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RICE UNIVERSITY STUDIES
produced mainly community studies and research on other traditional
anthropological topics; that is, Japanese society was treated in the manner
of a tribal or peasant society. The limitations of this type of research have
already been discussed. The profession itself has not provided sufficient
incentive to induce a significant number of high-caliber students to specialize
in the study of national entities.
Still another factor possibly inhibiting the development of the anthro-
pological study of Japan is the modest contribution of the existing studies
to theory in anthropology and the social sciences. Probably only two books
by behavior scientists dealing with Japan have become part of the modern
corpus of general social-science theory: Benedict’s Chrysanthemum and the
Sword, and Bellah’s Tokugawa Religion. The first was produced by an
anthropologist; the second by a sociologist. This is not to deny the contribu-
tions at lower levels of theory made by the studies of family and kinship by
Befu and others. However, the modesty of the overall theoretical contribu-
tion is all the more striking considering the enormous significance of Japan
for problems of change and development. Here again, anthropologists have
left most of the large-scale work to other scholars.
One result of these inhibiting influences has been the production of many
strictly part-time Western Japanologists. After one or two studies, the
anthropologist becomes immersed in professional duties or shifts his interest
to other topics more easily or cheaply done. Only a few scholars—for
example, William Caudill (1959; 1961), who has persistently studied the
Japanese mental hospital — have stuck to Japan (although Caudill may or
may not be a professional anthropologist!). Thus research is sporadic.
Collections of writings, such as Silberman’s on culture and personality
(1962) and DeVos and Wagatsuma on the burakumin (1966), give an
impression of greater continuity than actually exists.
What of the Japanese anthropologist? The major thrust of anthropo-
logical research in Japan has been toward historical, ethnographic, and
biological aspects, and only recently has social anthropology become a
major focus. Japanese sociocultural anthropologists, like their Western
counterparts, show more interest in foreign cultures than in their own. This
is of course a good thing, since in general one does a better job with foreign
cultures than with his own. However, it does suggest that Japan as an
anthropological topic may be in danger of neglect. Collective research
effort, in which Japanese and Western colleagues work together on common
problems, has had a modest beginning, and we may hope it will continue.
A fairly consistent theme in these remarks has been the lack of a theory of
Japanese society. The lineaments of such a theory are available, but the
tendency of both Western and Japanese social scientists to take off from
Western theoretical perspectives makes this theory ambiguous and less than
explicit. Certain Japanese sociologists recognize the difficulties, and have