IMPARTIAL OBSERVATION AND PARTIAL PARTICIPATION: Feminist Ethnography in Politically Charged Japan

ABSTRACT

Using reflexive accounts from her own research, the author of this article discusses her struggles as a Japanese feminist anthropologist with what “contribution” actually means in different research contexts. The author compares her dissertation research on a feminist group with her ongoing research project on right-wing opponents of feminism. As a feminist, the author found it relatively easy to practice the idea of contribution with feminists as her research subjects. The situation was much more complex, however, when studying conservative opponents of feminism, whose views were directly oppositional to the author's views and to the human rights principles supported by the American Anthropological Association. By examining her fieldwork experiences on these two types of activists, the author discusses the possibilities and constraints of ethnographic practices such as participant observation, archival research, and contribution to the people anthropologists study and to feminism. The author also discusses the role that the internet is playing in current research contexts, and argues that the distinction between home and field is increasingly blurred. This study complicates the notion of “native anthropology,” contending that as the anthropologist engages deeply in politically charged situations in the field, the distinction of native versus other may no longer be accurate. By illustrating complexities surrounding the practice of fieldwork, the author complicates the notion of contribution, and shows that one possible way to grapple with the difficult question of what and to whom to contribute is to listen to diverse, complex voices, not only of feminists but also of their political opponents, antifeminist conservatives.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article was first presented as a conference paper under the title “Impartial Observation and Partial Participation: Feminist Ethnography in Politically Charged Areas” on the panel “Politics and Pitfalls of Japan Ethnography: Reflexivity, Responsibility and Anthropological Ethics” at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in 2006. I would like to thank Jennifer Robertson, Sabine Frühstück, and Norma Field for their valuable comments and editorial help. I would also like to thank the other panel members, Elise Edwards, Bridget Love, and ann-elise lewallen, for organizing and participating in the panel and discussion together. I would like to give my special thanks to Bethany Grenald for her thoughtful suggestions and her editorial and proofreading help. Finally, my sincere thanks to Tom Fenton, editor of Critical Asian Studies, for his professional editing, helpful suggestions, and warm encouragement. Funding that supported my research in Japan was provided by the Goodman Fund; Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan; the Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan; the Tokyo Women's Foundation; and the Japan Committee, Center for East Asian Studies, University of Chicago.

Notes

1. American Anthropological Association 1971.

2. Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and Fisher 1988; Clifford 1988.

3. Strathern 1987; Mascia-Lees et al. 1989; Wolf 1992; Visweswaran 1994; Behar and Gordon, eds. 1996.

4. Mohanty 1991; Ong 1988; Tamanoi 1990.

5. The Code of Ethics, adopted by the AAA in 1998, also proclaims that the primary ethical obligation of anthropologists is to the people they study: “Anthropological researchers have primary ethical obligations to the people, species, and materials they study and to the people with whom they work.” American Anthropological Association 1998.

6. Lassitier 2001.

7. Edwards 2007; Robertson 2001(1998).

8. Abu-Lughod 1991.

9. Goodale 2006. For the statement, see http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/humanrts.htm (accessed 15 July 2007).

10. Goodale 2006, 4.

11. Speed 2006. Works by Love (2007) and lewallen (2007) in this volume are also examples of working with NGOs and human rights organizations.

12. Love 2007.

13. Lederman (2006) points out that “informality” is becoming a prominent feature of home-based fieldwork in the United States, and ethnographers working at home have encountered new ethical and political issues due to the “informal” nature of their research, which permeates the researchers’ daily lives.

14. The group's official name from 1975 to 1985 was Kokusai Fujin-nen wo Kikkaketoshite Kōdō-wo Okosu Onna-tachi no Kai, and the English version that the group used was the International Women's Year Action Group. In 1986, when the main leadership was handed off to a younger generation, the group changed its name to Kōdō-suru Onna-tachi no Kai (Women's Action Group), deleting the now outdated “International Women's Year” from its name. See Yamaguchi 2004a for more discussion of the group. See Mackie 2003 for a brief history of the group.

15. Kōsuru Kai Kirokushū Henshū Iinkai 1999.

16. lewallen 2007.

18. Personal interview with an Action Group member, 10 June 1998.

17. The Action Group women are particularly critical of the version of history in which feminist activism ended in the early 1970s, to be replaced by academic women's studies, which is represented by typical scholarly works such as Ehara 1993. This version of history ignores the fact that the Action Group continued to be active throughout the late 1970s and beyond.

19. Ibid.

20. This might be similar to what Love (2007) experienced in her study of a local revitalization project, in which the local people wanted to use her as an example of their success in generating interest among the young generations and researchers from foreign countries.

21. The timeline was exempted from this ban, so it covers the entire history of the group, from 1975 to 1996. See Yamaguchi 2004a.

22. Notable groups and sects include well-known nationalist religious organizations such as Jinja Honchōhe leading national Shinto organization; Seichō Ie (Truth of Life), which has been extremely influential in forming right-wing and antiabortion movements; “moral education” groups such as Moralogy, which does not identify itself as a religion but as an organization teaching moral values; and smaller religious groups such as Makuya, a nationalist religion founded on a combination of Jewish, Christian, and Shinto tenets. See Uesugi 2003 for the emergence of and current activities of the religious right in Japan and its relationship with nationalist organizations such as Nippon Kaigi and the Society for History Textbook Reform. For the history of the political involvement of conservative religions, see Hori 1993; Nakano 2003.

