in Japan because the country’s post-war economic policies, corporate structure, and social cohesion had more or less eliminated it before the 1990’s and the bursting of the country’s property bubble. Japan started the process of increasing precarity from an apparently solid and stable familial and civil society. The lesser social cohesion in countries like the USA therefore seem even more vulnerable to its effects.
Precarity brings together a number of social and economic conditions: the increasingly disproportionate distribution of income and wealth around the world, the growth in under employment among the educated and unemployment among those with minimal education, the sharp rise in zero-hours contracts for relatively unskilled work in the internet economy, the increasing pressure on national welfare provision brought about by an aging population and international tax competition, and the dominance of self-employment in some high-tech sectors (the “cognitariat” as a sort of intelligentsia among the precarious proletariat). These issues are a far more concrete focus for the vaguely defined populism so obvious in Europe and North America. And they affect not just the certifiably impoverished but also those of what used to be called the middle class - enough of the population in most countries to form a substantial electoral coalition.
I look forward to what the currently shapeless rhetoric of the British Labour Party and the American Democrats might become if either group can find the courage, as well as the language, to form a coalition of the precarious. Allison quotes the sociologist Lee Edelman on what he calls the demise of “reproductive futurism... the notion that hard work today yields a better tomorrow: the modernist in progress staked on the child as the obligatory token of futurity.” This is the global version of the American Dream, which if it can’t be recovered, doesn’t augur well for the future of democracy, perhaps even of responsible government.
Before reading this book I had never encountered the word ‘precarity’. Precarious, yes; precariousness, of course; but precarity hit me not only as a linguistic novelty but an entirely new social condition, a ‘thing’ as popular culture has it, that I have known about sub-consciously but never bothered to articulate. Once identified this condition is obvious and disturbing. I take it from Allison’s text that the term is commonplace among sociologists and therefore will creep, or seep, into popular and political consciousness. So it seems to me likely precarity could well become a central political issue common to all democracies.
According to Allison, “Japan is becoming a place where hope has become a privilege of the socioeconomically secure. For the rest of them— the widening pool of “losers”—even the wherewithal to imagine a different there and then beyond the precarious here and now stretches thin.” This is the existential condition of the “precariat” who have replaced the 19th century proletariat. This precarious proletariat has lost even the hope of improvement in their condition: “This social and human garbage pit is precarity. And, as the sensory nature of precarious living, it is pain and unease. Life that doesn’t measure up: a future, and everydayness, as secure as a black box.”
The fact that precarity is an issue in Japan reflects something important about Japanese culture for consideration by the rest of the world. The intensity and rapidity with which the phenomenon of precarity has swept through the country make it a sort of canary in the mineshaft of 21st century global capitalism. The effects of precarity are also more visible in Japan because the country’s post-war economic policies, corporate structure, and social cohesion had more or less eliminated it before the 1990’s and the bursting of the country’s property bubble. Japan started the process of increasing precarity from an apparently solid and stable familial and civil society. The lesser social cohesion in countries like the USA therefore seem even more vulnerable to its effects.
Precarity brings together a number of social and economic conditions: the increasingly disproportionate distribution of income and wealth around the world, the growth in under employment among the educated and unemployment among those with minimal education, the sharp rise in zero-hours contracts for relatively unskilled work in the internet economy, the increasing pressure on national welfare provision brought about by an aging population and international tax competition, and the dominance of self-employment in some high-tech sectors (the “cognitariat” as a sort of intelligentsia among the precarious proletariat). These issues are a far more concrete focus for the vaguely defined populism so obvious in Europe and North America. And they affect not just the certifiably impoverished but also those of what used to be called the middle class - enough of the population in most countries to form a substantial electoral coalition.
I look forward to what the currently shapeless rhetoric of the British Labour Party and the American Democrats might become if either group can find the courage, as well as the language, to form a coalition of the precarious. Allison quotes the sociologist Lee Edelman on what he calls the demise of “reproductive futurism... the notion that hard work today yields a better tomorrow: the modernist in progress staked on the child as the obligatory token of futurity.” This is the global version of the American Dream, which if it can’t be recovered, doesn’t augur well for the future of democracy, perhaps even of responsible government.
January 6, 2017
Now this is a remarkably interesting book. I’ve become increasingly interested in precariousness – especially since reading Bauman on the ‘precariat’, a cross between proletariat and precarious. That is, those who live lives that are almost completely devoid of security, that is, increasingly large numbers of us today. And that is what this book is about in spades.
We in the west have a particularly interesting view of ‘the East’ and of the Japanese in particular. We think of them as insects in many ways, as either ants or bees. Although, perhaps bees mostly – with that kamikaze notion of bees killing themselves to protect the hive. But westerners are prone to talking about Japan as if, unlike our stressing of the individual which we assume ought to be the universal human trait, that the proof that those from Asia are somewhat less than human is their dedication to a kind of collective existence. This book makes that view of Japan very hard to sustain. In fact, overwhelmingly, the reader is left thinking that what Japan needs now, more than just about anything else, is a sense of its collective self.
Late modern capitalism is socially fragmentary. I mean, almost everything about late capitalism increases the atomisation of people so that they need to become self-reliant. Even families become something composed of individuals, rather than of something deeper and more collective. In a society such as late modern capitalism, where success is completely decided by how you fit within various status structures with their performative measures – the right education, the right job, the right clothes and car and address – not fitting within those structures places an incredible stress on people as 'failures'. And this stress manifests in some remarkable ways in all of our societies. One of the most interesting manifestations in Japanese culture is that of the ‘hikkomori’ – young people who literally lock themselves away in their rooms, often for years, and are often treated by their families as if they had disappeared. Clearly, such children are the source of a lot of shame, but such withdrawals are not uncommon in the west either – even if we don’t have a name for such people (although ‘agoraphobia’ I guess is something of a misnomer that might be used). The need to perform, to match increasingly unrealistic expectations, the shame of failing to meet those expectations, of living in a culture that blames the individual for not meeting expectations or be able to make the right displays of achievement, all of this feeds our high-anxiety cultures.
