The Dissenter #835 William Kelly: The Sociocultural Anthropology of Japan
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Dr. William Kelly is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and the Sumitomo Professor Emeritus of Japanese Studies at Yale University. A noted authority on the social and historical anthropology of Japan, Dr. Kelly focused much of his research for two decades on regional society in Japan, based on extensive fieldwork in the Shōnai area of Yamagata Prefecture. He has also written widely on the broader dynamics of class formation in Japanese society. At the same time, much of his research for the past two decades has explored sport and body culture and their significance in modern Japan. He has also written on the history of Japan anthropology and its importance for Japan studies and for sociocultural anthropology.
In this episode, we talk about topics in the sociocultural anthropology of Japan. We discuss the work Dr. Kelly has done on the social organization of the Japanese countryside, particularly in the Shōnai area, and how it might generalize to the rest of Japan. We talk about Tokugawa Japan. We discuss class formation and hierarchy in Japan. We talk about the Japanese economic crisis of the late 80s/early 90s, and some social and economic challenges in contemporary Japan, focusing on singlehood, the hikikomori, and suicide rates. We discuss the study of sports culture, and how it ties to body culture, geopolitics, gender, and race. Finally, we talk about the role and contribution of ethnography and sociocultural anthropology to social science inquiry.
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A SPECIAL THANKS TO MY PRODUCERS, YZAR WEHBE, JIM FRANK, ŁUKASZ STAFINIAK, TOM VANEGDOM, BERNARD HUGUENEY, CURTIS DIXON, BENEDIKT MUELLER, THOMAS TRUMBLE, KATHRINE AND PATRICK TOBIN, JONCARLO MONTENEGRO, AL NICK ORTIZ, NICK GOLDEN, AND ROSEY!
AND TO MY EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS, MATTHEW LAVENDER, SERGIU CODREANU, AND BOGDAN KANIVETS!