He Ping, Center for Japanese Studies, Fudan University
Nora Kottmann and Cornelia Reiher eds., Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2020
Theodore C. Bestor, Patricia G. Steinhoff, and Victoria Lyon Bestor eds., Doing Fieldwork in Japan, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003
The question in the title can be broken down into at least two halves. First, are there any guidelines, manuals, and specifications for the methods, paths, and techniques of Japanese research? Second, if there is, do these "treasure books" work, and to what extent are they helpful in grasping medicines according to prescriptions and following Tu Suoji?
In recent years, domestic works on social science methodology have come out one after another, and Li Lianjiang's "If You Don't Publish, You're Out", Xiang Biao's "Treat Yourself as a Method", Huang Zongzhi's "Guide to Practical Social Science Research", and Liu Junqiang's "Writing is a Craft" are all representatives. There are many similar methodological translations. In regional and country studies such as U.S. studies, there is no shortage of relevant methodological compilations and translations. So, in Japanese studies, are there similar works for guidance?
In the article "History of Japanese Studies in the United States: Compilation of Basic Materials and Literature", we have made a preliminary review of relevant literature, mainly involving research reviews, survey reports, book lists and other informative results. It is worth mentioning that many of the literature guides compiled by the libraries of major universities for Japanese studies in the United States often contain an introduction to basic research methods. Most of these guides came out in the 1990s or even earlier. Sadly or thankfully, just over two decades later, a considerable part of what is mentioned in the book is read today as if it were a distant one. In the Internet era, with the rapid development of computer technology, the library card search, input method switching and other techniques that were originally used as basic research skills are now basically no longer applicable. Of course, the tool books that these materials are looking for are also being updated, and there is no shortage of the latest works. In addition, in the basic courses of Japanese studies in many European and American universities, research norms are often an important part, so as to introduce japanese studies to young students, especially some methods and techniques for conducting research in Japan.
As far as the eye can see, two of the most well-known and influential books on Japanese research methodology in European and American academic circles are "Doing Fieldwork in Japan" edited by three scholars, including Theodore C. Bester, and "Studying Japan: Research Design" edited by Nora Kottmann and Cornelia Reiher. Studying Japan: Handbook of Research Designs, Fieldwork and Methods. The following are separate commentaries, focusing on the latest publication of the latter.
"Making Fields in Japan"
Since being published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2003, Making Fields in Japan has become a classic, and even a must-read, of international Japanese studies. Using Google Ngram Viewer, the inductance rate has remained high for nearly two decades. Unfortunately, the book is little known in China. There are twenty-one authors in the book, and at the time of publication, most of them were the backbone of the international Japanese research community, and a considerable number of active scholars are still active today.
Source: Google Ngram Viewer
The book consists of 414 pages. In addition to the introduction co-written by the three editors and the appendix to the main text, the Appendix on Digital Resources and Fields, the glossary, the references, etc., the main part consists of twenty chapters, divided into four parts: "starting out", "navigating bureaucratic mazes", "asking: surveys, interviews, access), "outsiders in insiders' networks." Similar to these titles, the titles of the chapters are quite literary and personal. The authors' fieldwork throughout the four islands of Japan and Okinawa, with different experiences and experiences, is expected to distill some of the "techniques, confusions, problems, and ways out" of conducting research in Japan (p. 5). As the cover shows, the book is interspersed with more than twenty photographs taken by various authors during fieldwork, which can be described as "one picture is worth a thousand words".
For Japanese scholars, especially Chinese scholars among them, the significance of this book is prominently manifested in the following three aspects.
