Different Things
under the Same Name?
A Research Dialogue
on Self-Help Organisations between
a Japanese Social
Worker and an Australian Anthropologist
Tomofumi Oka and
Richard Chenhall
2007
Abstract
Are Japanese self-help organisations
intrinsically the same as what Americans and Australians call “self-help
organisations”? Is it possible that quite different organisations are known by
the same name in different cultures? In this paper, this question is answered
by a Japanese social worker and an Australian anthropologist. In the first half
of the paper, the Japanese author discusses Japanese cultural traits that can
make it difficult to research self-help organisations. In the second half, the
Australian author refers to his fieldwork and research with Australian
Aboriginal self-help organisations for alcoholics, to elaborate on the
methodological and ethical issues that are examined in the first half of the
paper. It appears that some methodological difficulties mentioned by the
Japanese author are not peculiar to Japanese researchers or Japanese culture
and are encountered in other countries, such as
Key
words
Self-help
organisations, Japanese culture, Australian Aboriginal people,
Research
methodology, Research ethics
The aim
of this paper is to discuss methodological issues associated with research on
self-help organisations. To explore the issues with greater breadth and
flexibility, this paper is written as a dialogue between two authors: a
Japanese social work researcher and an Australian anthropologist, both of whom
have had a long and deep involvement with self-help organisations, although
their research fields have been quite different. The Japanese author,
This paper consists of two parts. Part I is by the Japanese author,
and starts with a question that has haunted him for about twenty years, since
he went to the UK and discussed self-help organisations with British social
workers. It is: “Are we discussing the same thing or different things under the
same name?” On his first visit to this Western country, he felt that there were
numerous subtle differences between
Japanese self-help organisations and their British counterparts. Since then,
whenever he has talked about Japanese self-help organisations with North
Americans, Britons and Australians, he cannot help but think that the
organisations that he has worked with might be substantially different from what Westerners call self-help
organisations. To elaborate on this question, he provides several episodes and
personal experiences that have kept the above question alive in his mind.
Part II is by the Australian author. By referring to his own
fieldwork with Australian Aboriginal alcoholics, he responds to the questions
raised in Part I. He reflects on similarities between Australian and Japanese
self-help organisations, and demonstrates that there are similarities in the
problems faced by researchers in both countries. In the research of both
authors, the participants have been socially disadvantaged and marginalised.
Researchers who approach such populations will inevitably have difficulties in
accessing and establishing trusted relationships, hence it is imperative that
researchers conduct their research and approach their participants with high
ethical standards.
Part
I: Are our self-help organisations the same as yours?
Whenever I discuss self-help organisations with non-Japanese
scholars, I am mindful of a question which has been with me for a long time:
Are what I call “self-help organisations” the same as what they call “self-help
organisations”? Is it possible that totally different organisations quite by
chance have similar missions and similar memberships, and as a consequent are
identically named “self-help organisations”? Think of the word, “country.” The
US and
There
is one thing that “country” and “family” share, and that is that they both
existed long before they were known by these names. And so it is with many
self-help organisations. They also existed long before they were given the name
“self-help organisations.” On the other hand, some groups have come into being
since their title was invented. A good example of this is a therapy group set
up by social workers. First, social workers learnt the theories of social group
work, and then they helped set up such groups according to what they had learnt
in an academic setting. Because Japanese social group work theories are greatly
influenced, and perhaps even overwhelmed, by American ones, their therapy
groups for social work can be very similar to American therapy groups, putting
aside group members’ behaviours that are culturally different.
It
is unfortunate, however, that Japanese self-help organisations rarely had any
theoretical discussions before they were influenced by American
conceptualisation. I suppose this has led many Japanese people to consider
Japanese self-help organisations through “American conceptual glasses.” They
have explained many aspects of their organisations with US-made terms, and
consequently some Japanese scholars have ignored those aspects of Japanese
organisations that are unseen or obscured by “American conceptual glasses.” For
example, some Japanese organisations have “embedded relationships with the
government,” which I will discuss later in this paper.
Another
unfortunate aspect is that Japanese self-help organisations, and the scholars
that study them, have rarely interacted with their foreign counterparts. I do
not see this as being negligent, because I believe it is due to the fact that
self-help organisations basically work locally, and do not need such interactions
with foreign counterparts. Although some self-help organisations in
I
will now relate some episodes that occurred in Japanese voluntary organisations
and self-help organisations that I have been personally involved with. I am not
sure whether these episodes include any peculiarities of Japanese culture, or
whether they merely reflect idiosyncrasies of my personal situation. I have
chosen them because I believe such things are rarely written about in the
textbooks of voluntary organisations, particularly Japanese textbooks, most of
which are greatly influenced by American textbooks.
