DOI 10.1515/cj-2015-0001 Contemporary Japan 2015; 27(1): 1–11
Open Access
Louella Matsunaga
Bodies in question: narrating the body
in contemporary Japan
1 Introduction
In recent years, apparently “common sense” views of the body as a contained,
natural,1 physical object have come under scrutiny from a range of perspectives,
both in the mass media and in academia, and issues concerning the body have
attracted intense debate. New medical technologies relating to both the beginning and the end of life have created uncertainties regarding what is “natural,” as
explored with reference to new reproductive technologies by Strathern (1992) and
Franklin (1997) (also discussed in the context of Japan by Lock 2005), and with
reference to new genetic technologies by Franklin and Roberts (2006). Controversies over brain death and organ transplantation in Japan and North America are
discussed by Lock (1997, 2002), while the legal and social problems involved in
negotiating the category of “natural death” in the context of deaths in hospital in
Japan and England are discussed by Matsunaga (forthcoming). The commoditization of the body, including both the sale of organs for transplantation from live
donors, and aspects of the sex trade, is discussed in a global context in ScheperHughes and Wacquant (2002). A recent publication which brings together a consideration of many of the above issues in an anthropological study of biomedicine,
is Lock and Nguyen (2010).
The aging body in Japan is the topic of a recent article by Long (2012), which
discusses caregiving and the role of technology in particular assistive devices
(such as walkers) and life-technologies (such as dialysis). The question of elder
care has been the focus of much media attention in Japan, with the anime Rōjin
Z (Kitakubo 1991) providing a satirical take on technological intervention in the
care of the elderly, in a plot that also involves computer hacking and spirit pos-
1 Notions of “nature” and “natural” vary widely cross-culturally and historically – discussions
of the idea of “nature” in the Japanese context in a range of settings can be found in Asquith
and Kalland (1997).
© 2015 Louella Matsunaga, licensee De Gruyter Open.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License.
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2 Louella Matsunaga
session. Caring for, and disposing of, the body after death in Japan, a process
which has much to say about understandings of personhood, has been the focus
of a number of academic studies, including Namihira (1990, 2004), Suzuki (2000,
2013), Kawano (2010, 2013), and Boret (2014). In the field of popular culture the
care of the dead body provided the subject of the film Okuribito (‘Departures’)
(Takita 2008), a critical and popular success both within Japan and internationally.
The boundaries of the body are brought into question by Haraway (1991: 151–
153) in her “cyborg manifesto,” where she argues for the breakdown in the late
twentieth century of the boundaries between human and animal; organism and
machine; and physical and non-physical (thinking for example about micro-electronics and information technology). Haraway (1991: 149) refers extensively to
science fiction in her discussion, and argues that “the boundary between science
fiction and social reality is an optical illusion.”
The cyborg has been a rich vein in popular culture globally, providing material for imaginative reflection on the boundaries between human and machine,
and, more broadly, what it means to be human. Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade
Runner, with its troubled “replicants,” has become iconic in this genre, and is
referred to by Haraway, but there have been a large number of other films, manga,
anime, and novels exploring the body–machine boundary and the cyborg produced in both America and Japan. Japanese anime dealing with these themes
are discussed by Napier (2005) and contributors to Steiff and Tamplin (2010).
The feature length anime Ghost in the Shell (Oshii 1995), discussed in both these
volumes, is particularly interesting on the topic of the cyborg and its potential as
a way of reconsidering notions of the body and the self. All the characters in the
anime are hybrids, a mixture of organic and inorganic materials to a greater or
lesser degree, and the anime explicitly addresses themes including the boundaries of the self, the relationship of the self with the body and physical form, and
the possibility of the self extending beyond the physical body (whether organic or
inorganic) to become an “informational body” in the form of streams of data on
the net (McBlane 2010: 28).
2 Theorizing the body
Various questions recur in both the mass media and academic treatments of the
body outlined above. How can we understand the biological and social aspects of
the body, and how do these relate to each other? How can we take account of the
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Bodies in question: narrating the body in contemporary Japan 3
materiality of the body? How does the body relate to personhood and questions
of subjectivity? And how is all this affected by the interventions of technology?
