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Articles by Sawa Kurotani
What is hidden in the photographs we keep of each other?
by Sawa Kurotani, professor of anthropology All images supplied by and © the author All images supplied by and © the author Sawa Kurotani is professor of anthropology at the University of Redlands, California, US. She is the author of Home Away from Home: Japanese Corporate Wives in the United States (2005). Listen to this article 11 minute listen Alone in the cluttered spare bedroom of my mother’s apartment in Japan, I found myself surrounded by the accumulated contents of our family’s life.
Beyond the Paper Screen / Homemaking on the Go Never Really Stops
It was a typical day in Oregon in mid-May: drizzles, clouds, five minutes of sunshine, drizzles again. I don’t know how many of us received our bachelor’s degrees that day — somewhere around 300, I think. It rained in the morning, and we were crammed into the gym for the baccalaureate service. The rain stopped during lunch, and it was barely dry enough for us to sit outside for the afternoon commencement ceremony. We walked across the wet grass to receive our diplomas, one by one.
Beyond the Paper Screen / Navigating the Future of Work: Change, Creativity and Human Resilience
In my class, which is for students who are just starting their major in sociology and anthropology, I assigned a task to write about their future career hopes, dreams and aspirations. I reassured them that it was perfectly fine even if their ideas were still vague or didn’t seem realistic. Many students expressed their interest in becoming teachers or counselors, while a few others leaned toward careers in law, law enforcement or social work.
A Joyful Paradox: Rethinking Play in the Modern World
I think I was about 10 years old. One sunny spring day following a long rain, my sister and I stepped outside and encountered a stream of runoff water cutting across the dirt road near our house. We watched the steady flow of muddy water for a while, and then had a bright idea. If we kept the water from running off the edge of the road, we can make a nice little pond! So, we got to work, gathering and stacking rocks to form a dam. Time slipped away as we worked.
AI: a Powerful New Addition to Humanity’s Tool Kit
Just a couple of weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak at a conference on educational technology about the new AI-literacy training curriculum I started implementing in my courses. Amidst a younger, more digitally inclined audience, many with substantial backgrounds in computer science and information technology, I offered a unique perspective as an anthropologist and a non-digital native.
Reminders Abound of Lasting Social Effects of COVID-19 Pandemic
When the first floor of the library building on our campus was remodeled as a multiuse space almost a decade ago, it quickly became the favorite place for students to gather. From late morning through the afternoon, and well into the evening, it was always busy with students, who studied, hung out, or just relaxed between classes, sometimes alone, but more often in small groups of three or four. I, too, used to stop there regularly because the coffee shop served decent coffee drinks.
Beyond the Paper Screen / Artificial Intelligence Can Open Up Novel Opportunities for Creative Expression
In some ways, the Japanese word kiyo is like “handy” or “crafty” in colloquial American English, connoting the ability to use one’s hands and make or fix things. But in kiyo, there’s a bit more emphasis on dexterity, the ability to do intricate work using not our hands per se, but just the tips of our fingers.
Beyond the Paper Screen / Teaching first-year students reminds me of my own journey to college
It was a long journey indeed. I was starting a semester in the U.S., along with 14 other exchange students. Our flight out of Tokyo was delayed for four hours, and when the 10-hour flight dropped us off in Seattle, we had long missed our connection to Portland, our final destination. We spent what seemed like hours in the underground immigration area, got booked onto another flight and finally came up on a frighteningly long escalator.
Older, Female and Hikikomori: Japan’s Newly Precarious Population
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News “You know why I do all this?” Kawagoe-san looked around her living room. Seat cushions and colorful toys were scattered about the floor. There was a wet patch on the carpet where one of the children had spilled her orange juice. Teacups and plates from the afternoon snack time were still sitting on the coffee table. It was the aftermath of an afternoon-long gathering of 10 or so women and their assorted kids.
Older, Female and Hikikomori: Japan’s Newly Precarious Population - Sawa Kurotani
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News 13:00 JST, May 18, 2023 “You know why I do all this?” Kawagoe-san looked around her living room. Seat cushions and colorful toys were scattered about the floor. There was a wet patch on the carpet where one of the children had spilled her orange juice. Teacups and plates from the afternoon snack time were still sitting on the coffee table. It was the aftermath of an afternoon-long gathering of 10 or so women and their assorted kids.
Beyond the Paper Screen / ChatGPT, or Not ChatGPT: an Anthropologist’s Soliloquy
Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News Anthropology emerged in the 19th century as an academic discipline for the study of diverse beliefs, customs and worldviews that Europeans and Euro-Americans deemed “primitive.” Even as anthropology sought to distance itself from this troubling past throughout the 20th century, its defining question remained: What does it mean to be human?