Quiet
meetings and the unseen inside
As a
social worker, I once worked for a community council of social welfare. The
council covered a community made of many neighbourhood societies, and in total
consisted of over one hundred thousand people. One day, my agency hosted a
meeting that was supposed to be attended by representatives from all the
neighbourhood societies. The aim of the meeting was to discuss an annual plan
for the community’s voluntary services, the draft of which had been written by
our social workers. The senior social workers at the meeting, who in those days
were my supervisors, hoped that their draft would be accepted without any
opposition or discussion. They were afraid that if the attendees started to
discuss this plan seriously it would not be passed, because they knew that it
would be impossible for all the attendees to reach a consensus. Decision-making
by majority vote was almost unthinkable in this situation, because this could
divide the community. As Reischauer and Jansen (1995) point out, “The key
Japanese value is harmony, which they seek to achieve by a subtle process of
mutual understanding, almost by intuition, rather than by a sharp analysis of
conflicting views or by clear-cut decisions, whether made by one-man dictates
or majority votes” (p. 136). In order to avoid any discussion, the senior
social workers cleverly identified several influential persons, whom they
called “noisy figures,” and discussed the draft with them privately before the
meeting. This procedure is called “nemawashi”
in Japanese. As Keeley (2001) mentions, “before any formal meetings are held to
address a given issue[,] informal discussions take place as the first steps in
building a consensus through a process known as nemawashi” (p. 149). In addition, these senior social workers did
not engage directly in a serious discussion with the noisy figures, but rather
they pretended to do so in order to gratify their pride by saying, “You are
especially important to us, so we want your advice.” By giving the noisy
figures the chance to sound off about the draft before the meeting, the senior
social workers ensured that they would be quiet when it mattered.
What
surprised me was the strategy the senior social workers used to keep the
noisiest figure quiet. They actually conspired to encourage the council members
to ask him to be the chairperson of the department of social welfare. The
chairperson’s position was voluntary, and he would not be paid, but according
to the social workers, if he took up that position he would have to keep silent, because as the chair, he would
have to listen to the opinions of others. This was very likely to happen,
because in
I
do not know whether this way of choosing a leader is common practice in
Japanese voluntary organisations, because it is usually done completely behind
closed doors, and only deeply involved insiders know about it. For example,
about a decade after the experience mentioned above, I participated in a
meeting of another social welfare council as “a member of learning” and as the
vice-chair of the meeting. I did not know what happened behind closed doors,
because I was not an insider despite my vice-chairpersonship. In
Interestingly,
this quiet meeting syndrome was behind a recent political scandal, which was
mentioned in the editorial of a Japanese newspaper:
In June 2001, the first government-sponsored town meeting . . . was
held to promote direct dialogue between the people and Cabinet ministers. So
far, there have been 174 such meetings. But a report by a Cabinet Office
investigation panel shows that most were a sham to manipulate public opinion in
favor of government policies. In 105 of such meetings, people were planted to
ask questions or make statements. In 15 meetings, bureaucrats pre-arranged
questions asked by participants. . . . A gratuity of 5,000 yen was even given
to 65 people picked to asked questions at 25 town meetings. (Political theater,
2006)
Although
this editorial criticised the practice by saying “town meetings became rigged
theatres to increase support for the . . . administration,” it might be more
accurate to state that such manipulated meetings occur widely throughout
After many Western social institutions were introduced into
The suffix “-do”
as in judo, kendo, bushido means “the
way,” but the idea of a correct “way” extends far beyond traditional martial
arts or flower arranging or calligraphy in Japan. There is a right way to
exchange condolences, a right way to greet one’s superior and a right way to
greet the new year, and a right way to offer a drink, accept a gift and decline
a compliment. (p. 17)
This tradition of sticking to
“a right way” is firmly entrenched among present Japanese people. Last month I
saw an electronic message board in a subway train, which asked passengers this
question: “Which is the right way of handing over a gift that is inside a new
paper bag given by a shop: take it out of the bag and give it, or give it with
the bag?” A cultural supposition is that such paper bags are usually beautiful
and are useful in making the gift appear more expensive. Another interesting
question I saw on a similar subway message board was about positions within an
elevator. It pointed to the four corners of the elevator and asked: “Which
corner is the highest position, the second highest, the second lowest, and the
lowest?” What this message was showing was, in fact, “the right way” for new
young employees to yield to their superiors. A person of the lowest rank should
take the lowliest position, the front of the switch board, as soon as possible;
otherwise he or she would look foolish. To be honest, I was not sure what “the
right answers” were to these quizzes, although I have been living in Japanese
society as an adult for about thirty years. However, my reaction to these
quizzes, as an ordinary Japanese, was not “Silly questions! Who on earth has
the authority to ask such thing?” but rather it was “It’s really a shame not to
know the right answers!”
In sum, the “quiet meeting” episodes imply at least three things to
researchers on self-help organisations in
Unreliable public documents
If a meeting does not provide important information about the
organisation, how can we expect that the organisation will publish reliable
documents? In an interview with a patient organisation, I asked how Doctor A
helped the organisation, because he was repeatedly praised as a great
benefactor in their many publications. I was shocked to hear a leader assert
that the good doctor had contributed “very little.” If this were the case, why
did they praise him as their greatest contributor? Does it mean that their
documents contained “lies,” or was the leader telling me a lie, simply because
she did not want to acknowledge the doctor’s contributions in my interview? I
had many more questions, but I stopped asking them because I was afraid that
pointing out the contradictions between their documents and the leader’s answer
might lead to a violation of one of their organisation’s taboos. I assumed that
the booklets included only tatemae
(principles, words for the public) about the doctor.
