In the Eyes of Others: Suicide and Meaning in Contemporary Japan

FAIN: FO-50182-12

Chikako Ozawa-de Silva
Emory University (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)

Discourse in Japan on suicide prevention has focused almost exclusively on the state of the Japanese economy and mental illness. Increasing evidence suggests that a lack of positive mental health may be more important than the presence of mental illness in predicting future suicide attempts, and also that treatment of mental illness alone may not address the lack of psychological and social well-being implicated in suicidality. This book project intends to mend the current gap in our understanding of suicide and its prevention by making several contributions: it will provide accounts of subjective experience currently lacking in the study of suicide in Japan; it will provide a culturally-situated account of positive mental health in Japan by employing ethnographic methods alongside survey data; and it will critically assess the potential of traditional Japanese practices to bolster positive mental health and thereby play a role in suicide prevention.

Associated Products

The Anatomy of Loneliness: Suicide, Social Connection, and the Search for Relational Meaning in Contemporary Japan (Book)
Title: The Anatomy of Loneliness: Suicide, Social Connection, and the Search for Relational Meaning in Contemporary Japan
Author: CHIKAKO OZAWA-DE SILVA
Abstract: Loneliness is everybody’s business. Neither a pathology nor a rare affliction, it is part of the human condition. Severe and chronic loneliness, however, is a threat to individual and public health and appears to be on the rise. In this illuminating book, anthropologist Chikako Ozawa-de Silva examines loneliness in Japan, focusing on rising rates of suicide, the commodification of intimacy, and problems impacting youth. Moving from interviews with college students, to stories of isolation following the 2011 natural and nuclear disasters, to online discussions in suicide website chat rooms, Ozawa-de Silva points to how society itself can exacerbate experiences of loneliness. A critical work for our world, The Anatomy of Loneliness considers how to turn the tide of the “lonely society” and calls for a deeper understanding of empathy and subjective experience on both individual and systemic levels.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: http://https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520383494/the-anatomy-of-loneliness
Primary URL Description: Loneliness is everybody’s business. Neither a pathology nor a rare affliction, it is part of the human condition. Severe and chronic loneliness, however, is a threat to individual and public health and appears to be on the rise. In this illuminating book, anthropologist Chikako Ozawa-de Silva examines loneliness in Japan, focusing on rising rates of suicide, the commodification of intimacy, and problems impacting youth. Moving from interviews with college students, to stories of isolation following the 2011 natural and nuclear disasters, to online discussions in suicide website chat rooms, Ozawa-de Silva points to how society itself can exacerbate experiences of loneliness. A critical work for our world, The Anatomy of Loneliness considers how to turn the tide of the “lonely society” and calls for a deeper understanding of empathy and subjective experience on both individual and systemic levels.
Secondary URL: http://https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Loneliness-Contemporary-Ethnographic-Subjectivity-dp-0520383494/dp/0520383494/ref=mt_other?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=
Secondary URL Description: Loneliness is everybody’s business. Neither a pathology nor a rare affliction, it is part of the human condition. Severe and chronic loneliness, however, is a threat to individual and public health and appears to be on the rise. In this illuminating book, anthropologist Chikako Ozawa-de Silva examines loneliness in Japan, focusing on rising rates of suicide, the commodification of intimacy, and problems impacting youth. Moving from interviews with college students, to stories of isolation following the 2011 natural and nuclear disasters, to online discussions in suicide website chat rooms, Ozawa-de Silva points to how society itself can exacerbate experiences of loneliness. A critical work for our world, The Anatomy of Loneliness considers how to turn the tide of the “lonely society” and calls for a deeper understanding of empathy and subjective experience on both individual and systemic levels.
Publisher: University of California Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 0520383494
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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