"This book is a gem. Intended as a guide for individuals seeking to conduct research in Japan in the social sciences and cultural studies, Doing Fieldwork in Japan not only accomplishes that goal beautifully but also serves as an invaluable and entertaining introduction to the rules of Japanese society that will be of interest to a wide range of readers." --International Herald Tribune/Asahi Shimbun, October 11, 2003

"An important and fascinating volume for experts on other world regions who plan to include Japan in their multi-sited research projects, and an excellent introduction to the work of major researchers on Japan whom we all should be reading." --Kay B.Warren, professor of anthropology and Latin American studies, Harvard University

Doing Fieldwork in Japan taps the expertise of North American and European specialists on the practicalities of conducting long-term research in the social sciences and cultural studies. In lively first-person accounts, they discuss their successes and failures doing fieldwork across rural and urban Japan in a wide range of settings: among religious pilgrims and adolescent consumers; on factory assembly lines and in high schools and wholesale seafood markets; with bureaucrats in charge of defense, foreign aid, and social welfare policy; inside radical political movements; among adherents of "New Religions"; inside a prosecutor's office and the JET Program for foreign English teachers; with journalists in the NHK newsroom; while researching race, ethnicity, and migration; and amidst fans and consumers of contemporary popular culture.

Contributors: David M. Arase, Theodore C. Bestor, Victoria Lyon Bestor, Mary C. Brinton, John Creighton Campbell, Samuel Coleman, Suzanne Culter, Andrew Gordon, Helen Hardacre, Joy Hendry, David T. Johnson, Ellis S. Krauss, David L. McConnell, Ian Reader, Glenda S. Roberts, Joshua Hotaka Roth, Robert J. Smith, Sheila A. Smith, Patricia G. Steinhoff, Merry Isaacs White, Christine R. Yano.

Theodore C. Bestor is professor of anthropology and Japanese studies at Harvard University. Patricia G. Steinhoff is professor of sociology at the University of Hawai`i. Victoria Lyon Bestor is executive director of the North American Coordinating Council on Japanese Library Resources.

Read the table of contents and/or the introduction (PDF).