Another episode that made me suspicious about the trustworthiness
of public documents produced by self-help organisations occurred when I
accidentally found very similar passages in the commemorative publications of
two different organisations for people with physical disabilities. These
passages told how these organisations were established, and although there
should have been several similarities between the two organisations because of
their similar social and historical backgrounds, it was clear to me that
writers of one of these organisations compiled their document merely by
changing some of the key words in the other organisation’s publication. Their
organisation had a closed, embedded relationship with the local government,
which I will elaborate on later, and I suppose that they needed to publish
their commemorative book within a fiscal year to use up their yearly budget,
hence they had insufficient time to write their own version. This kind of
organisation has to use their yearly budget within a fiscal year by any means
available to them, otherwise the following year’s financial support that they
get from their local government will be reduced.
A third episode is about divided organisations; that is when
organisations that have worked together in the past became separated from each
other for some unknown reason. I know of two such cases: in one, the reasons
for the split got very little coverage in their public documents, and in the
other, the situation was described quite differently by each of the
organisations involved. It was clear that what they were publishing in their
documents was merely self-justification.
What does this mean for researchers of self-help organisations? I
would suggest that first, we should not unquestioningly accept the documents
produced by these organisations, because they may have published them merely to
justify themselves, or they may have overstated their success to get social
recognition. Some non-Japanese readers may think that this is a universal
phenomenon that occurs in a wide range of organisations, but they are unlikely
to know that many Japanese organisations publish documents under the
supposition that their main readership is their own members and supporters, and
not the general public. Therefore it is not important to include “objective”
data on their organisation or to describe themselves “fairly.” In the
“Telling
the truth” is differently weighed in different cultures
If few
things are discussed in a meeting and all things are done behind closed doors,
should we consider Japanese organisations to be highly secretive? If their
public documents include very little valuable “objective” data for researchers
and nothing more than self-satisfied or self-glorified stories, do their
documents deserve researchers’ attention? Before answering these questions, I
would like to discuss how different people’s attitudes towards “telling the
truth” can vary significantly.
An
anthropologist (Mulder, 1997) who conducted field research in the
Additionally, I found that “the results of my qualitative
interviews could be changed according to how the interviewees interpreted the
social context in which the interviews took place” (Oka, 2003, p. 338). When I
met group leaders for the first time, they told me a “good” story about their
group. I suppose they were aware that their words might be read by their group
members after my research paper was published. However, when I conducted a
focus group interview, in which each of the interviewees came from different
self-help organisations, they began to complain about the newcomers to their
organisations, which helped them overlook their organisations’ differences and
gain a “we-feeling” as veterans in their field. When I interviewed leaders with
whom I had had a long relationship, they revealed their inside stories to me to
show that they trusted me. In doing this, they sometimes attempted to get me
involved on their side if there were emotional conflicts within their group.
Hayashi and Kuroda (1997, p. 31) characterise Japanese and American
cultures as having Rashomonesque (Rashomon-like) and Aristotelian worldviews
respectively. Rashomon is “the title of an award-winning film produced by Akira
Kurosawa. Its theme is that there are multiple truths” (p. 195). According to
Hayashi and Kuroda, Japanese culture is distinguished by “ambiguity and
diffuseness” (p. 17), while the Americans, whom they seem to consider a
champion of Western civilization, have a “dichotomy in their worldview ([a]
propensity to respond to the world in binary terms, as in ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’)” (p.
17). In the Rashomonesque world, the truth has many different aspects, and thus
people can choose any aspects of this multiple-faced truth to please their
conversation partners or to manipulate them. This does not mean that they have
told lies as such; nevertheless this attitude towards telling the truth must be
very irritating to some Westerners. I well remember a passage in the diary of
Townsend Harris, the first United States Consul General to
They [Japanese diplomats] said that, as the Treaty [of Amity and Commerce
between the United States and Japan] was to be read by all the Daimyo [powerful feudal rulers] and
great nobles, they did not wish to have it appear that every consul had the
right to travel in Japan; that the words “on business” were proposed as a mere
cover to conceal the extent of the rights actually conceded; and that no
governor or other official should ever inquire into the nature of the business
on which a consul might be travelling. I said that implied that the consul
would be willing to tell a falsehood when he wished to travel and had no
official business; that such conduct was not according to our customs; that a
liar was looked on with the greatest contempt, besides which it was a sin by our religion for a man to
utter a falsehood [italics added].
(Cosenza & Harris, 1930, p. 515)
I know
that to quote from a diary of an American diplomat who was born over two
hundred years ago might mean very little in a social science essay. However, I
would like to stress the last words of that quote: “It was a sin by our
religion for a man to utter a falsehood.” This reminds me of a courtroom scene
in a
Exclusiveness
blocks access to the inside
Another
factor that makes it difficult to know the truth about Japanese organisations
is their exclusiveness. Here the term “ichigensan”
or “first timer” is of importance to field researchers in
In
Non-Japanese
readers will be surprised to hear that up until relatively recently this term
was also used among Japanese companies, who hesitated to do business with other
companies that they did not know very well.
