Routledge Companion to Contemporary Japanese Social Theory

From Individualization to Globalization in Japan Today

Anthony Elliott, Masataka Katagiri, Atsushi Sawai

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415671446
• eBook ISBN: 9781317580515
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Cultural & Social Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Japanese Social Theory breaks new ground in providing a detailed, systematic appraisal of the major traditions of social theory prominent in Japan today – from theories of identity and individualization to globalization studies. The volume introduces readers to the rich diversity of social-theoretical critique in contemporary Japanese social theory.

The editors have brought together some of the most influential Japanese social scientists to assess current trends in Japanese social theory, including Kazuhisa Nishihara, Aiko Kashimura, Masahiro Ogino, Yumiko Ehara and Kiyomitsu Yui. The volume also contains dialogues with these Japanese contributors from authoritative Western social theorists – including, among others, Axel Honneth, Roland Robertson, Bryan S. Turner, Charles Lemert and Anthony Elliott – to reflect on such developments. The result is an exciting, powerful set of intellectual exchanges. The book introduces, contextualizes and critiques social theories in the broader context of Japanese society, culture and politics – with particular emphasis upon Japanese engagements and revisions of major traditions of social thought. Divided into two sections, the book surveys traditions of social thought in Japanese social science and presents the major social issues facing contemporary Japan.

The book will appeal to students and scholars of sociology, social theory, critical theory, psychoanalysis, risk, gender studies, feminist studies, self and identity studies, media studies and cultural studies.

Part I
Traditions of social thought

Prelude 1
Phenomenological Sociology in Japan

Nick Crossley

Phenomenology has enjoyed only a shadowy presence in English-speaking sociology and social theory. There have been very few attempts to think through the implications of its ideas and methods or indeed to operationalise them in empirical work. Where it is mentioned, it is often treated merely as a precursor to ethnomethodology or an example of the problems of subjectivism, individualism or some other such stance. It is therefore fascinating to read, in Kazuhisa Nishihara’s contribution to this book, of the rather different fate of this, in so many ways, European body of theory in Japan. Nishihara, an expert on phenomenology who has translated much of Schütz’s work into Japanese, indicates that phenomenology and Schütz in particular have been key theoretical reference points in Japanese sociological theory for several decades. And he points to an apparently vibrant body of literature on phenomenological sociology – a body of literature to which he, in particular, has made no small contribution.

The turn to phenomenology in Japan, so it would seem, was motivated by the same growing unease with Parsonian functionalism that motivated many in the West to explore a variety of forms of ‘micro-sociology’. And, as in the West, the limits of micro-sociology soon became a subject of criticism and discussion in themselves. Rather than abandon phenomenology and move on to ‘the next big thing’, however, Nishihara and others sought, first, to defend it where it could be defended and where criticism was misplaced; second, to develop and revise it where criticism was justified and limitations exposed.

In respect of defence, they noted, correctly in my view, that much phenomenology is not, as is often argued, subjectivist but rather is intersubjectivist. As in the work of Mead and Blumer, meanings are said to arise in the interactions between individuals, not within the individual herself, and individuals are not understood as self-contained entities but rather as always and necessarily related and oriented to others. ‘Man’ [sic], as Merleau-Ponty argues in the final paragraph of The Phenomenology of Perception, ‘is but a network of relations, and these alone matter to him.’

The problem with phenomenology as it stands for Nishihara, however, is that it does not fully engage with what he calls ‘reified intersubjectivity’, a kind of intersubjectivity writ large which, when conceptualised as such, allows phenomenological sociology to pan the scope of its inquiries out ‘from the local level, through to national and global levels’. It is this process of panning out which characterises what Nishihara outlines, in the chapter which follows, as the ‘third stage’ in the development of phenomenological sociology in Japan, and which informs his own current work: work focused upon issues relating to globalisation and more specifically migration.

It is difficult on the basis of a small sketch to get a precise sense of what the ‘reified intersubjectivity’ to which Nishihara refers might involve. What I imagine, however, is either something like the ‘concrete intersubjectivity’ to which Merleau-Ponty referred in one of his attempts to wed phenomenology and Marxism (and which remained relevant in his later, post-Marxist engagements with Weber, Saussure and Lévi-Strauss); that is, a conception of relations mediated by ‘things’ (i.e. the means of production) and involving exchanges of resources; or alternatively, something like the system/life-world distinction suggested by Habermas. There are doubtless many aspects of Habermasian theory with which Professor Nishihara and his phenomenological colleagues would disagree, perhaps with good reason, but the phrase ‘reified intersubjectivity’ has a distinctly Habermasian ring and the apparent critical intent of Professor Nishihara, flagged in his comments on the problems faced by Chinese immigrants in Japan, further suggest a phenomenology that is becoming a critical theory. We should remember, perhaps, that one pocket of Western sociology where Schütz has been taken seriously is in the work of Habermas, who draws upon his concept of the life-world but then adds to it in an effort to capture ‘the bigger picture’.