All of this was made worse in Japan after the bubble burst on the Japanese economy in the 1990s and Japan went through employment insecurity in ways we are only now starting to catch up with. This is a particularly harsh fact, as the other myth we have in the west about Japan is that their businesses demand and provide loyalty in ways we in the west can hardly understand. But this ‘job for life’ expectation has stopped being realised. Not only that, but educational success today often doesn’t lead to employment success (something else that the west is learning to deal with too - in reality even if our myths are still in denial). This breaking of the social contract is causing massive social dislocation in Japan. Not only has the promise been broken, but those able to ‘live the myth’ of the company man often find that it is not a life that matches the myth either. Long hours, limited actual financial or other rewards, alienation from family and friends - all end up the price of such ‘success’.
It would be all too easy to read this book as one of ‘those’ books on Japan that presents the country as the incomprehensible other. But we too live in this increasingly precarious world. The young people in Japan struggle to ever ‘grow up’. Why? Well, as Johanna Wyn says in Rethinking Youth, youth is a period of transition. But transition means moving from one defined stage or state to an equally defined end point (adulthood). In Japan (and in Australia too) that end point has mostly been defined as a full-time, secure job and a marriage with children. Yes, it is all very heteronormative, but be that as it may. There was a pathway – but today that pathway is blocked. Very few young people can move along that path. But the end point still defines what it means to be an adult – and since so few can make that particular journey, they have stopped being defined as ‘adults’. There is a fascinating part of this where young people are defined as parasites living off their parents and never really growing up. Victim blaming in Japan is clearly as prevalent as it is in the west.
This book was written after the tsunami and nuclear accidents and as such looks at how these have helped to both make Japan feel more precarious, but also less precarious in a sense too, as people have started to re-appraise what it means to live in a society. This book starts by talking about those who die alone and are only found months later. The question of death pervades this book, but death in very many different forms. I was particularly taken by the distancing and isolation of people in what I had always taken to be a highly socially integrated society. This really is an interesting book, but it is also damn depressing one – don’t read this if you are feeling in the least bit down.
We in the west have a particularly interesting view of ‘the East’ and of the Japanese in particular. We think of them as insects in many ways, as either ants or bees. Although, perhaps bees mostly – with that kamikaze notion of bees killing themselves to protect the hive. But westerners are prone to talking about Japan as if, unlike our stressing of the individual which we assume ought to be the universal human trait, that the proof that those from Asia are somewhat less than human is their dedication to a kind of collective existence. This book makes that view of Japan very hard to sustain. In fact, overwhelmingly, the reader is left thinking that what Japan needs now, more than just about anything else, is a sense of its collective self.
Late modern capitalism is socially fragmentary. I mean, almost everything about late capitalism increases the atomisation of people so that they need to become self-reliant. Even families become something composed of individuals, rather than of something deeper and more collective. In a society such as late modern capitalism, where success is completely decided by how you fit within various status structures with their performative measures – the right education, the right job, the right clothes and car and address – not fitting within those structures places an incredible stress on people as 'failures'. And this stress manifests in some remarkable ways in all of our societies. One of the most interesting manifestations in Japanese culture is that of the ‘hikkomori’ – young people who literally lock themselves away in their rooms, often for years, and are often treated by their families as if they had disappeared. Clearly, such children are the source of a lot of shame, but such withdrawals are not uncommon in the west either – even if we don’t have a name for such people (although ‘agoraphobia’ I guess is something of a misnomer that might be used). The need to perform, to match increasingly unrealistic expectations, the shame of failing to meet those expectations, of living in a culture that blames the individual for not meeting expectations or be able to make the right displays of achievement, all of this feeds our high-anxiety cultures.
All of this was made worse in Japan after the bubble burst on the Japanese economy in the 1990s and Japan went through employment insecurity in ways we are only now starting to catch up with. This is a particularly harsh fact, as the other myth we have in the west about Japan is that their businesses demand and provide loyalty in ways we in the west can hardly understand. But this ‘job for life’ expectation has stopped being realised. Not only that, but educational success today often doesn’t lead to employment success (something else that the west is learning to deal with too - in reality even if our myths are still in denial). This breaking of the social contract is causing massive social dislocation in Japan. Not only has the promise been broken, but those able to ‘live the myth’ of the company man often find that it is not a life that matches the myth either. Long hours, limited actual financial or other rewards, alienation from family and friends - all end up the price of such ‘success’.
It would be all too easy to read this book as one of ‘those’ books on Japan that presents the country as the incomprehensible other. But we too live in this increasingly precarious world. The young people in Japan struggle to ever ‘grow up’. Why? Well, as Johanna Wyn says in Rethinking Youth, youth is a period of transition. But transition means moving from one defined stage or state to an equally defined end point (adulthood). In Japan (and in Australia too) that end point has mostly been defined as a full-time, secure job and a marriage with children. Yes, it is all very heteronormative, but be that as it may. There was a pathway – but today that pathway is blocked. Very few young people can move along that path. But the end point still defines what it means to be an adult – and since so few can make that particular journey, they have stopped being defined as ‘adults’. There is a fascinating part of this where young people are defined as parasites living off their parents and never really growing up. Victim blaming in Japan is clearly as prevalent as it is in the west.
This book was written after the tsunami and nuclear accidents and as such looks at how these have helped to both make Japan feel more precarious, but also less precarious in a sense too, as people have started to re-appraise what it means to live in a society. This book starts by talking about those who die alone and are only found months later. The question of death pervades this book, but death in very many different forms. I was particularly taken by the distancing and isolation of people in what I had always taken to be a highly socially integrated society. This really is an interesting book, but it is also damn depressing one – don’t read this if you are feeling in the least bit down.