Until as late as the 1980s, it was very common for Japanese
companies to refuse to accept orders from customers, or to buy from suppliers,
with whom they had not previously established an acceptable personal
relationship involving introductions and a variety of social rituals designed
to bind the two groups together. The syndrome still exists today . . . (De
Mante, 2004, p. 101)
Thus a
strong wariness toward first-timers has been shared even by commercial
companies, which should pursue their financial interests unencumbered by such
traditions. We can therefore imagine how wary of strangers our self-help
organisations are[2]. Any first-time
researchers will be refused entry as researchers, but they may be welcomed as a
receiver of the group’s PR leaflets, or as a mere visitor who is allowed to
experience their façade or tatemae (principles),
which I will write about later.
Not
surprisingly, talking about communities’ dark sides with outsiders was
considered a taboo by traditional Japanese communities. Smith (1961) reports on
ostracism in Japanese rural communities as follows: “The two offenses against
the community which are most likely to lead to ostracism are exposing the
community to a public loss of face and disturbing the peace and harmony of the
hamlet” (p. 527). From observing Japanese hamlets shortly after the end of
World War II, Kida (1967) identified “no showing the community’s shame to
outsiders” as one of the basic four laws of the hamlet. The other three were no
hurting others with a knife, no burning others’ houses, and no stealing. I
remember well that a leader whom I interviewed about her organisation’s issues
said to me after the interview that she felt as if she had “sold her fellow
members.”
Although we might be able to take this as an outdated phenomenon,
it is possible that present city-dwellers still maintain such principles as
guiding rules for their lives. As Morita (1978) points out, Japanese
city-dwellers can be regarded as those who left their hamlets, or those who
“were expelled from their hamlets” (p. 163) and continue to follow the rules
that were inherited from their hamlet lives. The Japanese traditionally have
built their cities without walls (Sakaiya, 1993, p. 156)[3]
and thus, as Yanagita’s classic work (1929) states, there was a strong
continuum between cities and villages in
One way researchers might be able to overcome this exclusiveness is
through gaining the trust of the leaders or gatekeepers of these organisations.
However, a more perplexing issue is that even when the researchers succeed in
entering deep inside an organisation, they may still find it difficult to get
to the truth.
Tatemae
and honne; or surface and sentiments?
Tatemae and hone — this pair of words is often
referred to when the exclusiveness of Japanese organisations is discussed[4].
Let me quote some passages from Yamamoto (1990), who describes tatemae and honne as follows:
Tendency to present a proper appearance in order, for example, to
avoid offending another; or, acting in accordance with expectations. The
hostess yearns for compliments on her cooking. The seasoning is a bit salty for
my taste, but I tell her it is just perfect. I show tatemae. . . . Tatemae is
often a matter of tact: one represses real feelings (honne) and acts according to expectations in order to avoid
confrontation, or causing offense and loss of face. Tatemae has negative connotations where it might mean
rationalizing, having ulterior motives, or putting on a “front” to disguise
one’s real feelings and intentions. . . . [On the other hand, honne is] tendency to express one’s
actual feelings, intentions, or motives. If I had told the hostess that she
should have gone more lightly on the salt, . . . I would have shown my honne. Honne refers to real feelings as opposed to what is expressed but
not necessarily felt (tatemae). (p.
459)
While
Yamaoto’s explanation above is related to individuals’ personal lives,
Sugimoto’s (2003) explanation is more applicable to organisational culture. He
shows the contrast between tatemae
and honne in the political scene as
follows:
Tatemae refers
to a formally established principle which is not necessarily accepted or
practiced by the parties involved. Honne
designates true feelings and desires which cannot be openly expressed because
of the strength of tatemae. If tatemae corresponds to “political
correctness,” honne points to hidden,
camouflaged, and authentic sentiment. Thus, an employee who expresses
dedication to his company boss in accordance with the corporate tatemae of loyalty and harmony, may do
so because of his honne ambition for
promotion and other personal gains. (p. 28).
Tatemae was a helpful
concept when I asked leaders of parents’ organisations about why they were
suffering from a shortage of volunteers. Many of them pointed to their members’
difficult situation: they all had ill children whom they had to take care of,
so they could not work as volunteers. However, this could be regarded as their tatemae, because in Yamamoto’s words
this alleged reason was useful to “avoid confrontation, or causing offense and
loss of face.” It is also congruent with Sugimoto’s description of tatemae, because the members’ statements
of support for other members experiencing difficulties by taking care of ill
children are “politically correct.” However, their reasoning includes a
contradiction: the leaders were also parents who took care of ill children and
faced difficulties in their lives. Did they think they were not as busy as the
other parents? Although this question was raised in my mind, I did not dare ask
it, because I knew that pointing out the contradiction would have embarrassed
them.
