ABSTRACT
As the case studies which we have examined in the previous chapters have shown, the most important focus for understanding why particular social problems were ‘discovered’ in Japan at particular points in time – and, conversely, why others were not – lies in looking at the individual actors, institutions and organizations involved. Social problems do not appear out of a vacuum, but are the result of human activity and interaction. They also have a social history which starts with their discovery and results in their treatment or redefinition as no longer a problem. These social histories can only be dug out through long-term fieldwork in Japan and a detailed reading of relevant documents and interviews with the major ‘claimsmakers’, those individuals who have pulled the economic and political strings necessary to bring the social issue they are concerned with to public prominence. Indeed, the necessity for the claims-makers to have access to media and policymakers explains the often greater attention given to apparently ‘middle-class’ youth social problems. While the ‘claims-makers’ may be the original strategists and translators of these issues, they are often joined by a burgeoning industry which seeks to provide analysis and treatment. The problematic youth themselves tend to be peripheral to the debates about them, not least because, as we argue, most of those who work on Japanese mainstream youth problems work on the assumption that these problems are the natural consequence of features that are indigenous to Japanese culture and society. If these ‘cultural’ problems can be treated, then, so the thinking goes, the quality of life for the youth who suffer from them will naturally be improved.