March 22, 2016
If you're in academia you can skip this review, it's aimed at the general reader.
First off there are some great stories and anecdotes about what's happened to workers, the elderly and the young after the crash of the boom economy. It's an ugly picture with a mostly austerity government throwing the 'useless' people out of the lifeboat. Since the US's welfare and medical system is close to Japan's, i.e. not much and premium based, it serves as a warning since there are more seniors in Japan than in the US. The author lived, visited and interviewed in Japan, so it's not some second-hand information like some of the 80's books on Japan. If written for a broader audience I would rate the book based on just this content as a 3 (liked it).
Why did I give it a 2, and thought about a 1? Firstly it's written in an academic version of purple prose that's close to unreadable in spots, a mercifully short example, Is a temporality of the forever-present precarious?. Ughh, say it aloud and try not to feel pompous or embarrassed. If the target audience expects this, I feel sorry for the author. The excessive use of buzzwords and bafflegab is annoying. Buzzwords I can understand, all professions have their own, but words like grievability seem to be the latest in words for a fairly small group. And there's also the adverbial form of existential, does that have any real meaning? That's just a few examples. The citation style combined with overuse of parenthesis makes reading even more of a chore, it reads more like software at times. Since the author also edits journals, they might be part of the problem.
One other problem is the missing charts, this book has no numeric tables, graphs or charts, instead figures are thrown at you in a catch as catch can fashion in the text. I think this is inexcusable for a book on socioeconomic trends and dropped a point off just for that. Has temp employment, if you count job shops as temp work, really increased that much in Japan? I can't tell based on this book, the author cites numbers but doesn't crunch them.
This book is aimed at a specific circle of cultural anthropologists and unless you're a bit of a Japan nerd, probably not good read.
First off there are some great stories and anecdotes about what's happened to workers, the elderly and the young after the crash of the boom economy. It's an ugly picture with a mostly austerity government throwing the 'useless' people out of the lifeboat. Since the US's welfare and medical system is close to Japan's, i.e. not much and premium based, it serves as a warning since there are more seniors in Japan than in the US. The author lived, visited and interviewed in Japan, so it's not some second-hand information like some of the 80's books on Japan. If written for a broader audience I would rate the book based on just this content as a 3 (liked it).
Why did I give it a 2, and thought about a 1? Firstly it's written in an academic version of purple prose that's close to unreadable in spots, a mercifully short example, Is a temporality of the forever-present precarious?. Ughh, say it aloud and try not to feel pompous or embarrassed. If the target audience expects this, I feel sorry for the author. The excessive use of buzzwords and bafflegab is annoying. Buzzwords I can understand, all professions have their own, but words like grievability seem to be the latest in words for a fairly small group. And there's also the adverbial form of existential, does that have any real meaning? That's just a few examples. The citation style combined with overuse of parenthesis makes reading even more of a chore, it reads more like software at times. Since the author also edits journals, they might be part of the problem.
One other problem is the missing charts, this book has no numeric tables, graphs or charts, instead figures are thrown at you in a catch as catch can fashion in the text. I think this is inexcusable for a book on socioeconomic trends and dropped a point off just for that. Has temp employment, if you count job shops as temp work, really increased that much in Japan? I can't tell based on this book, the author cites numbers but doesn't crunch them.
This book is aimed at a specific circle of cultural anthropologists and unless you're a bit of a Japan nerd, probably not good read.
January 3, 2016
The author researched on Japanese current conditions and issues in great detail and this book shows real situations (the minus side) of Japan, so it was kinda depressing book for me. However, I think Japanese people should read it (if it was written in Japanese.) Japanese people tend to conceal avert our eyes from some bad things, especially the issues that are mentioned in this book, so I guess it's tough to know the real situation of our own country here. I want Japanese people to read it and consider what we should do or how we can resolve the issues, but honestly, I'm afraid that foreign readers thinking THIS is Japan. I mean the bad situation in this book is true, but there are many good conditions, new social systems and also people who are trying to solve the issues in Japan, too. I hope the readers in other countries know the both sides of Japan.
One thing that I want to correct about this book is some Japanese words in italics. I found many small mistakes and some big mistakes. I read this book as a first reader before it is published, so I do hope the big mistakes at least were/will be corrected before it is published.
Anyway, I liked this book. The author's legwork is impressive.
One thing that I want to correct about this book is some Japanese words in italics. I found many small mistakes and some big mistakes. I read this book as a first reader before it is published, so I do hope the big mistakes at least were/will be corrected before it is published.
Anyway, I liked this book. The author's legwork is impressive.
October 31, 2013
The only reason that I didn't burst into tears while reading this book is because of extreme self-control. And considering this is a non-fiction book, that is definitely a huge statement that I'm making about this book. If you need me to write it down, here it is: this book is that moving that it will make you want to cry. Repeatedly. It will rip your heart out and make you feel guilt for taking money from the Japanese government.
For such a gut-wrenching book, the subject matter is curiously simple. Japan is balanced on the edge - i.e. it's in a precarious position. The book aims to explore the ways that Japanese people experience instability in their lives, and how it's affecting Japanese society.
To be honest, this book was a real eye-opener. All, if not most, of my friends are 'normal'. Normal in the sense that their families are stable and that they have hopes and dreams that are quite conventional. But after reading this book, I can't help thinking that this version of typical may not be so typical after all.
I mean, if we think about it, we're so privileged to be given money to study and live here. When you read of people who can't even get married because they don't have enough money, I don't know, my heart broke. And if you love your family, well, reading about Japan's aging society and how some elderly have resorted to renting a family just to fill their emotional needs, I wanted to run out and start helping. It reminds me of the poor in one-room flats in Singapore. I used to volunteer at an organisation that helps them, and every time I saw their flats, I'd want to cry.