Only
after gaining people’s deepest trust will you be privileged to hear their honne. Moeran (1998) has linked the pair
words, tatemae and hone, with out-groups and in-groups in
describing his research experience with the Japanese:
The Japanese in general make a vital distinction between what they
call tatemae and honne . . . . Tatemae
refers to the language which is used in public as a matter of ‘principle’; honne to words that ‘come from the
heart’ and express an individual’s innermost, private feelings. It is this distinction
which ultimately clarifies the relationship between group and individual in
Japanese society, for tatemae is the
language of out-group, and honne that
of in-group, communication. I soon discovered that it was during drinking
sessions that my informants shifted from tatemae
to honne, . . . There appeared to be
no taboos concerning subject-matter and, as the evenings wore on and the sake
flowed faster, so I found myself listening to men talking about subjects which,
during daylight hours, they had either refused to discuss or had evaded with an
embarrassed laugh. At the same time, I discovered that some of the answers
which I had received during the normal course of interviews were directly
contradicted by these same informants as we drank together. As a result, I soon
found myself paying frequent visits to the lavatory so that I could jot down in
my notebook revelations which oncoming alcoholic inebriation threatened to –
and sometimes did – erase. (p. 244)
However,
although we should admire this researcher’s remarkable collection of honne, we need to remember that honne is directly connected to actual
feelings and sentiments, as Yamamoto (1990) and Sugimoto (2003) mentioned
above, and that expressing feelings and sentiments is different from telling
the truth. For example, in the section entitled “unreliable public documents,”
I mentioned a leader who told me that Doctor A had had no close relationships
with her organisation, despite the fact that their numerous books and booklets
referred to him as a great contributor. Because I believed that I had her
trust, I took her remarks as her honne.
This means that her statement was based on her real feelings and sentiments,
and thus might include exaggeration or bias, or it could reflect her intention
of keeping me away the doctor. In other words, after gaining an interviewee’s
deep trust, the researchers will have a chance of hearing their honne, but this could give rise to
another dilemma in their research. If they include what the honne says as a reality, their research
results might be distorted by the interviewees’ sentiments or intentions. If
they treat what the honne says as
nothing but mere sentiments, the interviewees will be upset because they will
think that the researchers did not trust them.
In
Japanese self-help organisations, their bylaws and mottos are often nothing
more than tatemae. These bylaws
demonstrate how members should behave or how they want others to see
themselves, and not how they actually behave. For example, while a self-help organisation’s
tatemae clearly declares that all the
members are equal, we have observed that the organisers of regular meetings
seat the participants carefully and adroitly according to their in-group
hierarchy and in accordance with the need to provide appropriate hospitality to
their guests. In Japanese culture, rooms have a hierarchical structure, with
the location farthest from the door having the highest value, so this is where
the leader of an umbrella organisation was seated. In descending order of rank
came the leaders of other groups under the same umbrella organisation, leaders
of their own group, guests, rank-and-file members, members’ families, and
lastly, the tea-servers and volunteers, who were seated at the lowest position,
next to the door. In fact the tea-servers showed their hospitality and
humbleness by taking the lowest spot.
Despite the unreality of tatemae,
I disagree with some authors who regard tatemae
as mere “surface presentation” or “words done for appearance’ [sic] sake only” (Nelson, 1997, p. 243). Tatemae can be a very important key to
helping us understand how a self-help organisation functions. For example, one
day Richard and I joined a regular meeting of a self-help organisation for
alcoholics, and he found that some attendees’ comments were very brief. In
fact, they consisted of only one sentence, and that was taken from among their
organisations’ mottos, like “I will keep my sobriety for today.” Their way of
speaking was mechanical or ritualistic, without showing any emotion. I believe
that all present knew that these people were telling tatemae. As a volunteer who had been involved with alcoholics’
groups for a long time, I well understood that newcomers could not truly
believe that they would remain sober, and that they were, in honne (real feelings), desperately
thirsty, so they needed to repeat tatemae
(principles), and their tatemae
was accepted by the others as if the statements had come from their hearts. In
this way, tatemae can be therapeutic.
Embedded
and district-inclusive organisations as a cultural model
Lastly,
I would like to introduce an interesting concept that might be useful for
understanding the difference between Japanese self-help organisations and those
in the
Current studies of comparative civil society have been
systematically biased in favor of the types of volunteer participation found
commonly in the
Many Japanese
self-help organisations also “have close, embedded relationships with the
government,” yet they have seldom been studied. One of the few studies was done
by me, in which I studied self-help organisations for ex-servicemen with
physical disabilities, the war bereaved, widows, and elderly people, mainly by
reviewing books and leaflets published by these organisations (
Amakudari
(literally, ‘descent from heaven’) is the euphemism used to describe life after
retirement for bureaucrats, when many assume well-paid sinecures in firms that
they had previously supervised. . . . Bureaucrats who anticipate cashing in on
their connections after retiring have a strong incentive not to alienate future
employers and thus tend to be accommodating and supportive of those they are
meant to monitor. . . . Retirement need not mean cessation of influence: firms
hire former high- and even middle-ranking bureaucrats because of their
established networks and connections with former colleagues who can exercise
their discretionary powers to benefit the retired official’s new employer.
Banks and stock brokerages favor former Ministry of Finance men and pay them
handsomely – but not because of their business acumen or savvy about hedging
strategies; it is all about channels of communication, contacts, and a chance
to influence critical decisions via the ‘old boy’ network. . . . . Civil
servants contacted by their former sempai
(one with organizational seniority) to provide information, grant access,
and accommodate input on policies, do so because it is established practice and
also because it generates favors that can be called in when seeking a cushy
post-retirement position for oneself. (pp. 99-100)
Although
this quote discusses the case of business, amakudari
is often seen in voluntary organisations, including self-help organisations,
because as Schwartz (2003) states, “In the provision of social services, . . .
the state is ‘highly involved’ in Japanese voluntarism” (p. 18; see also
Yamauchi, Shimizu, Sokolowski & Salamon, 1999, p. 249). While amakudari in large organisations is
likely to get public attention, amakudari
in small organisations, including most self-help organisations, receives much
less public scrutiny, and as far as I know, there have been no surveys on this
issue in self-help organisations. However, while conducting a series of
interviews[5],
I was informed about a case of a self-help organisation in which an
ex-bureaucrat was the bureau chief. Apparently he was doing nothing but reading
newspapers, because he had so little knowledge about his organisation’s issues
that he could not work[6].
