The narrative offers a nostalgic reflection on childhood experiences in a sharecropper family in South Georgia, contrasting the typical hardships associated with such a background. Despite the challenges, the author recalls fond memories of abundant meals and a cozy home, highlighting a sense of warmth and security that defies expectations. This perspective invites readers to reconsider the complexities of upbringing and the resilience found in familial love and community.
Exploring the lives of Japan's day laborers, the book delves into the unique culture of yoseba, urban labor markets where these men congregate, and the cheap lodging areas known as doya-gai. Focusing on Yokohama, it reveals how these individuals live outside traditional societal structures like the nuclear family and corporate life. Through comparative ethnography, the author highlights their libertarian and egalitarian lifestyles, while also addressing the challenges they face, including social exclusion, lack of family, and precarious living conditions.
This book is the first collection of ethnographies in English on the Japanese communities affected by the giant Tohoku earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 and the ensuing crisis at the Fukushima nuclear power plant. It brings together studies by experienced researchers of Japan from field sites around the disaster zone. The contributors present the survivors’ struggles in their own words: from enduring life in shelters and temporary housing, through re-creating the fishing industry, to rebuilding life-ways and relationships bruised by bereavement. They contrast the sudden brutal loss of life from the tsunami with the protracted anxiety about exposure to radiation and study the battle to protect children, family and a way of life from the effects of destruction, displacement and discrimination. The local communities’ encounters with volunteers and journalists who poured into Tohoku after the disaster and the campaign to win compensation from the state and nuclear industry are also explored. This volume offers insights into the social fabric of rural communities in north-eastern Japan and suggests how the human response to disaster may be improved in the future.
The book delves into the life of Kimitsu, a Japanese day laborer whose journey spans from a wartime childhood in Kyushu to a career on Tokyo's docks and construction sites. Through conversations with anthropologist Tom Gill, Kimitsu shares his unique perspective on life in the slums and post-war Japanese society. Lacking traditional comforts like family or stable employment, he explores existential philosophy and Buddhist mysticism, seeking enlightenment in second-hand bookshops during his downtime from grueling labor.
Culturally significant and historically important, this work preserves the integrity of the original artifact, including copyright references and library stamps. It serves as a vital part of the knowledge base of civilization, reflecting the context in which it was created. This reproduction aims to maintain authenticity, offering readers a glimpse into the past through its original notations and markings.