| The State Bearing Gifts: Deception and Disaffection in Japanese Higher Education Contributor(s): McVeigh, Brian J. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0739113445 ISBN-13: 9780739113448 Publisher: Lexington Books OUR PRICE: $127.71 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: September 2006 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Anthropology - Cultural & Social - Education | Higher - Education | Multicultural Education |
| Dewey: 378.52 |
| LCCN: 2006931369 |
| Physical Information: 1.09" H x 6.16" W x 9.36" (1.28 lbs) 308 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Japanese |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Using Japanese higher education as a case study, author Brian J. McVeigh explores the varieties of 'exchange dramatics' among the Education Ministry, universities, faculty, and students. With one eye on large-scale processes and the other on everyday practices, he elucidates trafficking between micro- and macro-levels and key concepts of 'value, ' 'exchange, ' and 'role performance' by studying how political economy configures dramatization and deception at the everyday level. Relying on extensive ethnographic participant observation and the notion of the 'gift, ' McVeigh challenges the commonly accepted idea of 'social contract' for understanding state-society relations. Written to be read as both a political and philosophical commentary and anthropological investigation, this work has theoretical implications for comparative studies of political systems, particularly regarding the relation between self-deception and the ideological manufacture of legitima |