His salary was absurdly high, while those of the social workers employed by the
organisation were much lower than the average salary of people with the same educational
background. Despite these irrationalities, he was employed because the
organisation knew that his connections with the related Ministry would bring
financial and political benefits.
In
addition to the embedded relationships with the government, there is another
element that characterises some of these Japanese organisations:
district-inclusiveness, which means that people concerned in a certain issue
and living in a certain district will be given membership automatically. In
other words, the “organisations should attempt to include all eligible persons
in a specific district” (Oka, 2003, p. 26). This automatic membership system is
found in many Japanese non-profit organisations, including neighbourhood
societies, PTAs, and all the self-help organisations discussed in my paper
mentioned above (
Some
readers might be critical of my discussion of these organisations with
automatic membership and/or embedded relationships with the government, because
numerous self-help organisations have recently been established without
automatic membership or any relationship with the government. However, one must
ask where these new-type or “modern” self-help organisations learnt how to
operate themselves? By reading translated books on self-help groups? I can give
a strong “no” to this idea, because as a writer of a translated book on
self-help groups, I know that the number of copies of translated books and
books with “modern” ideas about self-help organisations is far smaller than the
number of people who actually work for “modern” self-help organisations in
Since the environment in which the organizational model was
anchored in its original setting will inevitably differ from one to which it is
transplanted, even the most assiduous emulation will result in alterations of
the original patterns to adjust them to their new context, and changes in the
environment to make it a more favourable setting for the emerging organization.
(p. 6)
In other
words, even the most recently established Japanese self-help organisations are
unlikely to be operated without any cultural influence from traditional-type
voluntary organisations. I refer now to what Ashkenazi (1991) calls “cultural
modelling.” He explains:
[The] neighborhood organizations can serve as models for other
forms of organization and for managerial practices in other circumstances.
Examination of such models is necessary both for understanding the strengths
and weaknesses of Japanese management in the Japanese corporate world, and for
predicting the directions in which management is likely to go, or not go, in
the corporate world in the future. (p. 385)
What I
would like to stress is that this cultural modelling has also been done by
self-help organisations in
Conclusions
Are
Western and Japanese self-help organisations quite different entities that go
by the same name? My answer is “they are.” However, this answer is not
meaningful in terms of a social science essay, because every organisation has
its idiosyncrasies, and self-help organisations are no exception. The important
question is how we should use these differences to enrich concepts and develop
theories about self-help organisations. To date, many important concepts and
theories about self-help organisations have been invented by Westerners,
especially Americans, so if in our study we shave off the parts of Japanese
self-help organisations that are not well understood using Western-made
concepts and terms, we will have a very “thin” result. I therefore suggest that
social scientists follow the example of botanists, who have developed theories
about plants by studying them in various environments, and expand the concepts
and theories around self-help organisations by researching the many different
varieties that are evolving in a diversity of cultures.
Part
II: Culture, organisations and the dynamics of anthropology
In the Free
Management Library, an online library directed to non-profit and profit
organisations, McNamara defines organisational culture in the following way:
Basically, organizational
culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the
assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization
members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the
particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that’s
difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For
example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different than
that of a hospital which is quite different than that of a university. You can
tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture,
what they brag about, what members wear, etc. – similar to what you can use to
get a feeling about someone’s personality (McNamara,
1997-2006)
Culture has been a concept that has been
immensely popular in the organisational field, however there have been little
indication that the concept of culture has come any further than the familiar
discourses prevalent in the fields of anthropology, sociology and cultural
studies. In fact, the above definition bares striking resemblance to the many
found in any undergraduate textbook in Anthropology. For example Bates and
Ploag (1990, p. 7) define culture in the now familiar Boasian tradition as a
“system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the
members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that
are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.” Here, culture
is viewed a bit like a Doctor’s medicine bag, the contents of which will aid
individuals to “cope” with each other and what the world throws at them. At
least in their definition they note that cultures are learned and are capable
of being passed on through time. In McNamara’s definition, culture is something
implicit to an organisation, felt but not necessarily understood. Expressed in
the “personality” of the organisation, this becomes evident by such things as
furniture arrangement and members’ clothes. This is not a complex definition
and would probably be found to be problematic by organisational researchers who
would want to search for culture beyond the furniture and dress styles of any
particular organisation.
There is no
single definition for organisational culture. The topic has been studied from a
variety of perspectives ranging from disciplines such as anthropology and
sociology, to the applied disciplines of organisational behaviour, management
science, and organisational communication. Some of the definitions include:
A set of
understandings or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit
among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group
which are also passed on to new members. (Louis, 1980, p. 40)
A system of
knowledge, of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating and acting . . .
that serves to relate human communities to their environmental settings.
