Nakane Chie and Japanese Society

Abstract

Nakane Chie is probably the Japanese anthropologist best known in the West, and Japanese Society the most widely read of her books. As such, it plays an important role in the West's understanding of Japan. Although the book is supposed to be a key to the post-war period, I have chosen to discuss it for two other reasons: because of her reputation and influence and because she places herself in a social anthropological tradition. My main task will be to criticize her conception of pre-capitalist social forms—in other words the social relations she characterizes as native or feudal/traditional.