The first point to make is that the body is both a biological and a sociocultural
entity. Representations of the body are always socially/culturally mediated, even,
as Martin (1991) has shown, on the level of scientific textbooks’ representations
of bodily processes. The biological body can never therefore be abstracted and
assumed as prior, a neutral ground on which culture may be inscribed: the body
is only knowable through systems of representation and signification. We need
therefore to pay close attention to discourses of the body, the way that understandings of the body are framed, and how these discourses change historically and
cross-culturally. Here the work of Foucault has been very important, particularly
in his study of the history of sexuality (Foucault 1990a [1976], 1990b [1984], 1992
[1984]), and has been taken up by writers on the history of sexuality in Japan,
notably Pflugfelder (1999) on male–male sexuality.
A further dimension of Foucault’s work that has been very influential in
the study of the body is his concept of bio-power. There are two main aspects or
“poles” of Foucault’s discussion of bio-power: firstly, the discipline of the body,
the production of “docile bodies” through a variety of techniques and in various
institutional settings. Foucault (1990a [1976]: 139) calls this the “anatomo-politics
of the human body”: aspects of this are explored in his earlier work, Discipline
and Punish (Foucault 1977 [1975]). Secondly, bio-power can be seen in relation to
the surveillance and regulation of populations in the domains of reproduction,
public health, and death. Foucault (1990a [1976]: 139) refers to this second aspect
of bio-power as “a bio-politics of the population.” For both aspects of bio-power
a crucial element in Foucault’s argument is that power consists in structuring
possible fields of action, and therefore in producing (self-) disciplined subjects
through a mechanism that could be termed “government” in its broadest sense
(Foucault 1982: 221–222)
Taking up these ideas in the Japanese context, on the macro level Frühstück
(2003) examines discourses of the body, and the surveillance and regulation
of the population with reference to the history of sexual knowledge in modern
Japan, while Mackie (2002) considers embodiment and citizenship in contemporary Japan. Bio-power, in the sense of the bio-politics of the population, is also
implied in the numerous studies of discourses of race and identity in modern
Japan, and the shifting politics of inclusion and exclusion of various minority
groups as the borders of Japan have expanded and then contracted – see, e.g.,
contributors to Dikötter (1997) and Oguma (2002).
There is also an extensive literature on the topic of disciplined bodies in Japan
(some of which pre-dates Foucault). To give a few examples: in the workplace,
“spiritual training” (seishin kyōiku) has been addressed by Rohlen (1974, 1986),
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4 Louella Matsunaga
and Kondo (1990); while in the religious sphere studies of asceticism and embodied religious practices include Blacker (1975), Reader (1995), and, most recently,
Lobetti (2013), who critically re-evaluates asceticism and the body, understood as
both text and tool. Kato (2004) considers bodily discipline in the context of the
tea ceremony, and relates this to the re-gendering of tea as a feminine pursuit in
the late nineteenth century, and the development of ideals of Japanese femininity
that were also closely linked to nationalism; the linking of tea, bodily practice,
authority, and national identity is also addressed by Surak (2013). As all these
writers point out, the idea of the discipline of the body as a means of self-cultivation is well established in Japan, and familiar in the context of both religious and
secular training. The idea of cultivation of the self through the body can also be
identified in other contexts: Spielvogel (2003) examines the discipline of bodies
in Tokyo fitness clubs, while Miller (2006) considers ways in which “beauty work”
may also be a way of displaying bodily discipline. Both Spielvogel and Miller consider the issue of resistance, and bodies that are not “docile” in Foucault’s terms,
a theme also addressed by Kinsella (2005) in her study of gyaru subculture.
An important influence on the understanding of the body more generally is
derived from phenomenology, and the work of Merleau-Ponty (1962). A key point
here is that the body is not only an object of representation; it is also a knowing
subject. Our perception of and interaction with the world is necessarily embodied,
and we need to focus on both the materiality and subjectivity of the body. Csordas
(1994: 12) suggests considering the body in terms of “being-in-the-world,” and a
focus on embodiment as “the existential condition of possibility for culture and
self.” For Csordas, this means a shift of emphasis away from representation and
toward an anthropology of the senses and of lived experience.
The question of embodiment, and in particular the idea that the self and the
body are inseparable, has also been taken up by contemporary Japanese philosophers, notably Ichikawa Hiroshi (who was in turn influenced by Merleau-Ponty)
and Yuasa Yasuo, as discussed by Ozawa-de-Silva (2002). Ichikawa explores the
idea of mind–body unity in the Japanese context, contrasting the English word
“body” with the Japanese word mi (often translated by ‘body’), which, he argues,
has a meaning extending well beyond the physical body to include clothing,
belongings, social self and selves connected with oneself and the spirit – ultimately one’s whole existence (Ichikawa 1993: 81–82, cited in Ozawa-de-Silva
2002: 27–28). Yuasa also argues that the mind and body are inseparable in Japanese thought, and points to the phrase shinshin ichinyo – the oneness of body–
mind – an aspiration expressed in performing arts such as Nō theatre, and also
in the martial arts – as evidence of a distinctive Japanese conception of the self
(Yuasa 1987 [1977]: 24, cited in Ozawa-de-Silva 2002: 30).
