Japanese Homes Inside Out

ABSTRACT

In studies about the Euro-American home, the creation of domestic boundaries is commonly associated with the need for privacy grounded in the supposed opposition between “private” and “public,” “individual” and “society.” The large number of physical barriers such as gates, fences, balconies, and barred windows that screen contemporary Japanese dwellings from the outside world might, therefore, lead one to conclude that the Japanese home is of an extremely private nature. Through an ethnographic investigation conducted over a one-year period in thirty homes in the Kansai region (Osaka, Kobe, Kyoto, Nara), this article will challenge this view. It argues, firstly, that the specificity of Japanese notions of “inside” and “outside,” referring to close and distant networks of spatial and social relationships, need to be acknowledged, and, secondly, that boundaries between spaces are always fluid and constantly transgressed. More generally, this study also aims to demonstrate the strengths of anthropological research that examines how spaces are actually lived in, as opposed to studies that focus on visual and spatial divisions and tend to gloss over the complexity of every day social life.

KEYWORDS:

• Japanese house
• privacy
• personhood
• inside—outside categorization