A01=Anne Allison
anthropology
Author_Anne Allison
bars
behavior
bonding
businessmen
Category=JBFW
Category=JBSF1
Category=JHB
Category=JHM
club
corporate culture
customs
drinking
economics
entertainment
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
ethnography
feminism
feminist
gender and sexuality
gendered relations
hostess
impotence
japan
japanese
labor
masculine identity
masculinity studies
nightlife
phallic
ritualized male dominance
rituals
sociology
tokyo
white collar men
workers
Product details
- ISBN 9780226014876
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 17 x 23mm
- Publication Date: 28 May 1994
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In "Nightwork", Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine identity that suits the needs of their corporations. Allison describes in detail a typical company-outing to such a club - what the men do, how they interact with the hostesses, the role the hostess is expected to play, and the extent to which all of this involves "play" rather than "work." Unlike previous books on Japanese nightlife, Allison's ethnography of one specific hostess club (here referred to as "Bijo") views the general phenomenon from the eyes of a woman, hostess and feminist anthropologist. Observing that clubs like "Bijo" further a kind of masculinity dependent on the gestures and labours of women, Allison seeks to uncover connections between such behaviour and other social, economic, sexual and gendered relations.
She argues that Japanese corporate nightlife enables and institutionalizes a particular form of ritualized male dominance: in paying for this entertainment, Japanese corporations not only give their male workers a self-image as phallic man, but also develop relationships to work that are unconditional and unbreakable. This is a book that should appeal to anyone interested in gender roles or in contemporary Japanese society.