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Bodies in question: narrating the body in contemporary Japan 5
Both Ichikawa and Yuasa seem at times to border on a somewhat Nihonjinron
argument of Japanese uniqueness opposed to the West as “other” (in this case
a rather oversimplified characterization of a Cartesian body–mind split). Some
of the problems in this approach are explored in Miller’s article in this issue.
Their work is valuable in indicating ways in which understandings of the body
can be explored in the Japanese context, and in popular Japanese discourses of
the body; and the argument is well made that the notion of the body as inherently physical with readily identifiable objective boundaries is in fact a culturally
and historically specific construction. However, in their arguments regarding the
inseparability of body and self, and the importance of embodiment, Ichikawa
and Yuasa in fact echo the positions of both French phenomenologists such as
Merleau-Ponty, and also Bourdieu, whose notion of the habitus has become very
influential over the last few decades, suggesting that these perspectives on the
body are not unique to Japan, although they may have particular resonances with
popular Japanese discourses.
A concept first suggested by Mauss in his classic essay “Techniques of the
Body” (Mauss 1973 [1935]); Bourdieu (1977 [1972], 1990 [1980]) develops the idea
of habitus further to denote “the system of structured, structuring dispositions
[…] which is constituted in practice” (Bourdieu 1990 [1980]: 52). The habitus,
according to Bourdieu (1977 [1972]: 15), is “inscribed in the body schema and the
schemes of thought,” operating at a subconscious or semi-conscious level, and
constituting a kind of social competence. Although culturally defined, its locus
is the individual: hence, Bourdieu argues, an analysis focused on practice provides a means to overcome the apparent duality of the subjective/objective opposition. Another important concept for Bourdieu is that of “bodily hexis,” which he
defines as “a durable manner of standing, speaking and thereby of feeling and
thinking […] The principles embodied in this way are placed beyond the grasp of
consciousness, and hence cannot be touched by voluntary, deliberate transformation, cannot even be made explicit” (Bourdieu 1977 [1972]: 93–94).
All this connects very well to some ideas that are familiar both in Japanese
folk understandings of the body and in academic writing. The expressions karada
de oboeru (‘to remember with your body’) and mi ni tsukeru (literally, ‘to stick
something to your body’, or to learn by doing), attest to the common assumption
in a range of learning environments in Japan that learning takes place through
the body. The practice of embodied learning is addressed by Cox (2003) with reference to what he terms “the Zen arts,” including tea and the martial arts, and also
by Hahn (2007) writing on Japanese dance, as well as by a number of the authors
cited in the section on bodily discipline above. In the field of formal education,
McVeigh (1995, 1997) examines the ways in which gender may be produced, or
performed, through embodied practice, in his study of training in a Japanese
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6 Louella Matsunaga
Women’s Junior College, and Ben-Ari (1997: 1) analyzes “body practices and the
management of emotions” in pre-schools in Japan.
We might also note here that a re-questioning of the body and embodied
practice has been central in recent debates relating to the study of sex/sexuality/
gender. There has been a move away from the separation of sex as a “natural”
“biological” base, and gender as a social construct, to a re-problematization of
the sexed body as a proper subject/object of analysis. This is particularly associated with the work of Butler (1993, 1999), who argues that with regards to the
body materiality and signification are inextricably linked: as argued above, we
cannot assume the biological body as “prior,” but neither can we neglect its materiality – the body is not solely dependent on the way that we talk about it. Butler
suggests that a fruitful way to approach the study of sex/gender/sexuality may
therefore be in terms of performance – something that we create through doing,
rather than fixed attributes. Again, Japan has proved a fruitful ground in which
to explore these ideas. In addition to McVeigh’s work referred to above, there is
a very rich literature on sex/gender/sexuality in Japan – some notable examples
include Robertson (1992, 1998), Pflugfelder (1999), McLelland (2000, 2005), and
McLelland and Dasgupta (2005).
