Reluctant Intimacies - Japanese Eldercare in Indonesian Hands

Based on seventeen months of ethnographic research among Indonesian eldercare workers in Japan and Indonesia, this book is the first ethnography to research Indonesian care workers' relationships with the cared-for elderly, their Japanese colleagues, and their employers. Through the notion of intimacy, the book brings together sociological and anthropological scholarship on the body, migration, demographic change, and eldercare in a vivid account of societal transformation. Placed against the background of mass media representations, the Indonesian workers' experiences serve as a basis for discussion of the role of bodily experience in shaping the image of a national "other" in Japan.

List of contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgements

Note on Language

List of Abbreviations

Map 1. Distribution of Indonesian caregiver candidates who arrived in Japan in 2008

Map 2. Distribution of Indonesian caregiver and nurse candidates who arrived in Japan in 2008

Introduction

Chapter 1. Imagining Life and Work in Japan

Chapter 2. Working Intimacies

Chapter 3. Intimate Management

Chapter 4. National Predicaments

Conclusion: Reluctant Intimacies

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Beata Świtek is Assistant Professor at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Product details

• Authors: &, Świtek Beata, Beata ¿Witek, Beata Switek, Beata Świtek, Beata Switek Switek
• Publisher: BERGHAHN BOOKS, INC
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.03.2021
• EAN: 9781800730168
• ISBN: 978-1-80073-016-8
• No. of pages: 242
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Japan, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Gerontology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, Care of the elderly, Indonesia