Choice 评论

The product of fieldwork in Tokyo, this ethnographic study explores the complex relationship among family, company, and self in the small workplaces that make up the lower half of Japan's dual economy. Kondo, a Japanese American, worked both in a confectionary plant and in a beauty parlor. The book shatters the stereotypical image of Japan as a land of driven, white-collar workers. Equally deconstructionist about Western categories of analysis, the author argues that in Japan the self is not unitary. Rather, individuals craft themselves in relationship to their community. Moreover, images such as that of company as family are not simply means by which the economically and politically powerful dominate their dependents; such metaphors are communal property and subject to contested interpretations. The book is superbly written and embodies the author's contention that experiential and theoretical concerns are inevitably interwoven. A wide variety of readers will find the book both accessible and useful. -S. A. Hastings, Purdue University