3 The scope of this issue
The four papers included in this special issue each address different aspects of the
debates on the body outlined above. Aaron Miller’s paper applies a Foucauldian
perspective to a historical examination of the development of particular discourses of Japanese sporting bodies. Miller examines the ways in which the sporting
body became enmeshed in constructions of Japanese national identity from the
Meiji period onward, and how certain bodily qualities became identified with
discourses of “Japaneseness,” and the idea that there is a distinctive Japanese
way of training and practicing sport. Aspects of Miller’s article recall the work
discussed above on disciplined bodies in Japan, and in particular the discussions
of the tea ceremony in Kato (2004) and Surak (2013). In a similar vein to Kato and
Surak’s analyses of tea, Miller examines the history of sports and discourses of
the sporting body in Japan in order to unpack the ways in which discourses of
national identity can be naturalized through the body. Linking back to the work
of Foucault, Miller also shows how discourses of Japanese sports culture produce
certain kinds of “knowledge” about Japanese sporting bodies, which in turn tend
to generate characteristic forms of practice and discipline.
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Bodies in question: narrating the body in contemporary Japan 7
Innami’s paper approaches the theme of the body from a literary perspective,
focusing on the practice of “co-sleeping” as discussed in two novels, Kawabata
Yasunari’s House of the Sleeping Beauties (1961) and Yoshimoto Banana’s Asleep
(1989), and the manga series by Yamazaki Sayaka, Shimashima (2008–2010). Cosleeping, as is well-documented, is an important and highly valued practice in
Japanese culture, which extends well beyond sleeping alongside a sexual partner.
It also occurs in a range of contexts, including notably that of the family, where
children commonly sleep together with one or both parents at least until they
enter primary school; and nurseries, where co-sleeping has been discussed by
Ben-Ari (1997).
However, there has not as yet been much published discussion of the type
of co-sleeping discussed by Innami: that is, where the co-sleeping is a paid-for
service. Important themes addressed here include that of touch (a generally
underexplored topic), subjectivity and the unconscious body: in what sense are
we relating to an “other,” when that “other” is unconscious, as in co-sleeping?
In some ways sleeping next to another person seems self-evidently intimate, but
what kind of intimacy is this? And how might it have different meanings when it
is commodified, that is, a service that is paid for? This paper forms an interesting
companion piece to the recently published book by Tahhan (2014: 60–85), which
considers intimacy, exclusion, and inclusion in co-sleeping practices within Japanese families. While Tahhan reflects on the ways in which fathers may sometimes
be excluded or marginalized in Japanese families through co-sleeping practices,
Innami’s paper suggests possibilities of attempting to recreate intimacy that may
be missing, for some, in the family context through a business-like transaction –
and also the limitations of this tactic.
Turning to Saladin’s contribution, this paper examines the topic of gender
in Japan, with particular reference to constructions of masculinity. Taking as his
focus body discourses in lifestyle magazines for young Japanese men, Saladin
contrasts the magazines ChokiChoki and Men’s egg, and in a carefully argued and
richly detailed piece, demonstrates how contrasting discourses of masculinity can
be seen in the two magazines, with reference to the treatment of the body, and the
notion of what constitutes a “masculine” body. Although the discourse of masculinity in ChokiChoki in particular diverges from Japanese mainstream norms (or at
least those adhered to by older men) in some respects, Saladin demonstrates how
both magazines also in some important ways end up “reproducing mechanisms
of the hegemonic construction of masculinity” in Japan.
Finally, Martinez’s paper takes us back to some of the themes identified at
the beginning of this paper, in the discussion of the cyborg and depictions of the
body in Japanese anime. Martinez takes as her focus the fighting women who
have featured in a number of popular anime over the last few decades, including
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8 Louella Matsunaga
the much-analyzed Ghost in the Shell, referred to above, and examines the role of
gender in this genre. Martinez argues that these female heroes, often with bodies
that are hybrid, augmented by technology, and therefore endowed with formidable fighting powers, can be considered “bodies of the future,” “‘cyborg goddesses,’ who offer an imagined salvation from the present’s dilemmas.”
Martinez also draws an interesting contrast between Japanese anime and
US-produced live-action science fiction films, arguing that when Japanese anime
inspire Western adaptation, the hero in the Western version is likely to be male.
She suggests that the gender of these cyborg goddesses in Japanese productions
is significant, and needs to be seen in the context both of Japan’s mythic past
and of Japanese narratives of global (and domestic) crisis, and challenges to the
male-dominated Japanese status quo. The imagined bodies of science fiction productions thus provide a vehicle for a range of narratives and debates in different
cultural settings. It is interesting to note that, even in the apparently immaterial setting of anime science fiction, themes of the body, and embodiment, retain
their significance and symbolic power.
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