(Allaire & Firsirotu, 1984, p. 219)
Any social
system arising from a network of shared ideologies consisting of two
components: substance - the networks of meaning associated with ideologies,
norms, and values; and forms - the practices whereby the meanings are
expressed, affirmed, and communicated to members. (Trice & Beyer, 1993, p.
33)
These definitions give
us some idea of the two views that exist in the application of the culture
concept to the study of organisations. The first point of view, constructs
culture as implicit in social life. Culture is what naturally emerges as
individuals transform themselves into social groups as tribes, communities, and
ultimately, nations. The second point of view sees culture as an explicit
social product arising from social interaction either as an intentional or
unintentional consequence of behaviour. In other words, culture is comprised of
distinct observable forms (e.g., language, use of symbols, ceremonies, customs,
methods of problem solving, use of tools or technology, and design of work
settings) that groups of people create through social interaction and use to confront
the broader social environment (Wuthnow & Witten, 1988). This second view
of culture has been most relevant to the analysis and evaluation of
organisational culture and to cultural change strategies that organisational
leaders have employed to improve organisational performance.
Recently
however there has been critique that the fields of anthropology and
organisational studies have grown apart and that there are relatively few good
recent anthropological studies of organisations (Bate, 1997). As such the
majority of qualitative studies of organisational culture are based on rapid
methodological approaches rather than systematic long-term longitudinal studies
involving self-immersion, self-reflexivity and participant observation. As
Bate’s notes, “Organisation anthropologists rarely take a toothbrush with them
these days. A journey into the anthropological bush is often little more than a
safe and closely chaperoned form of anthropological tourism” (p. 1150).
Anthropological research takes too long, is too costly and the results are
often not published for some time after the initial fieldwork. As a result, the
organisational perspective has been criticised as “ahistorical, acontextual and
aprocessual” in its approach and outlook (p. 1155). According to Bate (1997),
anthropological analyses should not only focus on these dimensions but also
give readers a sense “of being there,” whether it be the central docks in
Another
important element is allowing organisational members to speak for themselves in
the texts researchers produce. In allowing for different viewpoints or
“multivocality” anthropologists aim to reveal the multidimensionality and
complexity of members’ understandings and participation in organisational life.
However, Bate also reinforces the point that anthropological analyses must
provide “insightful descriptions,” rather than offering a rambling series of
various stories and anecdotes, allowing readers to comprehend something that
was previously unclear or misunderstood. While culture is a complex topic, it
is one that is inherently wrapped up with being human. Thus methodological approaches
to examine culture, whether in a small regional community or in a large
self-help organisation, need to examine the complexities of participation in
the community or organisation taking into account socio-economic, historical,
processual and structural perspectives.
Japanese self-help
organisations
It is with the above summary in mind that I
turn to Part I of this paper. In that chapter,
The second focus
of
Australian Aboriginal alcohol
and drug treatment organisations
My own background is as an anthropologist
where I have worked with various Australian Aboriginal organisations, who
provide residential alcohol and drug treatment services for Aboriginal people
(see Chenhall, 2007). Indigenous
Australians make up approximately 2.4% of the Australian population
representing an heterogeneous group of people living in geographically
different areas throughout
The AA
approach is still one of the most commonly adopted models by Aboriginal
residential treatment centres. During my own work in the treatment centre (see
Chenhall, 2007), I encountered the Alcoholics Anonymous program which appeared
to be very similar to non-Aboriginal AA meetings which are held around the
country. The twelve steps and traditions hang on the wall, the twelve steps
were read aloud and individuals shared their stories about their substance
misuse. By merely sitting and watching a meeting, an outsider might conclude
that Aboriginal AA meetings were similar to any other. During the period of my
two year long research in the centre, I witnessed many meetings, however more
importantly I spoke to people about their understandings of the meetings and
the AA philosophy in general. This included individual interviews, focus group
discussions and informal discussions. What I found was that AA concepts were
used to frame an Indigenous discourse concerning colonisation, disempowerment
and powerlessness within the larger society. AA also provided the tools through
which participants could reconnect with their Aboriginal peers and their
cultural heritage.
In
Alcoholism and AA
Before understanding Aboriginal conceptions
of AA, it is important to understand attitudes towards alcoholism more
generally. For Aboriginal people at Benelong’s Haven, alcohol and drugs were
viewed as having removed the Aboriginal spirit, leaving them a fractured and
divisive people. Residents asserted that if it were not for the introduction of
alcohol and drugs by the first British settlers, Aboriginal people would never
have lost their culture. With the forging of a shared identity through the
formation of common goals and purpose, residents asserted that they were
rediscovering their Aboriginal spirituality in the AA program. AA teachings
support a discourse where alcohol and drugs become a poison that render the
user powerless and threatens loss of life or mind. Rather than engaging in the
lies and excuses that are said to be the common practice of individuals who
engage in substance misuse, relationships in Benelong’s Haven are based on a
concept of self-exposure and moral truth. The formation of group solidarity
within the centre is seen as the main avenue through which residents can alter
their relationship with the world. One resident expressed this when he stated:
“We gotta take the spirit out of the bottle and put it back between us.” Of
course the readjustment of residents’ relationship with the world is the aim of
many other rehabilitation centres. However in Benelong’s Haven this was
politicised so that residents’ efforts to regain what has been lost took on a
historical perspective that was viewed as part of a larger Aboriginal movement
of self-determination. In this view, abstinence from alcohol and drugs was
associated with a return to culture.
