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A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs Published by Routledge (Edited by Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto and Tuukka
Toivonen)

Date: Friday, June 1, 2012
Time: 7:00p.m. (Talk will start at 7:30p.m.) Venue:Temple University, Japan Campus, Azabu Hall
212/213
(access: http://www.tuj.ac.jp/maps/tokyo.html)
Speakers: Yuki Imoto, Tuukka Toivonen, & Sachiko Horiguchi
Moderator: Kyle Cleveland
Admission: Free (Open to general public)
RSVP: icas@tuj.temple.edu
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Over the past thirty years, Japanese youth culture has made a major impact on consumer markets, as fashion subcultures and mass media (especially mobile technology and manga/anime) have inspired youth around the world to emulate "Cool Japan". Yet at the same time that the pop culture they have inspired has risen to international prominence, youth in Japan have endured a succession of social problems, provoking concerns about their health and well-being.

This symposium looks at some of the best-known of these problems, from the concern over the so-called returnee children
(kikokushijo) in the 1970s, to the
panic over young girls selling themselves for sexual activity (enjoy kōsai) in the 1980s, to the debates over physical punishment
(taibatsu) and child abuse
(jidō gyakutai) in the 1990s, to the most recent issues of young people shutting themselves away in their room (hikikomori) or appearing to withdraw completely from both the education and the labour market (NEETs).

Drawing on detailed empirical fieldwork, the authors of a new volume entitled "A Sociology of Japanese Youth: from Returnees to NEETS, set these issues in a clearly articulated ‘social constructionist’ framework that explains why particular youth problems appeared when they did and what lessons they can provide for the study of youth problems in other societies.

In this symposium, honoring the recent release of this volume, the authors Yuki Imoto and Tuuuka Toivonen will firstly give an introduction to the volume.
Sachiko Horiguchi and Tuukka Toivonen will then provide glimpses into their respective chapters on hikikomori and NEETs.


Yuki Imoto (editor) is Research Associate at Keio University, Japan, where she teaches English and social science methods. Her research interests lie in the anthropology of education and transnationalism, and she is currently writing a book on the emergence of ‘international’ preschools in urban Japan. She has also been conducting research on the knowledge construction of 'Japanese Studies', tracing the identities of transnational academics in this field.

Tuukka Toivonen (editor) is Junior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. He currently investigates Japanese young workers’
motivational processes, social entrepreneurship and related policies from a comparative angle. Tuukka is the author of 'Japan’s Emerging Youth Policy'
(Routledge, forthcoming) and an active member of his college’s “Future of Work” programme.

Sachiko Horiguchi is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Temple University, Japan Campus. Her research interests lie in anthropological studies of youth mental health issues as well as issues in the internationalization of education in Japan. More broadly, she is interested in critically examining issues in the production, flows, and education of sociological and anthropological knowledge on Japan from the perspective of an 'anthropologist at home'.
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Robert Dujarric
Director
Kyle Cleveland
Associate Director
Eriko Kawaguchi
Coordinator
Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies
Temple University, Japan Campus
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