Crafting nostalgia: Emotional capital and the randoseru’s victory

Abstract

Since its initial adaptation from the army knapsack in the late nineteenth century, the randoseru, a specific style of elementary school bag in Japan, has come to signify an inherent contradiction of capitalist culture, namely the intimate interconnections of consumer acts and emotional life, and to facilitate the expression and experience of nostalgia. Describing its means of production—from its beginnings in the Imperial Japanese Army of the late 19th century to Afghani children at the beginning of the 21st century—is the goal of this essay. I propose that this nostalgia has been crafted through the social relations by which the randoseru is being circulated and mobilized while reiterating specific notions of craft and childhood.