Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni
Biographic Data
| ID | 128928 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ofra |
| FAMILY NAME | Goldstein-Gidoni |
| SIGNATURE | GOLDSTEIN-GIDONI O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tel Aviv University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8483-9732 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 57 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The Covid-19 crisis as a double-edged revealer: Japanese employees’ hope for change in corporate warrior culture and the gendered impediments to such change
In Japan, the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded amidst a heated debate about the country’s ‘working style’, work–life balance (or lack thereof), and a growing recognition of the urgent need for comprehensive change in the prevailing work culture. This article proposes that the crisis acted as a double-edged ‘revealer’. As such, it simultaneously raised employees' hopes that the crisis would trigger change in the masculine corporate warrior culture, whil…
We Are NotIkumen, We Are Self-Reliant Househusbands: Crafting a Stay-at-Home Father Identity in Japan
The participation of fathers in parenting and care has become a topical issue in public discourse in Japan. The phenomenon is often epitomized in the popular neologism ikumen, defining fathers actively involved in childcare (ikuji) as "cool" men. On the basis of an extended ethnography, the article focuses on a group of men who reject the ostensibly carefree ikumen image and who explicitly and "proactively" (shutaiteki) define themselves as "hous…
The translation of self-spirituality into organizations
This study provides an analysis of rich field-based data regarding the translation of self-spirituality into Israeli public schools. The study also draws from research conducted in other Western for-profit and health organizations. While the analysis supports existing assertions from research regarding the increasing market orientation of the culture of self-spirituality, it also identifies the specific methods used by brokers to translate self-s…
Working fathers' in Japan: Leading a change in gender relations
Does the emergent phenomenon of ‘working fathers' herald a process of change in gender relations in Japan? Against the background of the current discourse in Japan about new modes of fathers' participation in the family, the article focuses on the small group of working fathers — men who explicitly organize their working lives around family responsibilities — to examine the potentiality of change. This supposed change in the roles of men (and wom…
The Japanese Corporate Family: The Marital Gender Contract Facing New Challenges
The analytical prism of gender contract is used in this article as a means to conceptualize the cultural construction of the idea of the heteronormative 'ordinary' Japanese family, a construct that gained hegemonic dominance over the course of Japan's stable prosperous postwar period (1960s-1980s); and from there, for examining the strength of this normative 'contract' against post-bubble economic and social challenges. To further challenge the p…
Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan: A Transdisciplinary Perspective
This multidisciplinary book analyses the contradictory coexistence of consumerism and environmentalism in contemporary Japan. It focuses on the dilemma that the diffusion of the concepts of sustainability and recycling has posed for everyday consumption practices, and on how these concepts have affected, and were affected by, the production and consumption of art. Special attention is paid to the changes in consumption practices and environmental…
The Joy of Normal Living” as the Promise of Happiness for Japanese Women and their Families
“The Joy of Normal Living” is at once the motto and the ideology of Kurihara Harumi, Japan’s best-known charisma housewife and icon of domesticity. This article looks at the relationship between “normal living” and the promise of happiness, as formulated in postwar Japan. Beginning with the government’s promotion, in the early postwar period, of the idea of akarui seikatsu (bright new life) as related to the typical suburban middle-class family o…
Housewives of Japan: An Ethnography of Real Lives and Consumerized Domesticity
Drawing on a unique ethnographic inquiry, Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni explores the complexities of the relationship between socially and culturally constructed roles bestowed on Japanese women by a variety
From Temples to Organizations: The Introduction and Packaging of Spirituality
This article is based on a research of Israeli spiritual consultants and their interaction with local organizations. The incorporation of ideas of spirituality into the world of efficient management and organizations seem on the outset to be `unnatural'. We show that while this inherent contradiction does not disappear, spiritual consultants employ various ways to overcome the anticipated resistance and to make an impact. These ways include not o…
I'm Married to Your Company! Everyday Voices of Japanese Women
I'm Married to Your Company! Everyday Voices of Japanese Women is not an ordinary translated book. Nobuku Adachi and James Stanlaw, both anthropologists, have not only translated the book from Japanese into English, they also edited and annotated the original Japanese book. Or, in other words, they seem to have been aiming at a translation in its more general implication—a cultural translation. The book written by Itoh Masako was originally publi…
The Production and Consumption of ‘Japanese Culture’ in the Global Cultural Market
This article presents an unusual angle for the study of consumer culture in a case study of an explicit process of the production and consumption of ‘culture’, or more specifically, of a product, which carries the label: ‘Japanese culture’, and which crosses national borders. The general context is that of cross-cultural consumption and cultural globalization. Globalization cannot be easily described anymore as having ‘a distinctly American face’…
Producers of 'Japan' in Israel: Cultural appropriation in a non-colonial context
This paper is concerned with the appropriation and re-production of Japanese culture by Israelis in Israel. The paper argues that both studies that locate processes of cultural appropriation in the context of a clear colonial or post-colonial relationship and studies that emphasize the free 'global cultural supermarket' cannot fully explicate the processes of cultural appropriation. Since the 1980s there has been a growing popular interest in Jap…
Shall We Dansu: Dancing with the 'West' in contemporary Japan
In this article we offer a reading of the film 'Shall We Dansu ?' as a cultural text which sheds light on the intriguing theme of the various ways in which things Western and the 'West' as a cultural concept are played with in contemporary Japan. Social dancing has been regarded, from the time of its introduction to Japan in the 1930s, as a Western social skill. While ballroom dancing often has the qualities of 'alternative realities',we argue th…
Hybridity and distinctions in Japanese contemporary commercial weddings
By looking at modern Japanese wedding patterns and at recent changes in the wedding ceremony, this paper seeks a better understanding of the processes in which the foreign and the local interact in this so-called era of globalization. My alternative approach emphasizes distinctions. The commercial Japanese wedding, which is a combination of Japanese and Western styles, has the appearance of a chaotic cultural pastiche. However, in an interpretive…
The Making and Marking of The 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in Japanese Contemporary Material Culture
This article uses the analysis of sets of contemporary Japanese cultural materials in order to explore the dynamics of the significant process of making and marking of the 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in contemporary Japanese culture. Through the observation of material culture - mainly food and clothing - in its public presentational arenas, it aims at reaching a better understanding of the processes in which the foreign and the local interact i…
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Examines what is called the Ceremonial Occasions industry in Japan, in particular the commercialized production of contemporary weddings there. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in a wedding parlour
The Production of Tradition and Culture in the Japanese Wedding Enterprise
In this article I examine the production of culture in the contemporary commercial Japanese wedding. This is analyzed in relation to the theoretical discourse of 'the invention of tradition'. However, while this 'invention' is usually related to political motivations, I discuss the invention of tradition and of culture for economic motivations. I offer a broader perspective of tradition and culture and show how flexible these two may be as they a…
Kimono and the Construction of Gendered and Cultural Identities
This article argues that the distinction between Japanese and Western attire is a part of the process of the construction of gendered and cultural identities in modern Japan. Kimono in modern Japan has been invented as national attire and as a marked feminine costume. Women have become models of Japanese femininity, as contrasted with men, who have been given the role of models for rational action and achievement. The article follows this dynamic…
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Kimono and the Construction of Gendered and Cultural Identities
This article argues that the distinction between Japanese and Western attire is a part of the process of the construction of gendered and cultural identities in modern Japan. Kimono in modern Japan has been invented as national attire and as a marked feminine costume. Women have become models of Japanese femininity, as contrasted with men, who have been given the role of models for rational action and achievement. The article follows this dynamic…
Working fathers' in Japan: Leading a change in gender relations
Does the emergent phenomenon of ‘working fathers' herald a process of change in gender relations in Japan? Against the background of the current discourse in Japan about new modes of fathers' participation in the family, the article focuses on the small group of working fathers — men who explicitly organize their working lives around family responsibilities — to examine the potentiality of change. This supposed change in the roles of men (and wom…
The Production and Consumption of ‘Japanese Culture’ in the Global Cultural Market
This article presents an unusual angle for the study of consumer culture in a case study of an explicit process of the production and consumption of ‘culture’, or more specifically, of a product, which carries the label: ‘Japanese culture’, and which crosses national borders. The general context is that of cross-cultural consumption and cultural globalization. Globalization cannot be easily described anymore as having ‘a distinctly American face’…
The Japanese Corporate Family: The Marital Gender Contract Facing New Challenges
The analytical prism of gender contract is used in this article as a means to conceptualize the cultural construction of the idea of the heteronormative 'ordinary' Japanese family, a construct that gained hegemonic dominance over the course of Japan's stable prosperous postwar period (1960s-1980s); and from there, for examining the strength of this normative 'contract' against post-bubble economic and social challenges. To further challenge the p…
The Joy of Normal Living” as the Promise of Happiness for Japanese Women and their Families
“The Joy of Normal Living” is at once the motto and the ideology of Kurihara Harumi, Japan’s best-known charisma housewife and icon of domesticity. This article looks at the relationship between “normal living” and the promise of happiness, as formulated in postwar Japan. Beginning with the government’s promotion, in the early postwar period, of the idea of akarui seikatsu (bright new life) as related to the typical suburban middle-class family o…
Producers of 'Japan' in Israel: Cultural appropriation in a non-colonial context
This paper is concerned with the appropriation and re-production of Japanese culture by Israelis in Israel. The paper argues that both studies that locate processes of cultural appropriation in the context of a clear colonial or post-colonial relationship and studies that emphasize the free 'global cultural supermarket' cannot fully explicate the processes of cultural appropriation. Since the 1980s there has been a growing popular interest in Jap…
The Production of Tradition and Culture in the Japanese Wedding Enterprise
In this article I examine the production of culture in the contemporary commercial Japanese wedding. This is analyzed in relation to the theoretical discourse of 'the invention of tradition'. However, while this 'invention' is usually related to political motivations, I discuss the invention of tradition and of culture for economic motivations. I offer a broader perspective of tradition and culture and show how flexible these two may be as they a…
We Are NotIkumen, We Are Self-Reliant Househusbands: Crafting a Stay-at-Home Father Identity in Japan
The participation of fathers in parenting and care has become a topical issue in public discourse in Japan. The phenomenon is often epitomized in the popular neologism ikumen, defining fathers actively involved in childcare (ikuji) as "cool" men. On the basis of an extended ethnography, the article focuses on a group of men who reject the ostensibly carefree ikumen image and who explicitly and "proactively" (shutaiteki) define themselves as "hous…
Shall We Dansu: Dancing with the 'West' in contemporary Japan
In this article we offer a reading of the film 'Shall We Dansu ?' as a cultural text which sheds light on the intriguing theme of the various ways in which things Western and the 'West' as a cultural concept are played with in contemporary Japan. Social dancing has been regarded, from the time of its introduction to Japan in the 1930s, as a Western social skill. While ballroom dancing often has the qualities of 'alternative realities',we argue th…
The Making and Marking of The 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in Japanese Contemporary Material Culture
This article uses the analysis of sets of contemporary Japanese cultural materials in order to explore the dynamics of the significant process of making and marking of the 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in contemporary Japanese culture. Through the observation of material culture - mainly food and clothing - in its public presentational arenas, it aims at reaching a better understanding of the processes in which the foreign and the local interact i…
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Kimono and the Construction of Gendered and Cultural Identities
This article argues that the distinction between Japanese and Western attire is a part of the process of the construction of gendered and cultural identities in modern Japan. Kimono in modern Japan has been invented as national attire and as a marked feminine costume. Women have become models of Japanese femininity, as contrasted with men, who have been given the role of models for rational action and achievement. The article follows this dynamic…
Packaged Japaneseness: Weddings, Business and Brides
Examines what is called the Ceremonial Occasions industry in Japan, in particular the commercialized production of contemporary weddings there. Based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in a wedding parlour
The Production of Tradition and Culture in the Japanese Wedding Enterprise
In this article I examine the production of culture in the contemporary commercial Japanese wedding. This is analyzed in relation to the theoretical discourse of 'the invention of tradition'. However, while this 'invention' is usually related to political motivations, I discuss the invention of tradition and of culture for economic motivations. I offer a broader perspective of tradition and culture and show how flexible these two may be as they a…
Hybridity and distinctions in Japanese contemporary commercial weddings
By looking at modern Japanese wedding patterns and at recent changes in the wedding ceremony, this paper seeks a better understanding of the processes in which the foreign and the local interact in this so-called era of globalization. My alternative approach emphasizes distinctions. The commercial Japanese wedding, which is a combination of Japanese and Western styles, has the appearance of a chaotic cultural pastiche. However, in an interpretive…
The Making and Marking of The 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in Japanese Contemporary Material Culture
This article uses the analysis of sets of contemporary Japanese cultural materials in order to explore the dynamics of the significant process of making and marking of the 'Japanese' and the 'Western' in contemporary Japanese culture. Through the observation of material culture - mainly food and clothing - in its public presentational arenas, it aims at reaching a better understanding of the processes in which the foreign and the local interact i…
Shall We Dansu: Dancing with the 'West' in contemporary Japan
In this article we offer a reading of the film 'Shall We Dansu ?' as a cultural text which sheds light on the intriguing theme of the various ways in which things Western and the 'West' as a cultural concept are played with in contemporary Japan. Social dancing has been regarded, from the time of its introduction to Japan in the 1930s, as a Western social skill. While ballroom dancing often has the qualities of 'alternative realities',we argue th…
Producers of 'Japan' in Israel: Cultural appropriation in a non-colonial context
This paper is concerned with the appropriation and re-production of Japanese culture by Israelis in Israel. The paper argues that both studies that locate processes of cultural appropriation in the context of a clear colonial or post-colonial relationship and studies that emphasize the free 'global cultural supermarket' cannot fully explicate the processes of cultural appropriation. Since the 1980s there has been a growing popular interest in Jap…
