Performing the Buraku: Narratives on Cultures and Everyday Life in Contemporary Japan

In Japan, people labeled as Buraku-min are usually described as the descendants of pre-modern occupational groups who were engaged in socially-polluting tasks like leather work, meat-packing, street entertainment, and drum-making. This book explores the representations of the buraku in contemporary Japan, with a special focus on performances and museum exhibitions. In particular, the book is the result of an ethnographic work conducted in Kinegawa and Naniwa leather towns, respectively in Tokyo and Osaka, and with the Monkey Dance Company performers. (Series: Freiburg Studies in Social Anthropology / Freiburger Sozialanthropologische Studien / Etudes d'Anthropologie Sociale de l'Universite de Fribourg - Vol. 37)