Japanese society: Inside out and outside in

Abstract

This article provides a broad overview of the changing models of Japanese society in postwar years, focusing on how the social science paradigm and popular representations of Japan have shifted with the transformation of the nation’s mega-social structures. The analysis identifies three major periods and concentrates on the dramatic switch of academic orientation from the monocultural to the multicultural model. The discussion also shows how the dominant popular images of Japan around the world have changed from work culture to pop culture, coinciding with the shift in the nation’s socioeconomic structure from industrial to cultural capitalism. Finally, the article demonstrates the ways in which Japan’s social scientists are located on the periphery of the world system of social science knowledge and the dilemmas they face in their attempts to produce multicultural social sciences.