Habermas has been criticised, of course, by Joas in particular, for violating the hermeneutic assumptions of his life-world analysis when shifting focus to the systemic level. This may be a reason for the Japanese phenomenologists to seek to carve out their own, distinct path but it also alerts us, perhaps, to the possible dangers of the third phase in Japanese phenomenological sociology. How does analysis of reified intersubjectivity proceed and is this consistent with the assumptions of phenomenology? On the basis of the information we have, it is not possible to know how successful the third phase has been, either empirically or theoretically.

Irrespective of these issues, however, it is clear that phenomenology could be an invaluable resource for those researching the migration experience that Professor Nishihara refers to. Immigrants often precisely lack the ‘recipe knowledge’ and access to the taken-for-granted assumptions to which Schütz refers. They often find themselves in the position of ‘the Stranger’ and indeed perhaps ‘the Homecomer’, both of which were analysed so expertly by Schütz. They do not have a map of the terrain and, as Schütz notes, even if they did, it would not work for them because, at least at first, they do not have a location on the map: a position from which to orient themselves. Whether this is the way that Professor Nishihara is developing his analysis I do not know but it suggests at least that there are some interesting potential lines of inquiry.

Professor Nishihara mentions in Chapter 1 that he does not want to think of Western ways of thinking as universal. He was unable to explain in full what this might mean, in so short a piece, but again it was an intriguing thought about which I would like to hear more. One can imagine a phenomenology of non-Western thought, operating perhaps within the framework of Schütz’s ‘multiple realities’ or perhaps along the lines of Peter Winch’s philosophical reflections on Azande magic. But that would remain within the framework of a way of thinking (phenomenology) which is deeply rooted in Western traditions of thought, philosophical and perhaps ultimately religious too. Alternatively, perhaps Professor Nishihara is suggesting a dialogue between phenomenology, with its European, Enlightenment (Cartesian and Kantian) roots, and one or more of the indigenous philosophies of Japan? That would be interesting.

Whatever the path that he intends, however, Professor Nishihara provides us, in what follows, with an interesting insight into the development of Japanese sociology and also, in his efforts to extend the scope of phenomenological sociology, into the global domain, an exciting sounding challenge.

1
Phenomenological Sociology in Japan and Its Significance for Contemporary Social Research

Kazuhisa Nishihara

Introduction

More than a century has passed since the foundation of phenomenology by Edmund Husserl, and over half a century has passed since sociologists started focusing on the phenomenology of Alfred Schütz. Moreover, the phenomenology-oriented social philosophy developed in the 1920s and 1930s by other German sociologists such as Max Scheler, Theodor Litt and Alfred Vierkandt also requires a mention here. With a brief reference to Scheler’s phenomenology, my focus in this chapter is on the contemporary significance of phenomenological sociology developed by Schütz in relation to the phenomenology of Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Therefore, I propose the following question: How can phenomenological sociology contribute to contemporary sociology and society today? This chapter aims at reconfirming and re-creating the significance of phenomenological sociology in the twenty-first century.

About 20 years ago, I contributed a paper on the historical development of Japanese phenomenological sociology to the American journal Human Studies, with a special focus on Schütz’s phenomenology (Nishihara 1992). In that paper, I attempted to distinguish two stages of the study of Schütz’s phenomenology in the Japanese sociological circle. The first stage was called the “introductory period” situated around the 1960s–1970s, while the second stage, from the 1980s onward, was characterized as “a new phase in the study of Schütz and phenomenological sociology,” involving criticism of his phenomenology (Shimoda 1981). In this chapter, I will discuss a new stage developed during the 1990s and 2000s.

Were there any remarkable changes in sociology and in society during the 1990s–2000s in Japan? In my view, both sociology and society in Japan have drastically transformed. In Japanese sociology in general, post-Parsonian thinking, especially integrated social theories by Habermas, Luhmann, Bourdieu, and Giddens, as well as constructionist sociology, became fashionable. Unfortunately, the problems of methodological nationalism pointed out by Ulrich Beck (2002) had not yet been fully discussed. Moreover, Japanese society underwent changes in this period when the post-socialistic era emerged and a new stage of globalization became prominent.

In Japan, as a result of this global situation, multicultural issues began to arise. First, let us discuss Japanese phenomenological sociology, in particular. In Japanese sociology, studies in Schütz’s phenomenology produced desirable results before and after the international conferences of his centennial, which were held in Japan, Germany, and the United States in 1999. Some stimulating Japanese books closely related to Schütz’s phenomenology were published in the 1990s and 2000s, which I will refer to later. Next, let us look at society itself. As long as the term “society” indicates the society within the nation-state, Japanese society also witnessed drastic changes. The most outstanding transformation of society in Japan was influenced by the expansion of globalization accompanying the advent of the information society.

