This multidisciplinary book analyses the contradictory coexistence of consumerism and environmentalism in contemporary Japan. It focuses on the dilemma that the diffusion of the concepts of sustainability and recycling has posed for everyday consumption practices, and on how these concepts have affected, and were affected by, the production and consumption of art. Special attention is paid to the changes in consumption practices and environmental consciousness among the Japanese public that have occurred since the 1990s and in the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters of March 2011.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements Notes to the Reader Notes on Contributors List of Figures List of Tables Introduction — Katarzyna J. Cwiertka and Ewa Machotka Consumption Sustainability The post-bubble era and research on consumption Konbini, landscape, and sustainable art Works cited Chapter 1: Post-Bubble Japanese Department Stores: The Need to Search for New Paradigms — Hendrik Meyer-Ohle Abstract Introduction Department stores in Japan Educating customers: Is my diamond the right size? Am I wearing the right dress? Developing new customer groups: Fashioning the salary man and husband — Imagining the old and the new Japan Mangoes on Marine Day: Post-bubble department stores Works cited Websites consulted Chapter 2: Consumption of Fast Fashion in Japan: Local Brands and Global Environment — Stephanie Assmann Abstract Introduction Background: Social stratification and consumer behaviour Declining incomes and consumer expenditures Fast Retailing: The outdoor brand UNIQLO Ryohin Keikaku: The label without a label — Mujirushi Ryohin Fast fashion and sustainability International competitors: ZARA and H&M A high-end fashion retailer: Louis Vuitton The significance of price, brand, quality, and sustainability: The post-bubble consumer Works cited Company websites Chapter 3: Konbini-Nation: The Rise of the Convenience Store in Post-Industrial Japan — Gavin H. Whitelaw Abstract Introduction Coming of age with konbini Relocalizing konbini Convenience becoming ‘konbini’ Shifting perceptions Konbini panics and convenience concerns ‘Konbinize Me’: Waste and want ‘Between’ places Conclusion Works cited Chapter 4: Serving the Nation: The Myth of Washoku — Katarzyna J. Cwiertka Abstract Introduction What’s in a name? The UNESCO nomination National branding and food self-sufficiency Conclusion Works cited Film cited Websites consulted Chapter 5: Consuming Domesticity in Post-Bubble Japan — Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni Abstract The Hanako tribe: Single women as hedonistic consumers The production of new consuming tribes: Women’s magazines at the burst of the bubbleThe new-type housewives as a post-bubble return to ‘traditional’ gender roles? Female domesticity is fun: Marketing the joy of housewifery Tradition in fashionable wear: Designer aprons as symbols of the new femininity Female beauty and domesticity as a new kind of a national spirit Conclusion ? Works cited Websites consulted Chapter 6: The Metamorphosis of Excess: ‘Rubbish Houses’ and the Imagined Trajectory of Things in Post-Bubble Japan — Fabio Gygi Abstract Introduction Attack of the rubbish aunt! Gomi yashiki as the uncanny Consuming the bubble The exaltedness of the new Rendering absent Secondhandedness and mottainai ‘A complicated emotion’: Taguchi’s ‘Jamira’ Conclusion Works cited Chapter 7: Robot Reincarnation: Rubbish, Artefacts, and Mortuary Rituals — Jennifer Robertson Abstract Rubbish, art, and artefacts Robots and rubbish: Consumption and disposal Robot reincarnation Film cited Works cited Websites consulted Chapter 8: Art and Consumption in Post-Bubble Japan: From Postmodern Irony to Shared Engagement — Gunhild Borggreen Abstract Introduction: Japan as consumer society The artist as ethnographer Representations of consumption Art as consumption Community-based consumption Conclusion Works cited Websites consulted Chapter 9: The Fate of Landscape in Post-War Japanese Art and Visual Culture — Hayashi Michio Abstract A.K.A. Serial Killer and the extinction of landscape PROVOKE and the Discover Japan campaign Lee U-fan’s aesthetics: Phenomenology and structuralism Kawabata Yasunari and his Hawai’i lecture Karatani Kojin’s theory of landscape Long Epilogue: Sugimoto Hiroshi and the notion of post-landscape Works cited Film cited Websites consulted [inhoudsopgave gaat nog verder, maar kader is te klein]