First, to re-understand the role and value of "fieldwork" in Japanese studies in a broader sense. When it comes to "fieldwork" and "ethnography," many people involuntarily equate it with anthropology, and Malinowski's Trobrion Islands, or the developing regions of the world today, immediately come to mind. But in fact, the method of "fieldwork" is not a taboo of anthropology or sociology, but is widely used in various fields of social science, and it shows a significant presence in many classic works of international Japanese studies. According to the personal profiles provided later in the book, there are nine anthropologists, four political scholars, four sociologists, two religious scholars, one historian and one book resource manager among the twenty-one authors. The universal significance of "fieldwork" can be seen in the disciplinary distribution of these authors. For example, historical research is often thought to deal primarily with old paper archives, but as a well-known Japanese historian, Andrew Gordon wants to tell you through his own experience that in the process of doing Japanese social history, it is equally important to obtain sources of information and oral material through the interpersonal network.
In contrast, "local" methods such as fieldwork and intensive interviews are not good at japanese scholars in China, or the conditions are relatively lacking. Therefore, the Japanese research results obtained by Western scholars under the premise of applying these methods undoubtedly have special enlightening significance for China's own Japanese studies. Since 2009, the "Into the World: Overseas Ethnography Department" edited by Gao Bingzhong has been published by Peking University Press, and these authors have issued "Go Overseas!" The appeal has also made a positive contribution to a certain late-developing development of "overseas ethnography" in China's social sciences. In addition, ethnographic research by Chinese scholars in Japan also appears in the book series "Cross-border and Cultural Fields" edited by Ma Guoqing (Li Jing: "Rice Cultivation Traditions and Social Continuation: Ethnography of Baba Village, Sendai Akiho-cho, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan", Life, Reading, and Shinchi Triptych Bookstore, 2019). These attempts and efforts are undoubtedly highly consistent with the main thrust of this book.
Second, from the perspective of methodology, "restore" the famous works, and do in-depth case analysis in the form of "reverse engineering". Methodological manuals and guides are often likened to "recipes", such as "salt in moderation, a little sugar" suggestions are often criticized and difficult to practice, such as non-repeated practice, self-exploration, just reading "recipes" is always on paper. This is probably also true. But dynamic "recipes", like a large number of food programs, must clearly inform the many technical elements of stir-frying and steaming, but also need to vividly present the production process of each dish. In this sense, a methodological guide similar to this book is like a director's meeting, or a blockbuster production record and behind-the-scenes footage, making the reader feel as if he is in the background of the set or stage (I don't see Douban, IMDB, many documentaries are even higher than the original film).
For many of the authors in this book, their famous works or masterpieces have greatly benefited from the field experiences mentioned in the book, and with the great waves of the academic world, most of these works have become classics in international Japanese studies. Among them, Best's "Neighborhood Tokyo" (translated by Guo Yundan, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2007), Andrew Gordon's "The Evolution of Labor Relations in Japan" (translated by Zhang Rui and Liu Junchi, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2011) have also been translated Chinese. Therefore, the reader can get a glimpse of the ins and outs of the masterpieces in this book, the predecessors and the present life. Through the author's narration of his own research experience, dismantling and revealing the organs and key points in it, so that readers can applaud the original work while also knowing "where the good is and where the good comes from". As the editors point out, although this book is not a hand-to-hand "a step-by-step how-to manual," it does provide many insights and suggestions on how to do research in Japan (p. 1). It can be said that this kind of teaching based on specific works is often more concrete, graphic, and more inspiring than a manual that purely introduces methodology.
It is worth mentioning that in fact, there are similar works in China. For example, Gao Bai's "Western Social Science Theory and Japanese Studies: Lectures on the Advanced Training Course of the Center for Japanese Studies at Tsinghua University" (Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013) is his two masterpieces, "The Paradox of the Japanese Economy: The Institutional Roots of Prosperity and Stagnation" (translated by Liu Er, The Commercial Press, 2004) and "Economic Ideology and Japanese Industrial Policy: Developmentism from 1931 to 1965" (Translated by An Jia, Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2008) research experience is well illustrated. The combination of the two has a similar effect.
