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FAMILY AND SOCIAL POLICY IN JAPAN: Anthropological Approaches. Edited by Roger Goodman. Cambridge (England): Cambridge University Press. 2002. xvii, 237pp. (Figures, tables, pictures.) US$60.00, doth. ISBNO-521-81571-1.
Goodman states in the introductory chapter that anthropologists have had a relatively impressive impact on social policy in Japan and can contribute more, particularly with family policy: "The factor that has by far the greatest effect on the development of contemporary social policy in Japan is the changing demography" [declining fertility rate and aging society] (p. 12), those policies are the basis of this book's organization.
The essay by Victoria Lyon Bestor examines the cultural biography of "how the concept of civil society has developed layers of meaning and association, both internal and external to Japanese society" (p. 30) as the term and concept have migrated through diverse spheres during the last decades. Throughout her account she shows the ways in which anthropology asks somewhat different questions about what is currently known and points...