The only thing that annoyed me was the overuse of romaji (but I also do that on this blog, so I guess I'm guilty of the same thing). Plus, I think some of them were written wrongly. But the main problem was that it interrupted the flow and I started trying to mentally soundout the words in my mind.
Read this book. I mean it. Read it, and realise how lucky you are. Then next time, when a volunteer opportunity (or really just an opportunity to help someone) comes up, grab it. Or even if it doesn't come up, remember to call your family and tell them how much you love them.
Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.
This review first appeared at With love from Japan, Eustacia
For such a gut-wrenching book, the subject matter is curiously simple. Japan is balanced on the edge - i.e. it's in a precarious position. The book aims to explore the ways that Japanese people experience instability in their lives, and how it's affecting Japanese society.
To be honest, this book was a real eye-opener. All, if not most, of my friends are 'normal'. Normal in the sense that their families are stable and that they have hopes and dreams that are quite conventional. But after reading this book, I can't help thinking that this version of typical may not be so typical after all.
I mean, if we think about it, we're so privileged to be given money to study and live here. When you read of people who can't even get married because they don't have enough money, I don't know, my heart broke. And if you love your family, well, reading about Japan's aging society and how some elderly have resorted to renting a family just to fill their emotional needs, I wanted to run out and start helping. It reminds me of the poor in one-room flats in Singapore. I used to volunteer at an organisation that helps them, and every time I saw their flats, I'd want to cry.
The only thing that annoyed me was the overuse of romaji (but I also do that on this blog, so I guess I'm guilty of the same thing). Plus, I think some of them were written wrongly. But the main problem was that it interrupted the flow and I started trying to mentally soundout the words in my mind.
Read this book. I mean it. Read it, and realise how lucky you are. Then next time, when a volunteer opportunity (or really just an opportunity to help someone) comes up, grab it. Or even if it doesn't come up, remember to call your family and tell them how much you love them.
Disclaimer: I got a free copy of this book from the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for a free and honest review.
This review first appeared at With love from Japan, Eustacia
April 29, 2025
Precarious Japan exhibits many of the characteristics one would hope to see in a scholarly approach to a complex topic like this one. First, the 11 pages of references and 10 pages of notes at the end of the book confirm the extent to which Allison relied on both primary and secondary sources of information. The former included a multitude of interviews she conducted in her field studies over the course of 3 summers (2008-2010). The latter included theoretical work which she effectively applied to discuss and explain the social, economic, political, and cultural circumstances she found in Japan.
Second, she successfully, for the most part, integrated all of this information into well organized arguments which described the ways in which so many Japanese felt insecure about themselves and their place in society. For example, despite its overall affluence in the early years of the 21st century 15+% of the people were living in poverty. This is because 1/3 of them were employed in temporary, lower paid jobs with less/no benefits and no job security. More specifically, 50% of young workers and 70% of women were employed in this way. The author pointed out that they were not just poor. They also had little hope for a comfortable future. Thus, the youth in particular feel like ‘refugees’ in their own country.
By dividing her chapters into sections she was able to articulate complex concepts and issues in a systematic and focused way. Timely quotations of the people she interviewed allowed her to effectively elaborate on or underscore the points she was trying to make. Although Allison employed Japanese language terms extensively throughout PJ, she was very careful to provide English translations for these. For those who speak some Japanese like I do this added another layer of depth and richness to the book.
All of these qualities taken together means that readers will come away with highly textured, thorough descriptions and explanations which are impressively empathic.
As someone who was already pretty well informed about these dynamics I can confirm that the author did a credible job of explaining them both accurately and yet still succinctly. She also provided some very useful information about some things I was not knowledgeable about: how NGO’s and others had been trying to help people cope with these complex and quite entrenched socioeconomic circumstances.
The March 2011 Triple Disaster in Fukushima occurred just after Allison had sent off her first draft of her manuscript to the publisher. Despite this she included a few comments about it in the body of the book. And a whole chapter at the end which highlighted how those catastrophic events had two impacts. First, they served to underscore and exacerbate the extent to which people were already feeling vulnerable in Japan. Government and corporate negligence, if not malfeasance, before and after the disaster made things much worse than they might have otherwise been. Second, she saw this crisis as an opportunity which the NGO’s and thousands of individuals in Japan were using to try to restore some sense of community which had eroded since the financial breakdown of the early 1990’s.
There are a few relative flaws with PJ. I believe her depiction of Japan’s post WWII economic success before the so called bubble burst in the early 1990’s is overly laudatory. The security its corporate family structure in the form of long term steady employment produced was largely based on exploitation. Salary men were overworked to the point that it jeopardized their health. Some even died suddenly for no apparent reason (karoshi in Japanese). Others committed suicide because of the enormous pressures they were under to perform their jobs. This book published in 1996 provides an analysis of some of these issues:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Family relations were never as fulfilling as the government and corporations wanted people to believe. The country has struggled with mental health problems which have been largely ignored for many years. This book published in 2009 discusses the extent to which the Japanese have been ‘a lonely people:’
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Allison correctly pointed out how corruption played into the Triple Disaster. This book describes the extent to which the Liberal Democratic Party has been corrupt ever since its inception in the mid 1950’s:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Finally, as this book was based on research done from 2008-2010 one might wonder if it is dated. Unfortunately, it is not. Efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012-2020 to bring the country out of its economic stagnation with his so called Abenomics failed. His Womenomics aimed at achieving progress towards equality were also ineffective. Both were long on high sounding language such as making ‘women shine’ but short on any serious reform in corporate governance, taxes, or other mechanisms which might have made a real difference in people’s lives.