Third, as the meaning of "academic history" and "Japanese social studies". There are many anecdotes, jokes and even insider tips in the book, which is quite readable. These authors appeared to explain the mental process of their research process, as well as the joys and sorrows and interrogations. There are serendipity, serendipity, and frustration, pain, and even danger. As a rather personal collection, the book does not shy away from the author's complaints and complaints. For example, Mary C. Brinton, who is now the director of the Reischauer Center for Japanese Studies at Harvard University, criticized Japan's "Fact-Rich, Data-Poor" as both a sociologist's "hell" and a "paradise."
Whether it is their "experience" and "know-how", or the "detours" they have taken, the experience of these scholars has taught later researchers. The descriptions of each chapter not only highly condensed and refined the original work, but also reveal many inconvenient or vague bits in the original work. These fragments of experience can be regarded as the "oral history" of the author's own academic journey, and the overlap and accumulation of different cases in turn form a kind of "academic history" or "disciplinary history" of international Japanese studies. At the same time, because many authors are deeply involved in the fabric of Japanese society, they show many unknown aspects, whether it is bureaucracy, foreign labor groups, non-governmental organizations, the media, or the more secretive Red Army, new religions, prisons, gangs, etc. For these "unconventional" research topics, it is often difficult to rely solely on existing documents such as archives and data, or pure theoretical derivation and conceptual analysis. This highlights the strengths and uniqueness of fieldwork, and also makes this book transcend the purely "methodological" meaning and take on the nature of Japanese social history research.
Studying Japan: A Handbook of Research Design, Fieldwork, and Methodology
The book "Study japan: a handbook of research design, fieldwork and methodology" is less than half a year old, and has just been edited and published by the well-known German publishing house Nomos in December 2020. Of the two editors-in-chief, Nora Kootman is a senior researcher at the German Institute for Japanese Studies (DIJ) in Tokyo, and Cornelia Riel is a professor of Japanese studies at the Free University of Berlin, Germany.
After its publication, the book was widely publicized as "the first comprehensive guide on qualitative methods, research design, and fieldwork in the study of social sciences in Japan." The German Institute for Japanese Studies has confidently called it "the first comprehensive basic guide to Japanese research methodology."
The book is 501 pages long and divided into seventeen chapters. Each chapter begins with an average of nearly ten pages of "main chapter" for in-depth thematic explanation, followed by three specific case introductions and supplementary explanations, each of which is not long, roughly three to five pages. Therefore, there are in fact sixty-eight independent articles in the whole book, and they quote each other and echo each other. Each chapter is followed by a detailed further reading and reference table. Unlike all the chapters of "Doing Fields in Japan" that are completed by a single author alone, a considerable part of the book is co-written by more than two authors, and some authors contribute more than one chapter, which also reflects the significance of "transnational academic cooperation" and "international academic community" that this book strives to highlight.
The book is extremely rich in content, and although it is grand, it does not appear messy or bloated at all. Without presumptuousness, try to translate the titles of each chapter as follows, and the core content of which can be seen at a glance:
Chapter 1: How to Get Started: Diversity in Japanese Studies (Roger Goodman)
Chapter 2: How to Ask Questions: Research Questions (Gabriele Vogt)
Chapter 3: How to Organize Research: Research Design (Kaori Okano)
Chapter 4: How to Identify Relevant Academic Debates: A Literature Review (Urs Matthias Zachmann)
Chapter 5: How to Collect Data: An Introduction to the Qualitative Social Sciences (Akiko Yoshida)
Chapter 6: How to Do Fieldwork: Studying Japan Inside and Outside Japan (Levi McLaughlin)
Chapter 7: How to Interview People: Qualitative Interviews (Nora Kottmann and Cornelia Reiher)
Chapter 8: How to Observe Others and The Environment: Participatory Observation (Christian Tagsold and Katrin Ullmann)
Chapter 9: How to Access Written and Virtual Materials: Archives, Libraries, and Databases (Theresia Berenike Peucker, Katja Schmidtpott and Cosima Wagner)
Chapter 10: How to Integrate Different Approaches: Hybrid Approach Design (Carola Hommerich and Nora Kottmann)
Chapter 11: How to Analyze Data: An Introduction to Data Analysis Methods in Qualitative Social Science Research (David Chiavacci)
Chapter 12: How to Understand the Meaning of Data: Coding and Theorizing (Caitlin Meagher)
Chapter 13: How to Systematize Text: Qualitative Content Analysis and Framework Analysis (Celeste L. Arrington)
Chapter 14: How to Understand Discourse: Qualitative Discourse Analysis (Andreas Eder-Ramsauer and Cornelia Reiher)
Chapter 15 How to End: Writing in a Stressful World (Chris McMorran)
Chapter 16: How to Conduct Reliable and Impartial Research: Good Research Practices (Cornelia Reiher and Cosima Wagner)
Chapter 17: How to Present Results: Speeches and Publications (James Farrer and Gracia Liu-Farrer)
As can be seen from the table of contents, the focus of the book is on qualitative social science methods, and the main target audience is doctoral students and young scholars of Japanese studies. In the preface, the book's project organizers admit that they have no intention of turning it into a "Bible of Japanese Studies," but hope to be a "culinary guide" for Japanese studies (p. 13). Judging from my personal reading experience, it can be said that this goal has been perfectly achieved.
In addition to the characteristics of complete structure, comprehensive topics, clear explanation, and informative information, the book has the following three outstanding characteristics.
First, an open and pluralistic academic perspective. The book consists of seventy-four authors, and it is spectacular. These include Sheldon Garon, Roger Goodman, Joy Hendry, Robert J. Pekkanen, Saadia M. Pekkanen, Nancy Rosenberger, and Richard J. Samuels) and other senior scholars, there is no shortage of up-and-coming stars, even including several doctoral and postdoctoral researchers. A significant number of these young scholars are just on track in their academic careers, having published their first book or completing their first major project, so their advice is particularly earnest and their experience is more time-effective. Due to the juxtaposition of different generations, the various research methods recommended in the book are quite diverse. For example, the same is the experience of sharing notes, young scholars recommend EndNote, Citavi, Zotero and other software and storage methods such as the cloud, while senior scholars emphasize that "good memorability is not as good as bad pens", and traditional notebooks and sticky notes are still handy.
The book's two editors-in-chief, the pre-production team, the main source of funding, and the publisher are all from Germany, so it goes without saying that the traditional "continental" Japanese research style embodied in the book goes without saying. However, judging from the origins of the author group, there are european and American scholars, as well as Japanese or Japanese scholars such as Shinichi Aizawa, Shun Imai, Emi Kinoshita, Yukie Nakano, Okano, Shimizu, Akiko Takeyama, Daisuke Watanabe, and Tomoko Yamaguchi, as well as Chinese scholars such as Gracia Liu-Farrer. The universities and research institutions where these scholars work include not only the "Western powers" of traditional Japanese studies such as the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom, but also countries and regions such as Australia, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Therefore, although the influence of the American academic community is still undeniable, this collection is by no means an "American handbook of Japanese studies", but in a considerable sense reflects the characteristics of an "international handbook of Japanese studies".
It is worth mentioning that among these authors, including the two editors-in-chief, there are more than forty female scholars, far more than half. This is not only in line with the high proportion of female scholars in international Japanese studies, but also further highlights the different perspectives and experiences of scholars of different genders in Japanese studies. Therefore, although this book is not intended to strengthen the theoretical orientation of feminism, the major contributions and special thinking of female scholars to Japanese studies can be fully felt in the book.
Second, it focuses on qualitative research and emphasizes the multi-pronged approach of mixed methods. As an important component of regional and country studies, it is undeniable that Japanese studies, even in the United States, do not necessarily emphasize quantitative research as much as other social sciences. However, in Japanese studies, it is perhaps an indisputable fact that American scholars pay more attention to quantitative research methods than scholars from other countries. Partly due to the characteristics of the first point above, the book has focused on qualitative research throughout, on the basis of which it emphasizes hybrid methods such as "trigonometric mutual verification" and the "multi-method research" (MMR) path, and briefly involves a number of quantitative research methods and techniques.