Various concepts found in AA were described as being aligned with Aboriginal core socio-cultural values. For instance “powerlessness” was associated with many Aboriginal Australians perception of loss of cultural ties, pride and dignity associated with colonization. Sharing stories and seeking treatment in groups was associated with the importance Aboriginal people placed on social groups as the prime site of individual experience. The “one day at a time” concept was compared with the nomadic lifestyle of traditional Aboriginal societies. This was supported by the founders and current Director’s comments that she treats Aboriginal drinkers “the Aboriginal way – in groups,” as she finds that “Aborigines become alcoholics by drinking together in groups.”
While I
have explored this in depth elsewhere (see Chenhall, 2007), what I want to emphasis
is that in this context simply viewing the meetings at face value gives very
little information beyond the official AA view. However, by exploring
participants understanding of AA through long-term participant observation, I
was able to come to some understanding as to how individuals accommodated the
AA perspective into an Aboriginal world-view.
Developing responsible and
ethical relationships
In
Upon
arrival the organisation requested that I provide assistance in collecting
information related to the suicide ideation of male clients in the centre. The
collection of this data was part of a national project they were involved in at
the time related to suicide prevention. This involved performing a fairly
standard psychometric test to residents. While conducting the short
questionnaire with residents did establish my “researcher status” among the
clients, I was very aware that some of the residents were uncomfortable with
some of the questions I was asking. I also felt uncomfortable asking some of
the questions and would often make elaborate explanations and additions to the
questions which I am sure most quantitative researchers would frown upon.
Generally most of the questionnaires revealed that clients had very low suicide
ideation. Staff at Benelong’s Haven knew this to be incorrect as they had a
history of residents past suicide attempts which gave a very different picture.
After I had spent a year in the centre and had established close relationships
with many of the residents, I discussed this questionnaire with some of the
residents and asked them what they thought of the process. All of the residents
I spoke with stated that they did not feel comfortable answering the questions,
they were very personal and they did not have a close relationship with me.
Even though the questionnaire was accompanied with a clear language statement
and was not compulsory, residents stated that they answered the questions
according to what they thought I wanted to hear. It was not until I had spent
considerable time with clients that they felt comfortable telling me their
personal stories on sensitive subjects. They knew I could be trusted, that I
would not use the information to disempower their position and would always
lend a friendly ear and supportive comments (and where necessary, suggest that
they see a counsellor).
The kind of statements that individuals made
to me on sensitive topics did change depending on the context we were in,
whether others were present and what kind of emotional state they were in.
However, what became essential to understanding the complexity of the
relationship of an individual to their own sense of self and to those around
them, was to explore these very differences in what people said in different
contexts. It was not necessarily the case that one statement was more or less
“true” than any others, but that they made them on the basis of a number of
factors related to their own processes of identity formation. This does not
necessarily make comparison impossible. By focusing on the process of individual’s subjective truth making, as they relate to
a number of contexts, it is possible to understand the kinds of decisions
individuals make in giving out some information while holding back on others.
In itself, this is a very central component of what makes us human beings. However, to understand such processes, a
researcher needs considerable time to spend with various individuals in various
contexts repeatedly. And all of this is based on building relationships of
trust and ethical conduct with those at the focus of our research.
In Australian Indigenous research, research is increasingly become
collaborative and participatory. A central component to projects may be to
offer some kind of training, joint authorship or other service. The formation
of research projects themselves involves a process of early consultation and
collaboration between researchers and Indigenous communities. For example, my
current research study in
Conclusion
In responding to
Acknowledgements
Originally
I planned to invite two more American scholars, Dr. Thomasina Borkman of
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[1] “When the group functions harmoniously in Japanese society, which it does to an impressive degree, the distinction between the group leader and the members of the group become somewhat blurred. The leader is not the boss, in the usual meaning of the word. Instead, the leader is the harmonizer whose responsibility is to bring about a general consensus of the group.” (Duke, 1986, p. 194)
[2] In other words, the Japanese consider “long-term relationships”
very important. Graham and Sano (1984, p. 20) supposed that “the importance of
establishing long-term relations is grounded in the cultural heritage of being
isolated and having no other place to go” in
[3] A German traveller who visited Japan in late 17th century documented on Japanese cities as follows: “Most [cities] have no walls, ramparts, or moats, and their two gates are no better than those with which the individual streets are closed off at night” (Bodart-Bailey, 1999, p. 257).
[4] The pair of words, honne and tatemae, has been discussed in many books and papers. There are similar pairs of Japanese terms are: ura [rear] and omote [front], uchi [inside] and soto [outside], ninjo [human feelings] and giri [social obligations], and they are closely interrelated. See, for example, Bachnik and Quinn (1994), Doi (1973, 1985), Mitsubishi Corporation (1988), and Smith (1983).
[5] Unfortunately, I have not been able to publish the results of the interviews, because it seems to be almost impossible for me to keep the anonymity of the organisation.
[6] In