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  • The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West
  • Noriko Aso
The Ambivalent Consumer: Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West. Edited by Sheldon Garon and Patricia L. Maclachlan (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2006) 314 pp. $59.95 cloth $29.95 paper

The steady rise of cultural studies has contributed to the emergence of consumption as a distinct field of investigation within such disciplines as history, anthropology, and sociology; this past decade has seen exponential growth in the number of publications. Within Japanese studies, one of the most prominent examples in English is the ConsumAsiaN series, edited by Lise Skov and Brian Moeran. In Japanese, the extensive literature includes Yoshimi Shun'ya, Hakurankai no seijigaku [The politics of expositions] (Tokyo, 1992) and, more recently, Sekiguchi Eri, Gendai Nihon no shôhi kûkan bunka no shikake o yomitoku [The realm of consumption in contemporary Japan: Reading cultural mechanisms] (Kyoto, 2004).

The Ambivalent Consumer is a welcome addition to this growing field, offering an unusually solid demonstration of the potential offered by transnational interdisciplinary projects. The contributors come from the United States, Japan, and Europe; represent various disciplines in the social sciences; and draw on regional case studies that span from Sweden to Malaysia, although the United States and Japan receive particular attention. What makes this collection stand out, however, is the way in which the essays directly address questions of comparative method, rather than seeing in the act of comparison the automatic production of meaning.

This approach is accomplished on one level by tracking the historical construction of relations between American and Asian consumption practices and ideologies, particularly in the postwar period, thereby ensuring that the comparisons do not take place in a vacuum and are therefore [End Page 164] less likely to resort to explanations based on "national character." Moreover, the volume as a whole challenges the common assumption that the United States represents a global norm, aspirational regime, or historical endpoint as methodologically unsound, not just conceptually unsavory. Indeed, after Charles Horioka lays out the similarities between practices in Japan, other Asian countries, and continental Europe, he pointedly notes, "When it comes to saving and consumption, it is American exceptionalism [. . .] that demands further study" (italics in original, 135).

The Ambivalent Consumer generally succeeds in keeping its border-crossing promise, thanks to its unusually coherent structure. As Part II (on consumer practices and nation) best illustrates, each essay rises above serendipitous interconnectedness to make specific contributions toward advancing a thematic program. Moreover, although the volume as a whole centers on Japan, discussion of other Asian cases sheds light not only on regional diversity but also on the specific character of domestic power relations.

For the above reasons, the subtitle of this volume, "Questioning Consumption in East Asia and the West," more accurately describes its contents than the evocative but in some ways empty main title. "Ambivalence" as a specific concept does not accomplish much in the volume (with the exception of Jordan Sand's fine essay) beyond indicating that consumption has by no means been celebrated in all places at all times. The "consumer" is also largely presented as constructed in close interrelationship with the state, rather than explored in more independent terms. Nevertheless, the collection represents both a signal contribution to the field in the present, and an indicator of promising avenues of investigation for the future. [End Page 165]

Noriko Aso
University of California, Santa Cruz
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