At this point, it is interesting to take up an aspect of contemporary Japanese society as an example. Japan has been forced to open its doors to the world corresponding to the postulate of globalization, mainly in the socio-economic field. ¹ Until then, the Japanese government had not formally allowed the introduction of unskilled workers from foreign countries into Japan, but now Japan has started to legally employ many foreign workers/guest workers by adopting a training system called “Kenshusei” or “Jisshusei” (“trainee”) targeted at foreign workers from under-developed countries (Nishihara 2011, 2012b). Another tactical way of employing unskilled foreign workers is to accept only people of Japanese ancestry living in foreign countries, such as Japanese Brazilians and Japanese Peruvians (their parents and grandparents had emigrated to Brazil and Peru), as a cheap workforce.

These methods, comprising the “training system” and the policy of “limited openness” for foreign workers, have been in force since the beginning of the 1990s. In short, it can be said that Japanese society is currently facing certain multicultural situations.

In such circumstances, in the following two sections, I will first outline a brief history of the recent development of phenomenological sociology in Japan and then explore the transformation of Japanese society in the 1990s and 2000s (Nishihara 2010a). Lastly, after presenting my own phenomenological-sociological viewpoint, the question of “how phenomenological sociology can contribute to contemporary sociology and society today” will be discussed using two concrete examples.

The third stage: development of phenomenological sociology in the 1990s and 2000s

During the first stage of studying Schützian phenomenological sociology around the 1970s, which I termed the “introductory period” in my early paper (Nishihara 1992), some introductory papers were written by some pioneers in this field. In the 1980s or the second stage, “a new phase” in the study of phenomenology, many papers by sociologists of the younger generation were published in the field of Japanese sociological theory.

In 1991, two stimulating books in Japanese were published simultaneously by the same publisher: The Prototype of Phenomenological Sociology (literally translated into English), ² written by Wataru Hiromatsu (1991), and The Development of Phenomenological Sociology, edited by Kazuhisa Nishihara (1991b). Hiromatsu was a famous philosopher and Marxist, and Nishihara is a sociological theorist in Japan. At a certain level, both books were related to each other and were influential not only on philosophy and sociology but also on other human/social sciences including psychology and anthropology. In his book, Hiromatsu criticized the Cartesian dualistic elements in Schütz’s first book, Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt (Schütz 1932). In other words, while he estimated to a certain extent that Schütz’s theory of social relationship had occurred in simultaneous time perspective, that is, face-to-face relationships or “we-relation,” he severely criticized the subjective aspect of phenomenology and phenomenological sociology. In contrast, Nishihara paid special attention to and emphasized Schütz’s theory of intersubjective interaction, which mainly appeared in English works in the 1950s by the late Schütz, including some papers ³ in Collected Papers (Schütz 1962, 1964, 1966).

Since then, several remarkable studies by Japanese sociologists have emerged in the theoretical field of sociology. Some books were published in Japan after the mid-1990s: Alfred Schütz in Vienna, by Mototaka Mori (1995), was based on the detailed investigation into Schütz’s personal life in Vienna; The Way to Phenomenological Sociology, by Hisashi Nasu (1997), focused on Schütz’s methodology of social sciences; The Sociology of Meaning: The Adventure of Phenomenological Sociology, by Nishihara (1998), aimed at the social theoretical development of phenomenological sociology. Two other books by Nishihara include Reconsideration of Sociological Thought (1994), in which Schütz’s phenomenology is located in the history of sociological tradition, and What Does Phenomenological Sociology Inquire? (Nishihara et al. 1998), which contained contributions by the younger generation of sociologists.

Next, we can look at the translations relating to phenomenological sociology in the 1990s. For example, Schütz’s Collected Papers II was translated into Japanese by Hikaru Watabe, Nasu, and Nishihara in 1991, after the translation of his Collected Papers I by the same translators in the previous decade. Before Collected Papers III was translated by the above translators in 1998, Schütz’s Reflections of the Problem of Relevance was translated by Nasu et al. in 1996, and Philosophers in Exile (edited by R. Grathoff) by Yoshikazu Sato in 1996. In addition, a book closely related to Schütz’s phenomenology, How is Society Possible?, written by Steve Vaitkus (1991), was also translated into Japanese by Nishihara in 1996.

Moreover, we can refer to titles of special issues of two academic journals: “Contemporary Me...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Editors’ Introduction
• Part I Traditions of social thought
• Part II Issues in Japanese social theory
• Index