Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T07:55:51.416Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Instrumental Culturalism: The Work of Comparisons across Japan, ‘the West’ and Myanmar†

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 November 2017

Chika Watanabe
Chika Watanabe*
Affiliation:
School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom; [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As ‘emerging donors' push alternative paradigms of development cooperation ‘beyond aid' onto the global agenda, some scholars discuss those from Asia as presenting culturally specific approaches. These observations echo the claims that aid practitioners and policy makers themselves make about, for example, Japanese forms of development. In this article, I caution against scholars repeating these culturally essentialising arguments that promote certain political interests. Instead, I propose that we ‘take seriously' these aid actors’ instrumental culturalist views as ethnographic artefacts—that is, as logics and practices that our interlocutors use. By taking what I call instrumental culturalism as the object of study, rather than the analytical frame, this article shows that the work of comparisons plays a central role in producing culturalist worldviews. In short, culturalism is performative, creating that which it names. If we are to understand the “beyond aid” agenda, we need to attend to the ways that the production of culturalisms through the work of comparisons informs development actors’ understandings of social organisation and global interaction.

Keywords

DevelopmentNGOCulturalismJapanMyanmar
Type
Articles
Information
TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 27 - 45
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Institute for East Asian Studies, Sogang University 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Abstract and keywords have been added since original publication. An erratum notice detailing this change was also published (doi: 10.1017/trn.2017.21).

References

Arase, David. 1994. “Public-Private Sector Interest Coordination in Japan's ODA.” Pacific Affairs 67(2): 171–199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arase, David. 1995. Buying Power: The Political Economy of Japan's Foreign Aid. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
The Asia Foundation and Korea Development Institute. 2010. Emerging Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation. Report submitted to the 4th High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, held in Busan, Korea on November 29-December 1, 2011. http://asiafoundation.org/publication/emerging-asian-approaches-to-development-cooperation-book/ (accessed 13 May 2016).Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Befu, Harumi. 1997. “Watsuji Tetsuro's Ecological Approach: Its Philosophical Foundation.” In Japanese Images of Nature: Cultural Perspectives, edited by Pamela J. Asquith and Arne Kalland, 106–120. Surrey: Curzon.Google Scholar
Binder, Andrea, and Claudia, Meier. 2011. “Opportunity knocks: why non-Western donors enter humanitarianism and how to make the best of it.” International Review of the Red Cross 93(884): 1135–1149.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bräutigam, Deborah. 2009. The Dragon's Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bräutigam, Deborah. 2011. “Aid ‘with Chinese Characteristics’: Chinese Foreign Aid and Development Finance Meet the OECD-DAC Aid Regime.” Journal of International Development 23: 752–764.Google Scholar
Breidenbach, Joana, and Pál, Nyiri. 2009. Seeing Culture Everywhere: from Genocide to Consumer Habits. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Dale, Peter. 1986. The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
DeHart, Monica. 2012. “Remodelling the Global Development Landscape: the China Model and South-South Cooperation in Latin America.” Third World Quarterly 33(7): 1359–1375.Google Scholar
Evans, Gillian. 2012. “‘The aboriginal people of England’: The culture of class politics in contemporary Britain.” Focaal 62: 17–29.Google Scholar
Fan, Fa-Ti. 2017. “The People's War against Earthquakes: Cultures of Mass Science in Mao's China.” In Cultures Without Culturalism: The Making of Scientific Knowledge, edited by Karine Chemla and Evelyn Fox Heller, 296–326. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fassin, Didier, and Rechtman, Richard. 2005. “An Anthropological Hybrid: The Pragmatic Arrangement of Universalism and Culturalism in French Mental Health.” Transcultural Psychiatry 42: 347–366.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grill, Jan. 2012. “‘It's building up to something and it won't be nice when it erupts’: The making of Roma/Gypsy migrants in post-industrial Scotland.” Focaal 62: 42–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grillo, R.D. 2003. “Cultural Essentialism and Cultural Anxiety.” Anthropological Theory 3(2): 157–173.Google Scholar
Hage, Ghassan. 2000. White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar
Ito, Kenji. 2017. “Cultural Difference and Sameness: Historiographic Reflections on Histories of Physics in Modern Japan.” In Cultures Without Culturalism: The Making of Scientific Knowledge, edited by Karine Chemla and Evelyn Fox Heller, 49–68. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Iwabuchi, Koichi. 2002. Recentering Globalization: Popular culture and Japanese transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Janus, Heiner, Stephan, Klingebiel, and Sebastian, Paulo. 2014. “Beyond aid: A conceptual perspective of the transformation of development cooperation.” Journal of International Development 27(2): 155–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). N.d. Technical Cooperation Projects. http://www.jica.go.jp/activities/schemes/tr_japan/summary.html (accessed 13 May 2016).Google Scholar
Kato, Hitoshi, Page, John, and Shimomura, Yasutami, eds. 2016. Japan's Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kelly, William W. 1991. “Directions in the Anthropology of Contemporary Japan.” Annual Review of Anthropology 20: 395–431.Google Scholar
Kharas, Homi, Koji, Makino, and Woojin, Jung. 2011. Catalyzing Development: A New Vision for Aid. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Kim, Soyeun. 2011. “Bridging Troubled Worlds? An Analysis of the Ethical Case for South Korean Aid.” Journal of International Development 23: 802–822.Google Scholar
Kim, Soyeun, and Kang, Hanee. 2015. “Young and Dynamic?—the Curious Case of Korea's National Level Post-2015 Process.” Journal of International Development 27: 776–800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kondo, Dorinne. 1990. Crafting Selves: Power, Gender and Discourses of Identity in a Japanese Workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kondoh, Hisahiro. 2013. “Korea's Pathway from Recipient to Donor: How Does Japan Matter?” In The Rise of Asian Donors: Japan's Impact on the Evolution of Emerging Donors, edited by Satō, Jin and Shimomura, Yasutami, 133–154. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kuper, Adam. 2003. “The Return of the Native.” Current Anthropology 44(3): 389–402.Google Scholar
Li, Tania Murray. 2011. “Rendering Society Technical: Government through Community and the Ethnographic Turn at the World Bank in Indonesia.” In Adventures in Aidland: The Anthropology of Professionals in International Development, edited by Mosse, David, 57–80. Oxford: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Mawdsley, Emma. 2011. “The Changing Geographies of Foreign Aid and Development Cooperation: Contributions from Gift Theory.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 37(2): 256–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mawdsley, Emma. 2015. “Development geography 1: Cooperation, competition and convergence between ‘North’ and ‘South’.” Progress in Human Geography 41(1): 108–117.Google Scholar
Mazzarella, William. 2003. Shoveling Smoke: Advertising and Globalization in Contemporary India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Moeran, Brian. 1996. “The Orient Strikes Back: Advertising and Imagining Japan.” Theory, Culture & Society 13(3): 77–112.Google Scholar
Mosse, David. 2005. Cultivating Development: An Ethnography of Aid Policy and Practice. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Mulakala, Anthea, and Eleana, Ankel. 2015. Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation: Emerging Powers are Changing the Norms. Asia Foundation. http://asiafoundation.org/2015/06/03/asian-approaches-to-development-cooperation-emerging-powers-are-changing-the-norms/ (accessed 19 June 2017).Google Scholar
Nemoto, Kei. 1995. “The Japanese Perspective on Burma.” Burma Debate. August/September. http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/reg.burma/archives/199511/msg00076.html (accessed 13 May 2016).Google Scholar
Nielsen, Bjarke. 2011. “UNESCO and the ‘right’ kind of culture: Bureaucratic production and articulation.” Critique of Anthropology 31(4): 273–292.Google Scholar
Nishikawa, Yukiko. 2005. Japan's Changing Role in Humanitarian Crises. London and New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ong, Aihwa. 1999. Flexible Citizenship: The Cultural Logics of Transnationality. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Organization for Industrial, Spiritual and Cultural Advancement (OISCA). 1986. “Kanmin no yūkiteki na renkan wo mezashite, keizai kyoryoku no kōritsuka to NGO (hiseifukikan) no yakuwari [The Role of NGOs and Making Economic Cooperation Efficient, Aiming for Organic Connections between the Government and Private Sector].” OISCA Magazine (January): 8–21.Google Scholar
Riles, Annelise. 2006. “Anthropology, Human Rights and Legal Knowledge: Culture in the Iron Cage.” American Anthropologist 108(1): 52–65.Google Scholar
Rohlen, Thomas P. 1974. For Harmony and Strength: Japanese White-Collar Organization in Anthropological Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Said, Edward. 2001. “The Clash of Ignorance: Labels like ‘Islam’ and ‘the West’ serve only to confuse us about a disorderly reality.” The Nation. October 4. https://www.thenation.com/article/clash-ignorance/ (accessed 16 January 2017).Google Scholar
Satō, Jin, and Yasutami, Shimomura. 2013. The Rise of Asian Donors: Japan's Impact on the Evolution of Emerging Donors. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shimomura, Yasutami, and Wang, Ping. 2013. “The Evolution of ‘Aid, Investment, Trade Synthesis’ in China and Japan.” In The Rise of Asian Donors: Japan's Impact on the Evolution of Emerging Donors, edited by Satō, Jin and Shimomura, Yasutami, 114–132. Oxon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singleton, John, ed. 1998. Learning in Likely Places: Varieties of Apprenticeship in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Six, Clemens. 2009. “The rise of postcolonial states as donors: a challenge to the development paradigm?” Third World Quarterly 30(6): 1103–1121.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Subaltern Studies: Deconstructing Historiography.” In Selected Subaltern Studies, edited by Guha, Ranajit and Chakravorty Spivak, Gayatri, 3–32. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stallings, Barbara, and Kim, Eun Mee. 2016. “Japan, Korea, and China: Styles of ODA in East Asia.” In Japan's Development Assistance: Foreign Aid and the Post-2015 Agenda, edited by Kato, Hitoshi, Page, John, and Shimomura, Yasutami, 120–134. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stallings, Barbara, and Kim, Eun Mee. 2017. “Asian versus Western Modes of Foreign Aid.” In Promoting Development, Development Cooperation and Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific, edited by Stallings, Barbara and Kim, Eun Mee, 1–26. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Stolcke, Verena. 1995. “Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe.” Current Anthropology 36(1): 1–24.Google Scholar
Sugimoto, Yoshio. 2015. An Introduction to Japanese Society, 4th edition. Port Melbourne, Vic.: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 2007. A Secular Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Christena. 1991. “The Spirit of Productivity: Workplace Discourse on Culture and Economics in Japan.” Boundary 2 18(3): 90–105.Google Scholar
UNESCO. 2015. Post-2015 Dialogues on Culture and Development. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002322/232266E.pdf (accessed 13 May 2016).Google Scholar
Watanabe, Chika. 2015. “The Politics of Nonreligious Aid: A Japanese Environmental Ethic in Myanmar.” In Religion and the Politics of Development, edited by Bush, Robin, Feener, Michael, and Fountain, Philip, 225–242. London: Palgrave MacMillan.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Chika. Forthcoming. Becoming One: Nonreligion and the Moral Imaginations of a Japanese NGO in Myanmar. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Tadashi. 1976. NGO Dai 13 kai sōkai kokusai kaihatsu kōdō rengō kyōgikai ni sankashite: Europe no kao [The 13th General Meeting of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the UN in Geneva: the Face of Europe]. OISCA Magazine (May): 21–36.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Tadashi. 1979. UNCTAD Manila sōkai no kyōkun: tsuyomaru NGO (hiseifukikan) e no kitai [Lessons from the UNCTAD Manila General Assembly: Growing Hopes for NGOs]. OISCA Magazine (July): 17–21.Google Scholar
Watanabe, Tadashi. 1995. OISCA International ga kokuren category 1 ni nintei saremashita [OISCA International Has Been Registered as UN Category 1]. OISCA Magazine (October): 8–10.Google Scholar
Watson, Ian. 2012. “Governments and NGOs in Asian Overseas Development Assistance: Assessing South Korea's Model of Foreign Aid.” Asian Studies Review 36: 79–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watson, Ian. 2014. Foreign and Emerging Powers: Asian Perspectives on Official Development Assistance. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wright, Susan. 1998. “The Politicization of ‘Culture.’” Anthropology Today 14(1): 7–15.Google Scholar
Yamaguchi, Yōichi. 1999. Myanmar no jitsuzō—Nihon taishi ga mita shinnichikoku [The Real Myanmar—A Japan-Friendly Country Seen by a Japanese Ambassador]. Tokyo: Keisō Shobō.Google Scholar