His successors have not had any significant success as well. Influence peddling by the Unification Church came to light after Abe resigned. The government’s cozy relationship with the nuclear power industry has meant that it has slowly returned to relying on this potentially problematic energy source for a significant portion of its energy portfolio rather than moving proactively towards cleaner, safer renewable sources.
Second, she successfully, for the most part, integrated all of this information into well organized arguments which described the ways in which so many Japanese felt insecure about themselves and their place in society. For example, despite its overall affluence in the early years of the 21st century 15+% of the people were living in poverty. This is because 1/3 of them were employed in temporary, lower paid jobs with less/no benefits and no job security. More specifically, 50% of young workers and 70% of women were employed in this way. The author pointed out that they were not just poor. They also had little hope for a comfortable future. Thus, the youth in particular feel like ‘refugees’ in their own country.
By dividing her chapters into sections she was able to articulate complex concepts and issues in a systematic and focused way. Timely quotations of the people she interviewed allowed her to effectively elaborate on or underscore the points she was trying to make. Although Allison employed Japanese language terms extensively throughout PJ, she was very careful to provide English translations for these. For those who speak some Japanese like I do this added another layer of depth and richness to the book.
All of these qualities taken together means that readers will come away with highly textured, thorough descriptions and explanations which are impressively empathic.
As someone who was already pretty well informed about these dynamics I can confirm that the author did a credible job of explaining them both accurately and yet still succinctly. She also provided some very useful information about some things I was not knowledgeable about: how NGO’s and others had been trying to help people cope with these complex and quite entrenched socioeconomic circumstances.
The March 2011 Triple Disaster in Fukushima occurred just after Allison had sent off her first draft of her manuscript to the publisher. Despite this she included a few comments about it in the body of the book. And a whole chapter at the end which highlighted how those catastrophic events had two impacts. First, they served to underscore and exacerbate the extent to which people were already feeling vulnerable in Japan. Government and corporate negligence, if not malfeasance, before and after the disaster made things much worse than they might have otherwise been. Second, she saw this crisis as an opportunity which the NGO’s and thousands of individuals in Japan were using to try to restore some sense of community which had eroded since the financial breakdown of the early 1990’s.
There are a few relative flaws with PJ. I believe her depiction of Japan’s post WWII economic success before the so called bubble burst in the early 1990’s is overly laudatory. The security its corporate family structure in the form of long term steady employment produced was largely based on exploitation. Salary men were overworked to the point that it jeopardized their health. Some even died suddenly for no apparent reason (karoshi in Japanese). Others committed suicide because of the enormous pressures they were under to perform their jobs. This book published in 1996 provides an analysis of some of these issues:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
Family relations were never as fulfilling as the government and corporations wanted people to believe. The country has struggled with mental health problems which have been largely ignored for many years. This book published in 2009 discusses the extent to which the Japanese have been ‘a lonely people:’
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...
Allison correctly pointed out how corruption played into the Triple Disaster. This book describes the extent to which the Liberal Democratic Party has been corrupt ever since its inception in the mid 1950’s:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
Finally, as this book was based on research done from 2008-2010 one might wonder if it is dated. Unfortunately, it is not. Efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe from 2012-2020 to bring the country out of its economic stagnation with his so called Abenomics failed. His Womenomics aimed at achieving progress towards equality were also ineffective. Both were long on high sounding language such as making ‘women shine’ but short on any serious reform in corporate governance, taxes, or other mechanisms which might have made a real difference in people’s lives.
His successors have not had any significant success as well. Influence peddling by the Unification Church came to light after Abe resigned. The government’s cozy relationship with the nuclear power industry has meant that it has slowly returned to relying on this potentially problematic energy source for a significant portion of its energy portfolio rather than moving proactively towards cleaner, safer renewable sources.
September 24, 2015
I see where people may criticize Allison's over-reliance on very specific and sporadic case studies, but I still think that this is a worthwhile read and full of useful information.
January 6, 2024
Such insightful writing! An ethnographic gem that draws on so many political, economic, social and cultural factors influencing the Japanese community.
December 17, 2013
Currently in Japan regular employment is becoming scarcer, the population is aging, and recovery from the nuclear disaster of 3/11 is still underway. All of these factors have made life more uncertain in Japan. Many people feel a lack of belonging and connection to other people. The author, Anne Allison, addresses these issues both through social theories about Japan and her extensive interviews with Japanese citizens.
This is one of those books that is a three star book because there were four star bits and two star bits. I loved when the author shared interviews with individuals, her personal experiences, and news stories. I also enjoyed learning about the history of Japan and how it impacts the way people feel now. The theories the author had about current events were fascinating, as were her tentative suggestions for ways the Japanese might recover a feeling of security. Despite being full of facts and clearly well researched, parts of this book were very profound and emotionally moving.
The only bad bits were places where the language got too dense for me to follow. There were some bits where I would google word definitions (because not all of them were in my kindle dictionary) and re-read a sentence several times without ever feeling like I really understood what they were saying. Sometimes I felt like it was some academic just trying to sound smart without saying much, but I think it’s more likely that these words have different meanings within the field of sociology. This happened the most when the author was integrating ideas from other scholars. It was almost as though there was a dissertation mixed in with my narrative non-fiction.
Overall, this was a good book and I think there were far more interesting, understandable bits than bits that were hard to follow. If, like me, you’d like to know more about different cultures and current events, I’d recommend giving this a try. The published version might even add some clarification at which point I would highly recommend it.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
This is one of those books that is a three star book because there were four star bits and two star bits. I loved when the author shared interviews with individuals, her personal experiences, and news stories. I also enjoyed learning about the history of Japan and how it impacts the way people feel now. The theories the author had about current events were fascinating, as were her tentative suggestions for ways the Japanese might recover a feeling of security. Despite being full of facts and clearly well researched, parts of this book were very profound and emotionally moving.
The only bad bits were places where the language got too dense for me to follow. There were some bits where I would google word definitions (because not all of them were in my kindle dictionary) and re-read a sentence several times without ever feeling like I really understood what they were saying. Sometimes I felt like it was some academic just trying to sound smart without saying much, but I think it’s more likely that these words have different meanings within the field of sociology. This happened the most when the author was integrating ideas from other scholars. It was almost as though there was a dissertation mixed in with my narrative non-fiction.
Overall, this was a good book and I think there were far more interesting, understandable bits than bits that were hard to follow. If, like me, you’d like to know more about different cultures and current events, I’d recommend giving this a try. The published version might even add some clarification at which point I would highly recommend it.
This review first published on Doing Dewey.
August 20, 2021
This book was a hard slog.
Having spent over 30 years in Japan and involved in the day-laborer movement and poverty-related NPOs I found her take on Japan to be not the one I have experienced. Moreover, I found it extremely problematic she took whatever Yuasa said at face value without actually providing data. For example, the claim more young people are entering the Self-Defense Forces is not supported by any data. Moreover, the Self-Defense Forces are not the same as the US military.
The author misses the irony of Yuasa asking someone seeking assistance at Moyai if they have family that can support them. This is the precise question welfare officials ask and one that those in need dread the most. Of course if they had family they would not be seeking Moyai for help.
I would have liked to seen the author go more in depth with the anti-poverty movement and hear why they specifically did not address food security as a pillar. Or, why the Hibiya Park encampment was more about performance than anything else.
The author's description of Tohoku is believable, but highly inaccurate. I say this as one who arrived Match 13th as an interpreter for CNN. Yes, cities were washed away. Yes it was very traumatic. Yet, if you go inland 1-2km, there was almost no damage. In fact, you would hardly know anything happened. My point is that the coastline is not all of Tohoku.
The book is more musings of the author's various trips to Japan. And just like anyone who parachutes in they are not going to get a full picture. Moreover, they are unlikely to go about doing the dirty work of looking for data to back up what people tell them.
Having spent over 30 years in Japan and involved in the day-laborer movement and poverty-related NPOs I found her take on Japan to be not the one I have experienced. Moreover, I found it extremely problematic she took whatever Yuasa said at face value without actually providing data. For example, the claim more young people are entering the Self-Defense Forces is not supported by any data. Moreover, the Self-Defense Forces are not the same as the US military.
The author misses the irony of Yuasa asking someone seeking assistance at Moyai if they have family that can support them. This is the precise question welfare officials ask and one that those in need dread the most. Of course if they had family they would not be seeking Moyai for help.
I would have liked to seen the author go more in depth with the anti-poverty movement and hear why they specifically did not address food security as a pillar. Or, why the Hibiya Park encampment was more about performance than anything else.
The author's description of Tohoku is believable, but highly inaccurate. I say this as one who arrived Match 13th as an interpreter for CNN. Yes, cities were washed away. Yes it was very traumatic. Yet, if you go inland 1-2km, there was almost no damage. In fact, you would hardly know anything happened. My point is that the coastline is not all of Tohoku.
The book is more musings of the author's various trips to Japan. And just like anyone who parachutes in they are not going to get a full picture. Moreover, they are unlikely to go about doing the dirty work of looking for data to back up what people tell them.
September 23, 2013
Really good book. It is overall eye opening as to what is going on outside of the personal bubble of an everyday person. I highly recommend this book for everyone, especially for those who love culture and reading about how other societies function.
August 21, 2016
(Audiobook) If you study Japanology, it is a very interesting book on present day Japanese culture and how the social welfare system is letting society down. How society is currently changing and the insecurities Japanese people face.
January 2, 2018
The argument that Japanese society is currently experiencing acute vulnerability and the examples provided were a good framework for looking at the country and its people, but I had a hard time committing to reading this book, and that's why it took me over a year to actually finish it.
March 15, 2014
Extremely interesting subject matter but the book was too academic and too long. Would have been better as a serialized magazine piece.
March 4, 2015
I take a long time to finish it but I don't regret it its open a window for me to the Japanese cultures
June 5, 2025
Despite the author's attempts otherwise, Precarious Japan never quite goes beyond slightly essentializing suffering porn, mixing weak anthropological techniques with ad-hoc media and news analysis and inconsistently applied theoretical frameworks. Without a doubt, the highlight of the book is chapter 2, which gives a brief overview of the period of non-precarity during Japan's period of high growth, and establishing the fundamental historical baseline against which the rest of the book is posed. This is basically correct and factual, albeit providing nothing new to someone familiar with the history. However, once she moves beyond simple history into anthropology proper, Allison begins to falter significantly; fundamentally, the rest of the book is plagued by an inability to be aware of the anthropological distance between researcher and subject, where Allsion simultaneously uncritically aligns herself with most of the subjects she interviews (often explicitly calling attention to said alignment) in a way where she occupies the awkward position of de-facto speaking for them (through this book). Because of the ways that she cuts up the content of interviews and spreads them throughout the book, Allsion prevents the reader from understanding her anthropological subjects on their own terms, instead poorly appropriating their voices. For instance, one common structure throughout the book if for her to feature a brief anthropological blurb (and experience she had, part of an interview she conducted, a news article she read) followed by some surface-level theoretical interpretation thereof. In this way, she is able to jump from maid cafes to discussions of motherly familial obligations to tamogachi in the span of a few pages (100), or from discussions of youth poverty to bullying of young women at a top university (91); by lacking any consistent theoretical framework or orienting thesis other than an aesthetic of suffering, Allison is able to take the many stories she is exposed to and appropriate them into her own narrative of a Japan in duress.
