Making Meaningful Lives: Tales from an Aging Japan

Extract

‘Must an anthropology of the elderly be about aging?’ (1) Iza Kavedžija starts off with a poignant question. Too often, the lives of senior citizens are associated primarily with senescence rather than personal fulfilment or joy—the good life. Media tend to depict the elderly in day care centres; reports of lonely deaths and senile senior citizens causing fatal car accidents pervade contemporary Japan. Only rarely do we hear about longevity as a positive experience—except perhaps for the occasional article about centenarians in Okinawa and the foods that have contributed to their longevity.

This book provides a thought-provoking account of the lived experiences and quest for well-being of individuals over the age of 65. The author draws on data obtained from 14 months of fieldwork in two neighbourhoods in (sub)urban Osaka. Having volunteered regularly in two community salons with visitors mostly in their 70s, 80s, and early 90s, the author provides highly readable narratives about the concerns, issues, and thoughts of her interlocutors. The diversity of the field sites—one an old merchant shitamachi (downtown) neighbourhood in the southern part of central Osaka and another a relatively new town in a suburban neighbourhood north of Osaka—viscerally illustrates Japan’s evolution from tightly knit communities to anonymised urban lifestyles.