Politics of Leisure and Recreation Feb 12,

2008

Terms for leisure in Japan

Reja (leisure)Yoka ( 余暇）

Asobi (play)

Pachinko Parlor

Mizu Shōbai • “Water business” (nightlife of urban Japan)• Earlier incarnations of mizu shōbai were the floating World (ukiyo) and yūkaku (pleasure quarters); elite men with money consorted with beautiful courtesans (geisha) skilled in various arts

Subway Ride to Work

Anne Allison’s Nightwork

• Interested in nexus of Work and Play; and blurring of boundaries between work and play

• chose to research practice of corporate-sponsored entertainment (settai)• Facilitate business transactions• Bond worker to the company: allegiance, dedication

• Interfirm spending higher than intra-firm spending

Corporate Masculinity• Masculinity is produced through workplace relations

• Workaholic male• Lewd male E.g. Sukebei - sanctioned lewdness

Hostess

• Jokes, cajoles, teases, fills glasses, asks after clients’ health

• Primary service is TALK (sexualized banter)

• Facilitates HOMOSOCIALITY• Hostess is a sexually interesting agent but off-limits;

Worker bonds to corporation even though not that committed

• Company culture creates a series of distinctions in mind of worker:• work/after-hours; • hostess club/pink salon; • Responsibility/relief

•Home/Family falls into the ‘work’ category

Family and Home • Not antithesis to work• Wife in total charge of household

• Wife primary parent and takes care of all matters related to family except breadwinning

Women in Allison’s Analysis

• Hostesses: Create Fantasy and incite Desire; produce Homosociality

• Pink Salons: Relief, Escape, Pleasure

• Wives: Mothers of Children

Allison’s Research• Overview of Fieldwork p13

Response Paper: 3 Questions

• 750 + words; post on course website by 9 pm Wednesday

• 1. Allison states that the sexual service of hostesses operates as a fetish. Discuss what she means by the term fetish. Why does she see it as a valuable commodity and for whom is it valuable?

• 2. What is homosociality? How does the fetish help to create homosociality?

• 3. Marx and Durkheim each offer their own analyses of leisure and recreation activities. Select the interpretation that you find more convincing. Summarize this analysis, then explain why you find it more convincing. To support your argument, you may draw on Allison’s ethnography or on other examples of leisure and recreation that you know of.