On the fundamental level then, this book has little to offer unless you are somewhat unfamiliar with Japan and are interested in a diversity of stories of suffering. I would perhaps have been helped if Precarious Japan had more consistent theoretical framing or implications, either on the level of the book or within individual chapters, but as it stands the theory seems bolted-on as a way of legitimizing the author's tour of suffering into an academic work. The book also features some particularly jarring passages, for example talking about an event where she ends by recounting how "[t]he final question is by a woman who, standing up at the back, identifies herself as a hikikomori who constantly feels like killing herself [...]", and then starts the next paragraph with "I am struck by the power of the event." (132) Or in another instance, the author quotes her friend Sachiko's cultural essentialism (brackets in original) that "the Chinese have something the Japanese have lost. They have yaruki [the will to do something].” (139) The author's choice to translate "yaruki" with "yaruki [the will to do something]" further reflects a tendency for gratuitous Japanese throughout the entire book, where words with clean direct translations are rendered as romaji + translation, in a way that reminds one of the "just according to keikaku [keikaku means plan]" meme. In these ways, beyond just the concrete methodological issues I mentioned in the first paragraph, Precarious Japan is also discursively unsound, promoting a perspective that is at best banal and at worst harmfully exoticizing.
On the fundamental level then, this book has little to offer unless you are somewhat unfamiliar with Japan and are interested in a diversity of stories of suffering. I would perhaps have been helped if Precarious Japan had more consistent theoretical framing or implications, either on the level of the book or within individual chapters, but as it stands the theory seems bolted-on as a way of legitimizing the author's tour of suffering into an academic work. The book also features some particularly jarring passages, for example talking about an event where she ends by recounting how "[t]he final question is by a woman who, standing up at the back, identifies herself as a hikikomori who constantly feels like killing herself [...]", and then starts the next paragraph with "I am struck by the power of the event." (132) Or in another instance, the author quotes her friend Sachiko's cultural essentialism (brackets in original) that "the Chinese have something the Japanese have lost. They have yaruki [the will to do something].” (139) The author's choice to translate "yaruki" with "yaruki [the will to do something]" further reflects a tendency for gratuitous Japanese throughout the entire book, where words with clean direct translations are rendered as romaji + translation, in a way that reminds one of the "just according to keikaku [keikaku means plan]" meme. In these ways, beyond just the concrete methodological issues I mentioned in the first paragraph, Precarious Japan is also discursively unsound, promoting a perspective that is at best banal and at worst harmfully exoticizing.
December 4, 2023
Actual Rating: 4.5. I might bump this up later actually, but for now that feels about right. I have been wanting to read some of Allison's work for a while and this totally blew my expectations out of the water! I will definitely be reading more of her work but for now, let's focus on this book haha.
I think for many people in the West (particularly those of my generation), their conception of Japan is largely constrained to "Cool Japan" exports like anime, manga, and video games. They have this idea of a country full of metropolises and material wealth, when that's definitely not the reality for a vast portion of the population. Allison peels back this curtain a bit, zooming in on the "precariat" and the turbulent conditions under which they live.
She does this in a semi-ethnographic manner, talking to a range of individuals across the economic hierarchy as well as analyzing the previous research on the subject, popular culture, news stories, Japanese history, and even linguistics. This makes for a very engaging read as while Allison often focuses on individuals, she never loses sight of the bigger picture. I was myself extremely touched at several points and even got a littly misty-eyed once, and to be able to say that about such an academically rigorous book is really impressive.
I also found her conceptions of "precarity" and "hope" really interesting and thought she did a good job of demonstrating their validity via the data. There were some points (particularly in her discussion of Japanese youth and hope/presentism) to be a little off, but in general I think these ideas worked really well both within the Japan-specific narrative and as stand-alone concepts that could be used in other regions. Since most of her official research was conducted pre-3/11, I like how she added some sections about the disaster at the end to help round her ideas out.
I think the biggest issue with this book is the writing, which is beautiful overall but has a tendency to get bogged down in academic buzzwords, most of which Allison has created herself. These terms are useful and (I think) add a lot to the narrative, but when five of them are jammed next to each other in a single sentence, your eyes can glaze over a bit. I'm really used to academic writing so this didn't especially bother me, but I can see someone whose less interested in that style having a hard time working through this.
Overall, I had a great time reading this book and would love to see a more updated version of it. Or, at the very least, to hear what Allison thinks about these same ideas now given just how much has likely changed in the years since its publication. I think people who are really interested in Japanese culture should pick it up, even if they may be intimidated by the writing at times.
I think for many people in the West (particularly those of my generation), their conception of Japan is largely constrained to "Cool Japan" exports like anime, manga, and video games. They have this idea of a country full of metropolises and material wealth, when that's definitely not the reality for a vast portion of the population. Allison peels back this curtain a bit, zooming in on the "precariat" and the turbulent conditions under which they live.
She does this in a semi-ethnographic manner, talking to a range of individuals across the economic hierarchy as well as analyzing the previous research on the subject, popular culture, news stories, Japanese history, and even linguistics. This makes for a very engaging read as while Allison often focuses on individuals, she never loses sight of the bigger picture. I was myself extremely touched at several points and even got a littly misty-eyed once, and to be able to say that about such an academically rigorous book is really impressive.
I also found her conceptions of "precarity" and "hope" really interesting and thought she did a good job of demonstrating their validity via the data. There were some points (particularly in her discussion of Japanese youth and hope/presentism) to be a little off, but in general I think these ideas worked really well both within the Japan-specific narrative and as stand-alone concepts that could be used in other regions. Since most of her official research was conducted pre-3/11, I like how she added some sections about the disaster at the end to help round her ideas out.
