An Anthropological Study on the Flexible Interface of Family with Society: The (De)Institutionalization of Parenting Service and Nursing Care

Keywords

the social, network, care

Objectives

In this project we think of care for parenting and nursing as exchanged services that border on both family and society, and compare and research the conditions for (de)institutionalizing these services. Our aim is to elucidate how human society has composed and will re-compose the interface of family and society.
Some services for parenting children or nursing the aged and sick can be provided by anyone offering support, even if they are from outside the family. Moreover, societies have developed some systems for providing services; Services provided by any authority are termed “welfare”. However, the system of welfare as we know it is now coming under review. While there seem to be deinstitutionalizing welfare in some welfare states, some regions with premature government policies are developing original systems to exploit networks. Referencing the viewpoint of Jacques Donzelot, the author of “The Policing of Families”, the project will consider each case where parenting and nursing care has been (de)institutionalized in each context. This project is planed reflecting the growing concern for a new way of thinking about a contemporary society.

Research Results

The concept of society itself has grown ambiguous in modern times. How, then, can anthropology continue to portray the human activities that make up the fabric of society? This study began by framing concern for that issue as a question that asks how people build societies that allow them to live with others, and focused its attention on the subject of care. The reason for that focus was that care has to do with the survival of others while the organization of frameworks for care involves interactions and negotiations between a variety of actors and is accompanied by the institutionalization and de-institutionalization of those frameworks. Families interact with society through the modalities of care, while the interface between families and society can be viewed as a dynamic engaged in perpetual change.
　
For our research presentation, we explored problems attributable to a variety of globally pervasive phenomena, including the hyper-aging society, earthquake disasters, and the flow of refugees and migrants. These problems were the focus of local field surveys conducted in Japan, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and Europe. Through discussions and debate, we showed that care has a dimension that fosters interaction between nations, families, markets, and other discrete sectors and supports social infrastructure. We prepared descriptions of this dimension together with trends involving fluctuations in national structures, institutional gaps, and the transformation and reorganization of the family unit and presented them as part of a modern ethnographic study.
　
A selection of the findings from our study were arranged on the theme, “Societies organized through the provision of care: places for the survival of people who have been displaced, ” (Mori, coordinator) and presented at a five-member breakout session of the 51st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Cultural Anthropology, held in May 2017 (at Kobe University).
　
Additionally, a majority of the members involved in this joint study participated in two international colloquia for intensive discussions with researchers from Australia, Thailand, the U.K., and the U.S.: (1) Thinking about care as social organization: A discussion with T. Thelen and K. Buadaeng (National Museum of Ethnology, February 2017), and (2) Thinking about an anthropology of care: A discussion with F. Aulino and J. Danely (National Museum of Ethnology, December 2017). (These international research symposia were organized by Research Coordinator Akiko Mori in connection with “An anthropological study of the organization of care networks in the post welfare-state age ,” a project funded with a grant (B) for scientific research from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.)