Specifically, the main line or commonality of the whole book lies in the following four points: First, what are the particularities of research on Japan and research in Japan? Second, how did transnational entanglements change Japanese studies? Third, how has technological innovation promoted Japanese studies, and what challenges have they brought? Fourth, what are the ethical implications of Japanese studies? (p. 19). In the context of these questions, the most suggested research methods in each chapter include fieldwork, qualitative interviews, observational studies, and literature studies, which also form the focus of the book (p. 132). Considering the tradition and advantages of Chinese and Japanese studies, this approach of this book may be more in line with the research style of Chinese scholars, which can provide a certain sense of freshness or difference in the epistemology and methodology of research, and will not form a dilemma of chicken and duck talk and difficult dialogue.
Third, while highlighting the "universality" of disciplinary research, we should not forget the "particularity" of Japanese studies. Whether it is the interpretation of the main text of each chapter, or the selection of further reading and reference bibliographies, this book focuses on introducing it first in the context of the social sciences and regional studies as a whole, and on this basis, taking into account the peculiarities contained in the Japanese Studies Institute.
Most of the scholars in the book are trained in Japanese studies in Europe and the United States, but at the same time they are familiar with Japanese society, and many of the authors are foreign scholars working in Japanese research institutions and universities. Therefore, unlike the introduction of regional studies as a whole or research manuals of specific disciplines, a distinctive feature of this book is that the characteristics of Japan as a research object are properly evaluated from the perspective of international Japanese studies. Many of the suggestions, reminders, and even warnings in the book are believed to make scholars with similar experience empathize and smile, and also provide useful enlightenment for a new generation of Japanese studies scholars. For example, how to deal with the relationship between serious academic writing and popular writing in the context of Japan or Japanese; how to deal with the special expectations and reactions of Japanese people to fieldwork and interviews with foreigners; how to fully value and actively create a network of interpersonal relationships in Japan; how to use Japan's unique social science survey and poll data more efficiently, etc., are all valuable.
At one point, editors worried that there might be too many scholars studying food, family, and gender among the authors of this book, making the subjects slightly "niche" and discounting the "universal meaning" of their empirical discourse. However, from the perspective of reading effect, these issues and scholars, who are usually not necessarily in the "mainstream" of Japanese studies, have precisely taken a different approach to their "niche" research and seen the big in a small way, reflecting the significance of touching the bypass and returning to the same destination, and also adding a lot of flavor to the diversity and even interest of Japanese studies. It is a little regrettable that most of the authors of this book belong to anthropology, political science, and sociology, and there are fewer scholars from history, economics, law, international relations and other disciplines, and there may be room for further improvement in the comprehensiveness and comprehensiveness of the disciplines.
Japanese academic circles in Japan, recent years of the approval of Konya Publishing, "Critical Japanese Studies - Learning the Stereotypes of "Japan" through Collaborative Learning", Edited by Kyoko Jonomoto, Kei Sakamoto, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, International Center for Japanese Studies, Tokyo: Introduction to International Japanese Studies, Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Press, 2016; Tokyo: Akashi Shoten, 2020), But limited edition width depth, Major department of Japanese studies or representative sexual insignificant "Japanese 问题" initial sequence, basic suspension "Japanese" teaching material "Japanese" fundamentals"
In contrast, the two English co-authors introduced in this article are far more than their academic value and international influence, and they are also very interesting to read. If the former is relatively deductive and sensual, focusing on "doing research in Japan", then the latter tends to be more inductive and rational, overlooking "doing Japanese research". If we have the honor of publishing the full text of the translation in China, I believe it will be of great benefit to the study of Japan in China.
Editor-in-Charge: Yu Shujuan
Proofreader: Luan Meng