Eating disorders and self-harm in Japanese culture and cultural expressions

Bibliographic Data

ID12953259
AuthorsGitte Marianne Hansen (0000-0002-8680-0994, Waseda University, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume23
Issue1
Pages49-69
Publication date2011-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueContemporary Japan (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1869-2729 • E-ISSN: 1869-2737
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1515/cj.2011.004
OpenAlexW2039248342
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited7

Since the 1980s, eating disorders and self-harm among Japanese women have been on the rise. This socio-cultural study suggests that these behaviours are based in Japanese culture and have today become a female lifestyle. Motivated by cultural and historical constructions of femininity and the fear of social disintegration, this female lifestyle expresses a paradox: an attempt by women to over-perform and at the same time escape the obligation to navigate normative femininity. In parallel, eating disorders and self-harm are explicitly thematized in Japanese cultural expressions, from literature and manga to films and popular music. Using accounts from women engaged in this lifestyle, in addition to various fictional representations, this study conceptualizes a set of socio-psychological markers that exposes how eating disorders and self-harm are potentially represented in cultural expressions where such behaviours are not explicitly thematized. Miyazaki Hayao's animation Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi from 2001 serves as an example of how eating disorders, as a female lifestyle, have become a normative form of entertainment

Art · Dance · Eating disorders · Entertainment · Femininity · Harm · Literature · Normative · Obligation · Psychoanalysis · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Clinical Psychology · Japanese History and Culture · Psychology · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub