Intimate Disconnections Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan

In many ways, divorce is a quintessentially personal decision—the choice to leave a marriage that causes harm or feels unfulfilling to the two people involved. But anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the additional public dimensions of breaking up, from intense shame and societal criticism t...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Alexy, Allison
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Chicago University of Chicago Press 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OAPEN - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 03580nma a2200721 u 4500
001 EB002174277
003 EBX01000000000000001312054
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 230811 ||| eng
020 |a 9780226699653 
020 |a 9780226700953 
020 |a 9780226701004 
020 |a chicago/9780226701004.001.0001 
100 1 |a Alexy, Allison 
245 0 0 |a Intimate Disconnections  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b Divorce and the Romance of Independence in Contemporary Japan 
260 |a Chicago  |b University of Chicago Press  |c 2020 
300 |a 248 p. 
653 |a aging 
653 |a freedom 
653 |a family 
653 |a Social and cultural anthropology 
653 |a dependence 
653 |a feminism 
653 |a marriage 
653 |a love 
653 |a Sociology: family and relationships 
653 |a divorce 
653 |a empowerment 
653 |a commitment 
653 |a sociology 
653 |a japan 
653 |a gender 
653 |a separation 
653 |a late life 
653 |a solitude 
653 |a Society and culture: general 
653 |a social norms 
653 |a anthropology 
653 |a relationality 
653 |a anxiety 
653 |a labor market 
653 |a nonfiction 
653 |a trust 
653 |a intimacy 
653 |a reference 
653 |a jukunen rikon 
653 |a happiness 
653 |a asia 
653 |a relationships 
653 |a romance 
653 |a self interest 
653 |a shame 
653 |a women 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b OAPEN  |a OAPEN 
500 |a Creative Commons (cc), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ 
028 5 0 |a 10.7208/chicago/9780226701004.001.0001 
856 4 2 |u https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/63445  |z OAPEN Library: description of the publication 
856 4 0 |u https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/id/082a3878-9986-4228-9ae5-98210a081d14/9780226701004.pdf  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 301 
082 0 |a 300 
520 |a In many ways, divorce is a quintessentially personal decision—the choice to leave a marriage that causes harm or feels unfulfilling to the two people involved. But anyone who has gone through a divorce knows the additional public dimensions of breaking up, from intense shame and societal criticism to friends’ and relatives’ unsolicited advice. In Intimate Disconnections, Allison Alexy tells the fascinating story of the changing norms surrounding divorce in Japan in the early 2000s, when sudden demographic and social changes made it a newly visible and viable option. Not only will one of three Japanese marriages today end in divorce, but divorces are suddenly much more likely to be initiated by women who cite new standards for intimacy as their motivation. As people across Japan now consider divorcing their spouses, or work to avoid separation, they face complicated questions about the risks and possibilities marriage brings: How can couples be intimate without becoming suffocatingly close? How should they build loving relationships when older models are no longer feasible? What do you do, both legally and socially, when you just can’t take it anymore? Relating the intensely personal stories from people experiencing different stages of divorce, Alexy provides a rich ethnography of Japan while also speaking more broadly to contemporary visions of love and marriage during an era in which neoliberal values are prompting wide-ranging transformations in homes across the globe.