I think the biggest issue with this book is the writing, which is beautiful overall but has a tendency to get bogged down in academic buzzwords, most of which Allison has created herself. These terms are useful and (I think) add a lot to the narrative, but when five of them are jammed next to each other in a single sentence, your eyes can glaze over a bit. I'm really used to academic writing so this didn't especially bother me, but I can see someone whose less interested in that style having a hard time working through this.
Overall, I had a great time reading this book and would love to see a more updated version of it. Or, at the very least, to hear what Allison thinks about these same ideas now given just how much has likely changed in the years since its publication. I think people who are really interested in Japanese culture should pick it up, even if they may be intimidated by the writing at times.
August 12, 2021
Gara-gara menonton video YouTube tentang pengangguran di Eropa yang menyebut-nyebut kata "precarious" ("Poverty in Europe | 'Poor Europe'" di wocomoDOCS), saya jadi teringat kepada buku ini dan langsung saja membacanya.
Dalam buku ini terdapat banyak cuplikan kisah nyata mengenai berbagai fenomena suram yang terjadi di Jepang belakangan, mulai dari net cafe refugee, kodokushi, hikikomori, sampai tragedi nuklir Fukushima 3/11. Memang saya penggemar yang suram-suram tentang Jepang.
Cuplikan tersebut diselingi analisis penulis. Katanya masyarakat Jepang terlalu menjunjung self responsibility. Sampai-sampai, kalau mengetahui ada orang susah, mereka berpikir adalah tanggung jawab pribadi untuk membantu diri sendiri sehingga mereka pun tidak merasa tergerak untuk membantunya. Karena itulah, banyak orang mati kelaparan di rumahnya sendiri dan baru ditemukan berhari-hari, berminggu-minggu, sampai berbulan-bulan kemudian saat tetangganya sudah terganggu oleh bau yang tak enak. Di antara orang yang mati sendirian itu padahal masih memiliki sanak saudara yang tinggal terpisah, entahkah anak atau saudara kandung. Namun ikatan keluarga telah renggang, di antaranya karena orang tua lebih mementingkan prestasi daripada membangun hubungan yang berkualitas dengan anaknya. Belum lagi kasus anak membunuh orang tua atau sebaliknya. Jepang telah kehilangan rasa kemanusiaan.
Tentu tak melulu yang suram yang dipaparkan. Penulis mengimbanginya dengan menampilkan contoh berbagai inisiatif yang dilakukan warga Jepang sendiri untuk membantu sesamanya, misal dengan mengadakan acara atau ruang pertemuan bagi orang-orang yang kesepian, mendirikan badan yang membantu tunawisma mengajukan permohonan tunjangan sosial, hingga menarik sukarelawan untuk membereskan sisa-sisa bencana nuklir. Ini menunjukkan bahwa betapapun precarious-nya keadaan, masih ada harapan.
Selain itu, menurut reviewer ini, isi buku ini memang nyata dan orang Jepang sendiri patut membacanya tetapi jangan berpikir untuk menggeneralisasikannya tentu saja.
Narasi buku ini nikmat dibaca seperti fiksi walau kadang-kadang melelahkan. Saya membacanya tanpa timer dan mencatat seperti biasanya. Maka begitu saja yang saya ingat dan dapat tuliskan untuk review ini, hehehe.
Dalam buku ini terdapat banyak cuplikan kisah nyata mengenai berbagai fenomena suram yang terjadi di Jepang belakangan, mulai dari net cafe refugee, kodokushi, hikikomori, sampai tragedi nuklir Fukushima 3/11. Memang saya penggemar yang suram-suram tentang Jepang.
Cuplikan tersebut diselingi analisis penulis. Katanya masyarakat Jepang terlalu menjunjung self responsibility. Sampai-sampai, kalau mengetahui ada orang susah, mereka berpikir adalah tanggung jawab pribadi untuk membantu diri sendiri sehingga mereka pun tidak merasa tergerak untuk membantunya. Karena itulah, banyak orang mati kelaparan di rumahnya sendiri dan baru ditemukan berhari-hari, berminggu-minggu, sampai berbulan-bulan kemudian saat tetangganya sudah terganggu oleh bau yang tak enak. Di antara orang yang mati sendirian itu padahal masih memiliki sanak saudara yang tinggal terpisah, entahkah anak atau saudara kandung. Namun ikatan keluarga telah renggang, di antaranya karena orang tua lebih mementingkan prestasi daripada membangun hubungan yang berkualitas dengan anaknya. Belum lagi kasus anak membunuh orang tua atau sebaliknya. Jepang telah kehilangan rasa kemanusiaan.
Tentu tak melulu yang suram yang dipaparkan. Penulis mengimbanginya dengan menampilkan contoh berbagai inisiatif yang dilakukan warga Jepang sendiri untuk membantu sesamanya, misal dengan mengadakan acara atau ruang pertemuan bagi orang-orang yang kesepian, mendirikan badan yang membantu tunawisma mengajukan permohonan tunjangan sosial, hingga menarik sukarelawan untuk membereskan sisa-sisa bencana nuklir. Ini menunjukkan bahwa betapapun precarious-nya keadaan, masih ada harapan.
Selain itu, menurut reviewer ini, isi buku ini memang nyata dan orang Jepang sendiri patut membacanya tetapi jangan berpikir untuk menggeneralisasikannya tentu saja.
Narasi buku ini nikmat dibaca seperti fiksi walau kadang-kadang melelahkan. Saya membacanya tanpa timer dan mencatat seperti biasanya. Maka begitu saja yang saya ingat dan dapat tuliskan untuk review ini, hehehe.
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November 21, 2019Solid work.
September 23, 2021
quite excruciating, really... from Allison's background i can kind of extrapolate why things ended up being that way, but still...
June 29, 2018
A mind-blowing book that will change your perspective on "Japan's claimed paradise". The book was recommended for us in an anthropology class about work and precarity. I find it useful, eye-opening and sad.
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