You Are Your House

The Construction and Continuity of Family and Identity Using Yago in a Japanese Suburban Farming Community

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15100975
AutoresChristopher Thompson (0000-0001-6970-5437, Ohio University, autor de correspondencia), C S Thompson
Año2004
Volumen7
Número1
Páginas61-81
Fecha de publicación2004-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Science Japan Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1369-1465 • E-ISSN: 1468-2680
EditorialOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ssjj/7.1.61
OpenAlexW2150839430
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas12

This paper examines the persistent use of yagō, or house names, in one small agricultural township in northeastern Japan. In Tōwa-chō, yagō help differentiate local households by facilitating for families a distinctive identity and a historical continuity that helps them address change. One might have expected modernization to have rendered yagō obsolete. But to the contrary, ethnographic observation in Tōwa-chō reveals that yagō serve a myriad functions that are making their use more popular than ever. By analysing the history, development and contemporary use of yagō in this suburban Iwate prefecture farm community, this paper explains how house names help local residents to contest the anomie and social fragmentation that has become a part of their post-modern lifestyle.

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