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OverviewIn many ways, divorce is a quintessentially personal decision—the choice to leave a marriage that causes harm or feels unfulfilling to the two people involved. But anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the additional public dimensions of breaking up, from intense shame and societal criticism to friends’ and relatives’ unsolicited advice. In Intimate Disconnections, Allison Alexy tells the fascinating story of the changing norms surrounding divorce in Japan in the early 2000s, when sudden demographic and social changes made it a newly visible and viable option. Not only will one of three Japanese marriages today end in divorce, but divorces are suddenly much more likely to be initiated by women who cite new standards for intimacy as their motivation. As people across Japan now consider divorcing their spouses, or work to avoid separation, they face complicated questions about the risks and possibilities marriage brings: How can couples be intimate without becoming suffocatingly close? How should they build loving relationships when older models are no longer feasible? What do you do, both legally and socially, when you just can’t take it anymore? Relating the intensely personal stories from people experiencing different stages of divorce, Alexy provides a rich ethnography of Japan while also speaking more broadly to contemporary visions of love and marriage during an era in which neoliberal values are prompting wide-ranging transformations in homes across the globe. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Allison AlexyPublisher: The University of Chicago Press Imprint: University of Chicago Press Dimensions: Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 22.90cm Weight: 0.367kg ISBN: 9780226700953ISBN 10: 022670095 Pages: 248 Publication Date: 08 July 2020 Audience: Professional and scholarly , Professional & Vocational Format: Paperback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: Manufactured on demand We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier. Table of ContentsA Note on Names Introduction: Freedom and Anxiety Part I The Beginning of the End 1 Japan’s Intimate Political Economy 2 Tips to Avoid Divorce Part II Legal Dissolutions 3 Constructing Mutuality 4 Families Together and Apart Part III Living as an X 5 The Costs of Divorce 6 Bonds of Disconnection Conclusion: Endings and New Beginnings Acknowledgments Appendix A: Profile Summaries Appendix B: All Quotes in Original Japanese Notes Bibliography IndexReviewsThis is a rich ethnographic study about increasing divorce in Japan, public discourses on later-life divorce (jukunen rikon), and popular images of divorced women's empowerment that Alexy explores in depth. This accessible and carefully crafted book will be an important addition to the fields of cultural anthropology and gender studies, with Alexy's nuanced depiction of gender dynamics, the labor market, and socioeconomic structures in contemporary Japan. --Akiko Takeyama, University of Kansas Intimate Disconnections offers an extraordinarily rich account of changing expectations for marriage, intimacy, and relationality in contemporary Japan. Alexy's deeply empathetic analysis of divorce is destined to enrich our empirical understanding of this globally increasingly common life decision and its legal, economic, and emotional consequences. --Hirokazu Miyazaki, Northwestern University Author InformationAllison Alexy is assistant professor in the Departments of Asian Languages and Cultures and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. She is coeditor of Home and Family in Japan and Intimate Japan. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |