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Global Culture/Individual Identity
Gordon Mathews opens up the complex and debated topics of globalisation, culture and identity in a clear and lively style. His book will be an illuminating and valuable read to social and cultural anthropologists and students.
Ghetto at the Center of the World
There is nowhere else in the world quite like Chungking Mansions, a dilapidated seventeen-story commercial and residential structure in the heart of Hong Kong’s tourist district. A remarkably motley group of people call the building home; Pakistani phone stall operators, Chinese guesthouse workers, Nepalese heroin addicts, Indonesian sex workers, and traders and asylum seekers from all over Asia and Africa live and work there—even backpacking tourists rent rooms. In short, it is possibly the most globalized spot on the planet. But as Ghetto at the Center of the World shows us, a trip to Chungking Mansions reveals a far less glamorous side of globalization. A world away from the gleaming ...
Organizational Ikigai
Organizations are increasingly faced with the challenge of recruiting and retaining suitable personnel. It is crucial to have employees who are committed to their organization and actively support change. Such commitment is primarily present when employees find suitable framework conditions for themselves that result from the lived values that are anchored in the organizational culture. Accordingly, a culture must be based on an image of human man that is worthy of man. An image of man worthy of man is reflected in Ikigai. Ikigai pursues a meaning-centered approach (purpose-driven) and – based on the original logotherapy of Viktor E. Frankl – assumes that the core motivation of human bei...
Re-orienting Cuisine
Foods are changed not only by those who produce and supply them, but also by those who consume them. Analyzing food without considering changes over time and across space is less meaningful than analyzing it in a global context where tastes, lifestyles, and imaginations cross boundaries and blend with each other, challenging the idea of authenticity. A dish that originated in Beijing and is recreated in New York is not necessarily the same, because although authenticity is often claimed, the form, ingredients, or taste may have changed. The contributors of this volume have expanded the discussion of food to include its social and cultural meanings and functions, thereby using it as a way to explain a culture and its changes.
Hong Kong Under Chinese Rule: Economic Integration And Political Gridlock
This edited volume is a compilation of the analyses written by East Asian Institute experts on Hong Kong since the handover. It covers most, if not all the important events that have taken place in Hong Kong since 1997, including its economic integration and relations with China, its governance conundrums, the Hong Kong identity and nation-building, the implementation of the minimum wage, and the elections from 2011-2012. The book's panoramic view of Hong Kong makes it a useful resource for readers who seek a broad understanding of the city and how it has evolved after its return to China. It also offers some glimpses into the direction Hong Kong is heading in its socio-economic relations with China at both the state and society levels, as well as its domestic political developments and the prospects for democratization.
Shadow Exchanges along the New Silk Roads
Long before China promulgated the official One Belt One Road initiatives, vast networks of cross-border exchanges already existed across Asia and Eurasia. The dynamics of such trade and resource flows have largely been outside state control, and are pushed to the realm of the shadow economy. The official initiative is a state-driven attempt to enhance the orderly flow of resources across countries along the Belt and Road, hence extending the reach of the states to the shadow economies. This volume offers a bottom-up view of the transborder informal exchanges across Asia and Eurasia, and analyses its clash and mesh with the state-orchestrated Belt and Road cooperation. By undertaking a comparative study of country cases along the new silk roads, the book underlines the intended and unintended consequences of such competing routes of connectivity on the socio-economic conditions of local communities.
Life Course, Happiness and Well-being in Japan
This book investigates the connections between socio-structural aspects, individual agency and happiness in contemporary Japan from a life course perspective. The contributors examine empirical data on the processes which impact how happiness and well-being are envisioned, crafted and debated in Japan across the life-cycle. The book discusses the shifting notions of happiness during people’s lives from birth to death, analyzing the age group-specific experiences while taking into consideration people's life trajectories and historical changes. It points also out recent developments in regards to demographic change, late marriage, and the changing labor market.
Life After Death Today in the United States, Japan, and China
This book is about contemporary senses of life after death in the United States, Japan, and China. By collecting and examining hundreds of interviews with people from all walks of life in these three societies, the book presents and compares personally held beliefs, experiences, and interactions with the concept of life after death. Three major aspects covered by the book Include, but are certainly not limited to, the enduring tradition of Japanese ancestor veneration, China’s transition from state-sponsored materialism to the increasing belief in some form of afterlife, as well as the diversity in senses of, or disbelief in, life after death in the United States. Through these diverse first-hand testimonies the book reveals that underlying these changes in each society there is a shift from collective to individual belief, with people developing their own visions of what may, or may not, happen after death. This book will be valuable reading for students of Anthropology as well as Religious, Cultural, Asian and American Studies. It will also be an impactful resource for professionals such as doctors, nurses, and hospice workers.
Negotiating Well-being in Central Asia
Much scholarship of any region focuses on the perceived problems that hold back a population. Central Asia is no exception, as it is a region with political, economic, and environmental problems that seem to keep Central Asians from a "better" future. Alongside all the struggles of life, however, are relationships of meaning and wellness that contribute to a "life worth living." Recognizing the struggles of everyday life, contributors to this book explore how people navigate relationships to find meaning, how elders attempt to re-establish morality, and how development workers pursue new futures. Such futures centre around the role of family, friends, and meaningful employment in yielding co...
What Makes Life Worth Living?
"A unique and provocative contribution to the fundamental question of what makes life worth living. Mathews works creatively with the similarities and differences in the United States and Japan to shed light on cultural values in the two societies."—John L. Caughey, author of Imaginary Social Worlds "Amidst trade wars, when Japanese workers are made into robots and trade negotiators into modern-day samurai, one longs for a sense of what Japanese humans are like. Gordon Mathews provides the answer. . . . His work is penetrating and rings true."—Ezra F. Vogel, author of Japan as Number One "An extraordinary book. Mathews's analysis of each pair of narratives is clear, delightful, and satisfying."—Takie Sugiyama Lebra, author of Above the Clouds: Status Culture of the Modern Japanese Nobility
