Societat de l’Àsia Oriental: Japó

Tema 1. Societat i individu

Perspectives a revisar:

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)

(1946) The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture

El precedent de John Embree (1939) Suye Mura: A Japanese Village

Watsuji Tetsuro (1935) Fūdo (風土 Clima y cultura)

Nakane Chie (1926-)

Japanese Society (1970) Relacions humanes en una societat vertical: teoria d’una societat homogènia
[Tate-shakai no Ningen Kankei: Tan’itsu-shakai no Riron タテ社会の人間関係 単一社会の理論]

JAPÓ
jerarquia (verticalitat vincles)
grupista (dependència i deures)
harmonia i consens (no-class society)
empatia i relacions afectives
homogeneïtat (cultural, ètnica, social)
OCCIDENT
igualitarisme (horitzontalitat vincles)
individualista (independència i drets)
conflicte (de classes)
alienació social i anomia (frustració i conflicte)
diversitat problemàtica

Nocions emic: ie 家 “família - casa”

uchi (“interior”) / soto (“exterior”) 内・外
wa (“harmonia”) 和
© Blai Guarné, 2020
Perspectives a revisar:

Doi Takeo (1920-2009)

amae (“indulgència”) 甘え

The Anatomy of Dependence (1973)

[Amae no kôzô 甘えの構造 (1971)]

The Anatomy of Self (1986)

[Omote to ura 表と裏 (1985)]

Emics a revisar:
uchi (“interior”) soto (“exterior”) 内・外
omote (“davant”) ura (“darrera”) 表・裏
honne (“realitat” [el que es pensa i se sent]) tatemae (“ideal” [el que s’ha de dir]) 本音・建て前
wa (“harmonia”) 和 i kejime けじめ
amae (“indulgència”) 甘え

El discurs nihonjinron 日本人論

La discursivitat nihonjinron conforma un sistema representacional hegemònic en l’ocultació de la
heterogeneïtat que integra la societat japonesa, operant com una ideologia, més inclús, “as a doctrine and
a myth about the constitution of Japanese culture, people, and history, constructed particularly to prove—
at least to the satisfaction of the producers of this genre—Japan’s difference form the West, if not from the
rest of the world.” Harumi Befu (1993) Cultural Nationalism in East Asia: Representation and Identity.
University of California.

© Blai Guarné, 2020

“Can there be such a convenient window to allow a society as complex as Japan to reveal itself in such a simplistic way? Would
any anthropologist state the US society and culture consist of ego-centered principles simply because the existing theories of the
self in the US suggest this? In other words, are we here to assume that theories of a particular self can be unproblematically taken
as theories about the society which this self supposedly belongs? Without waiting for theoretical scrutiny, our vocational intuition
would tell us to hesitate in labeling US society simply in accordance with what existing studies of the self in the US suggest […]
Such is not the case for Japan. ‘The Japanese’ as framed by the previous works headed by the paradigmatic Chrysanthemum are
invoked and reinvoked in the same mold, since there exists an a priori idea of who the Japanese are and how they should be
behaving, how their society is supposed to work and how their cultural logic should surface –to us, the researchers or, better still,
western or western-trained anthropologists. […] The Japanese became an unchanging people whose tradition runs through and
through under the surface of a modern economy and high-tech capitalism” S.Ryang (2004: 184)

© Blai Guarné, 2020