ABSTRACT
Since the Second World War, Japan’s self-image has rested on the idea that it is both homogeneous and unique. According to this image, the nation consists of middle-class families with a hard-working father, a happy homemaker mother, and a gradually diminishing number of children. Grandparents living in the same house or nearby help to complement the picture. All these happy families are of the same blood, speak the same language, and are carriers of the same immutable and uniquely Japanese traditions. Together they endeavour to collaborate for the ultimate good of the whole country, thus forming the essential building blocks of the uniquely Japanese communitas1 on which the Japanese state is supposedly based.