23. See Nippon Kaigi's website: http://www.nipponkaigi.org/reidai01/Activities(J)/Women's/setsuritsutaikai.htm (accessed 15 July 2007). The group's leadership includes well-known women artists, journalists, intellectuals, and politicians, including Hasegawa Michiko, a professor at Saitama University and outspoken rightist critic, and Diet representatives such as Takaichi Sanae (former minister for gender equality), and Nishikawa Kyoko and Yamatani Eriko, who have been outspoken agents in Diet sessions and in public lectures on gender issues.

24. The religious right started to become active in the conservative movement in the 1970s, at the time of the movement to legalize an Imperial Era name. In this movement, their strategy was to target local areas first, by organizing a drive to pass statements in support of the legalization in local assemblies, and then moved to a more national level. Since then, targeting local areas has become their standard strategy. See Hori 1993 on the history of the religious right-wing movement.

25. The expression “utsukushii kuni” (beautiful country) has been frequently used by conservatives, especially since former prime minister Abe used the expression to explain his basic policies. In 2006 Abe published a book titled Toward a Beautiful Country.

26. Hayashi 1999.

27. Nomura, ed. 2006.

28. Nishio and Yagi 2005.

29. See, for example, Nomura 2006; Nishio and Yagi 2005; Chiba 2004. Such arguments are widely found in the Diet as well as local assembly discussions and on the internet.

30. Edwards 2007; lewallen 2007; Robertson 2001 (1998), 42–44.

31. URL: http://2ch.net. On the history of 2Channel, see Channel 2 forum sinks teeth into nation's grit. Mainichi Daily News, 4 January 2003. http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/waiwai/archive/news/2003/01/20030104p2g00m0dm998000c.html (accessed 15 July 2007).

32. According to a press release issued by mixi, Inc. http://press.mixi.co.jp (accessed 14 July 2007).

33. Kitada 2005; Suzuki 2005; Otokawa 2007.

34. Yamaguchi 2004b; 2005a.

35. Houston 1994 (1985).

36. See Yamaguchi 2004b; 2005a 2005a.

37. Shiomi 2005.

38. Yamamoto 2005.

39. Machigai darake no Sekai Nippō [The World Times filled with mistakes] in Feminisuto no zakkan [Random thoughts by a feminist] blog: http://diary.jp.aol.com/mywny3fv/117.html. (accessed 14 July 2007).

40. One of the factors explaining the influence that Sekai Nippō has on the internet is Sekai Nippō 's placement of paid advertisements on Google's relevant search result pages, including searches for the term “gender-free.” Thus, whenever one searches for “gender-free” in Google, a Sekai Nippō article always showed up.

41. The log of this particular 2Channel thread can be viewed at http://namepage.dip.jp /public/2ch_s/175/1164126809 (accessed 14 July 2007).

42. Saito and Yamaguchi 2005.

43. URL: http://seijotcp.hp.infoseek.co.jp/genderfreeQandA/html (accessed 14 July 2007). The author, Ogiue, states: “This site will answer any questions in a Q and A format on ‘gender free’ and ‘male-female co-participation and planning in society.’ From basic questions to outrageous bashing, and the background of such bashing, anything is welcome.…The purpose is to have a basis for discussion, so I will consider information sources as more important than ideology.” After he created this site, he called for various websites and blogs to link to it, so that the site could win the top entry in a Google search, and his attempt was successful: as of 14 July 2007, this site is the top entry in Google for “gender-free.”

44. “gender” (jendμ) wikipedia http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E3%82%B 8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC&oldid=13691854; “gender-free” (jendμ-furŸ) wikipedia http://ja.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%E3%82%B8 %E3%82%A7%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%95%E3%83%AA%E3 %83%BC&oldid=13691205(accessed 15 July 2007).

45. Examples of feminist books are Kimura, ed. 2005; Nihon Josei Gakkai Gender Kenkyūkai, ed. 2006; Wakakuwa et al., eds. 2006; Sōmacr;sha Henshūbu 2006. Examples from conservative books are Hayashi 2005; Nishio and Yagi 2005; Yamashita 2006; Yamamoto 2006; Nomura, ed. 2006.

46. Yamaguchi 2006a; 2006b.

47. Yamamoto 2006; Yamashita 2006.

48. URL: http://fightback.fem.jp/yamaguchiikensho5_20_07.pdf (accessed 15 July 2007).

49. Speed 2006. As Speed mentions in her own example of conducting activist research, there is a difficult balance between being an activist and at the same time keeping a critical perspective on the entire situation, even when working with the feminist side.

50. Benedict 1989 (1946); see Robertson 1998 on the history of Japan anthropology in the United States, including the role that Benedict's book has played and continues to play in this field.

51. Robertson also notes that Japanese anthropology graduate students in the United States “may consolidate further the dominant tendency for anthropologists of Japan on both sides of the Pacific Ocean to mirror each other's attempts to reveal the ‘real’ Japan.” Robertson 1998, 310.

52. Narayan 1993; Garcia 2000; Robertson 2002; Jacobs-Huey 2002.

53. Narayan 1993, 671.

54. Robertson 2002, 789.

55. Bester et al. 2003, 16.