Beyond the Paper Screen / Buying Tomato Plants Might be Just the Thing to End a Long, Dreary Winter
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News A trip to Costco is an event in itself. In my very first visit to one of their gigantic wholesale stores, I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of goods stacked up to the ceiling. After two hours of struggle through the maze of shelves and bins with an oversized shopping cart, I walked away, exhausted, with $200 worth of merchandise I didn’t need. I know better now.
New Images of a Hero: Any Anguished Teenager and a Middle-aged Bureaucrat
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News A persistent cold that waylaid me over the winter holiday break was a perfect excuse to spend hours on the couch binging on some Japanese TV series on Netflix, including “Ultraman” (2019) and “Japan Sinks: People of Hope” (2021). Familiar with their earlier incarnations from the 1970s, I was struck by how these stories had changed after nearly a half-century.
Neighbors at a distance have their own advantage
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News I live in California, in a subdivision of tract homes that was developed in the late 1980s. Back then, homes were built on spacious lots to allow for nice-sized backyards and enclosed by solid five-foot-high fences for privacy. Everyone goes in and out of their home in their car, through the garage attached to the house, without ever stepping outside. Very few cars, other than those driven by my neighbors, come through my cul-de-sac.
Decision-making grows more complicated in a violent, unreasonable world
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News Imagine, for a moment, being a faculty member at a small residential college away from the big city. One Sunday morning, you wake up to an alarming email saying that, in a note found in the city, your campus was named as one of four targets for a school shooting that morning. Another message follows later in the day: The police concluded that the credibility of the note was low.
The 20 years it took me to find American writer Zora Neale Hurston
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News I met Zora for the first time, I think, in the second year of my PhD program. I didn’t really “meet” her, of course (she passed away before I was born): It was just the way my grad school friends and I used to talk about important anthropologists, whose works we pored over.
True pursuit of happiness takes more than the techniques of positive thinking
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News Already two days past the deadline, I was struggling to finalize the courses I was going to teach in the coming spring semester. From experience, I knew to look for a sense of balance: introductory courses for general education versus upper-division courses for majors; courses driven by academic content versus skill-building (such as writing); discipline-specific versus interdisciplinary; and so on.
Shooting of Abe raises questions about the state of Japanese society
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News “Check the news. Abe was assassinated.” The text message, which arrived from a friend in Japan while I was asleep, woke me up instantly. A quick Google search pulled up brief reports from English-language sources, which only gave me the outline of what happened. I switched to Japanese and found nearly a day’s worth of coverage.
We need to address the real cause of mass shootings: social alienation
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas — two very different places in two corners of the United States. One carefully planned attack against racial “others” vs. two violent outbursts, first at home and then in school, directed at one’s own. Two 18-year-olds known as “loners,” armed with AR-platform rifles and loads of ammo, all legally obtained.
Symbol of the American Dream is drying up, literally
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News “You need more water,” my next-door neighbor says decisively. We can both see clearly that the grass is greener, thicker and healthier-looking on his front yard, compared to mine.
What a power outage taught me about emergency preparedness
By Sawa Kurotani / Special to The Japan News 17:52 JST, April 21, 2022 When the lights flickered off late on the night before Thanksgiving last November, I didn’t think much of it at first. I was already in bed and thought that the power would be turned back on, as it was in most outages, before the morning. I woke up in complete darkness several hours later and knew we were in much bigger trouble.
Nota Bene | Tech + Fashion (Montreal Fashion Week)
On February 18 , a Nota Bene evening hosted by Geneviève Borne was held under the theme of technology and fashion. Emerging entrepreneurs and established leaders in the industry came together to share In the face of diversity, the Academy Awards have, ironically, united film lovers on opposite sides of the globe. As many anxious viewers and Oscar fans settled down in...
'Nsunko' Now Popular As Sex Booster
[Times of Zambia] In traditional Africa, women knew the role sex played in marriage and went to great lengths to make themselves sexy. ... (Source: AMREF - African Medical & Research Foundation ) At age 9, Nice Nailantei Leng'ete ran away from home so she wouldn't have her genitalia cut as part of a... Bachelor’s Day comes once every four years, but women in books – from the Wife of Bath to Persuasion’s Anne Elliot – have often made their intentions clear Today is 29...
The Difference between “Tension” and “Toxicity”...
I’m often asked to explain the difference between a mother-daughter relationship that includes tension and one which is toxic and damaging to the child. The myths of motherhood—that mothering is […] ... Letting the child play in the heat and dust outdoors or get a bruise or two on the playground was a norm for the earlier generation of parents. However, with shrinking play...
Man Utd to appoint director of football to arrest decline
The Red Devils are set to move away from their current model, which sees Ed Woodward holding a large amount of power, and install a new member of staff ... The veteran Dutch boss claims Arsenal will face a Red Devils side boasting the best camaraderie he has never known since arriving at the club following two convincing wins... Michael Carrick and Daley Blind have been fielded in front of Sergio Romero as the Red Devils attempt to overturn a 2-1 deficit from the first leg in Denmark ......
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