The Production and Consumption of ‘Japanese Culture’ in the Global Cultural Market
This article presents an unusual angle for the study of consumer culture in a case study of an explicit process of the production and consumption of ‘culture’, or more specifically, of a product, which carries the label: ‘Japanese culture’, and which crosses national borders. The general context is that of cross-cultural consumption and cultural globalization. Globalization cannot be easily described anymore as having ‘a distinctly American face’…
From Temples to Organizations: The Introduction and Packaging of Spirituality
This article is based on a research of Israeli spiritual consultants and their interaction with local organizations. The incorporation of ideas of spirituality into the world of efficient management and organizations seem on the outset to be `unnatural'. We show that while this inherent contradiction does not disappear, spiritual consultants employ various ways to overcome the anticipated resistance and to make an impact. These ways include not o…
I'm Married to Your Company! Everyday Voices of Japanese Women
I'm Married to Your Company! Everyday Voices of Japanese Women is not an ordinary translated book. Nobuku Adachi and James Stanlaw, both anthropologists, have not only translated the book from Japanese into English, they also edited and annotated the original Japanese book. Or, in other words, they seem to have been aiming at a translation in its more general implication—a cultural translation. The book written by Itoh Masako was originally publi…
Housewives of Japan: An Ethnography of Real Lives and Consumerized Domesticity
Drawing on a unique ethnographic inquiry, Ofra Goldstein-Gidoni explores the complexities of the relationship between socially and culturally constructed roles bestowed on Japanese women by a variety
The Joy of Normal Living” as the Promise of Happiness for Japanese Women and their Families
“The Joy of Normal Living” is at once the motto and the ideology of Kurihara Harumi, Japan’s best-known charisma housewife and icon of domesticity. This article looks at the relationship between “normal living” and the promise of happiness, as formulated in postwar Japan. Beginning with the government’s promotion, in the early postwar period, of the idea of akarui seikatsu (bright new life) as related to the typical suburban middle-class family o…
Consuming Life in Post-Bubble Japan: A Transdisciplinary Perspective
This multidisciplinary book analyses the contradictory coexistence of consumerism and environmentalism in contemporary Japan. It focuses on the dilemma that the diffusion of the concepts of sustainability and recycling has posed for everyday consumption practices, and on how these concepts have affected, and were affected by, the production and consumption of art. Special attention is paid to the changes in consumption practices and environmental…
Working fathers' in Japan: Leading a change in gender relations
Does the emergent phenomenon of ‘working fathers' herald a process of change in gender relations in Japan? Against the background of the current discourse in Japan about new modes of fathers' participation in the family, the article focuses on the small group of working fathers — men who explicitly organize their working lives around family responsibilities — to examine the potentiality of change. This supposed change in the roles of men (and wom…
The Japanese Corporate Family: The Marital Gender Contract Facing New Challenges
The analytical prism of gender contract is used in this article as a means to conceptualize the cultural construction of the idea of the heteronormative 'ordinary' Japanese family, a construct that gained hegemonic dominance over the course of Japan's stable prosperous postwar period (1960s-1980s); and from there, for examining the strength of this normative 'contract' against post-bubble economic and social challenges. To further challenge the p…
The translation of self-spirituality into organizations
This study provides an analysis of rich field-based data regarding the translation of self-spirituality into Israeli public schools. The study also draws from research conducted in other Western for-profit and health organizations. While the analysis supports existing assertions from research regarding the increasing market orientation of the culture of self-spirituality, it also identifies the specific methods used by brokers to translate self-s…
We Are NotIkumen, We Are Self-Reliant Househusbands: Crafting a Stay-at-Home Father Identity in Japan
The participation of fathers in parenting and care has become a topical issue in public discourse in Japan. The phenomenon is often epitomized in the popular neologism ikumen, defining fathers actively involved in childcare (ikuji) as "cool" men. On the basis of an extended ethnography, the article focuses on a group of men who reject the ostensibly carefree ikumen image and who explicitly and "proactively" (shutaiteki) define themselves as "hous…
The Covid-19 crisis as a double-edged revealer: Japanese employees’ hope for change in corporate warrior culture and the gendered impediments to such change
In Japan, the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded amidst a heated debate about the country’s ‘working style’, work–life balance (or lack thereof), and a growing recognition of the urgent need for comprehensive change in the prevailing work culture. This article proposes that the crisis acted as a double-edged ‘revealer’. As such, it simultaneously raised employees' hopes that the crisis would trigger change in the masculine corporate warrior culture, whil…
Sociology (15 works) · Japanese History and Culture (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · Law (9 works) · Gender Studies (8 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Art (6 works) · Asian Culture and Media Studies (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works)