Main description:

Based on seventeen months of ethnographic research among Indonesian eldercare workers in Japan, this book is the first ethnography to research Indonesian care workers' relationships with the cared-for elderly, their Japanese colleagues, and their employers. Through the notion of intimacy, the book brings together sociological and anthropological scholarship on the body, migration, demographic change, and eldercare in a vivid account of societal transformation. Placed against the background of mass media representations, the Indonesian workers' experiences serve as a basis for discussion of the role of bodily experience in shaping the image of a national "other" in Japan.

Contents:

List of figures List of maps Acknowledgements Note on language List of abbreviations Introduction Chapter 1. Imagining life and work in Japan Chapter 2. Working Intimacies Chapter 3. Intimate Management Chapter 4. National Predicaments Conclusion: Reluctant intimacies Endotes Glossary Bibliography Index