Listening to "Difficulty in Living": An Ethnography of School Non-attendance, Hikikomori, and Tojisha-Kenkyu

2023/01/21

This is the book I am most happy and proud to have published among all those I have written so far. I think it is because it was not "my book," but "everyone's book."

By "everyone," I mean the members of the "Tojisha-Kenkyu Group for Difficulty in Living." People who face some form of "difficulty in living," such as school non-attendance or social withdrawal (hikikomori), gather to share their own questions through dialogue. This book is the result of fieldwork conducted with this group.

Some might think, "Difficulty in living? That has nothing to do with me." However, what I tried to examine in this book is the universal challenge of how people live. While every human being is a distinct individual, humans are also beings who cannot help but live within connections. In that context, how can "being oneself" and "being with others" coexist? This is a difficult question for anyone, but for those who have experienced not fitting well into everyday organizations like schools or workplaces, it often becomes a binary choice: "suppress oneself to fit into the group" or "release oneself and be excluded from the group." I thought about ways for individuals and groups to exist beyond that through the practice of creating concrete spaces.

The words "place of belonging" and "dialogue" carry an impression of being "good things." In reality, however, there is much conflict, and they are not always "good." A "place of belonging" is as chaotic as a mystery pot, and "dialogue" is accompanied by a sense of inadequacy and pain. Relationships are fluid and change even as I write about them. Rather than being an observer, I was part of the space, getting caught up, struggling, and going through a long period of writing and then discarding. Something began to move when I realized that I should—or rather, had no choice but to—write about this "involvement" itself.

This book is based on my doctoral dissertation and barely maintains the form of an academic book. However, there are worlds that cannot be seen from the "objective and neutral" standpoint that is the basic stance of academic writing. Throughout this book, "I" appear here and there. It was "everyone" who dragged out the "I" that had been hidden away, and behind my thoughts and words were the questions posed to me by "everyone." That is why I believe the true authors of this book are "everyone."

Listening to "Difficulty in Living": An Ethnography of School Non-attendance, Hikikomori, and Tojisha-Kenkyu

Rie Kido

Nippon Hyoron Sha

336 pages, 2,750 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.