Publication Type
Book Review
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
1-2015
Abstract
Why did Contemporary Sociology, an official journal of the American Sociological Association, ask me to review these two books on Japan edited and written by anthropologists? This question sounds trivial and even irrelevant at first. However, when the question’s three overlapping registers— why Japan, why anthropology, and why me (a Japanese sociologist trained in the United States)—are recognized, they should prompt readers of Contemporary Sociology to reexamine the relationship between disciplines and area studies, on the one hand, and the relationship between sociologists and publics, on the other. In fact, I suggest that this reexamination be an urgent task in an increasingly global world, where linguistic and institutional barriers that safely separated the observing-self from the observed other are breaking down, as many anthropologists have already pointed out.
Discipline
Sociology
Research Areas
Sociology
Publication
Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews
Volume
44
Issue
1
First Page
25
Last Page
28
ISSN
0094-3061
ISBN
9783034309226; 9780822355625
Identifier
10.1177/0094306114562200f
Publisher
SAGE Publications (UK and US) / American Sociological Association
Citation
SAITO, Hiro.(2015). Disciplines, Area Studies, and Publics: Rethinking Sociology in a Global World. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 44(1), 25-28.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/1896
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306114562200f