Sherry L. Martin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801449178
- eISBN:
- 9780801460821
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449178.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, Asian Politics
This chapter introduces two sets of focus group participants—all women of voting age living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. These women use emphatic narratives about education, self-improvement, ...
More
This chapter introduces two sets of focus group participants—all women of voting age living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. These women use emphatic narratives about education, self-improvement, community, and national development when talking about electoral participation. They assume responsibility for teaching themselves and analyze their own interactions with the state in everyday life as their primary data source for evaluating national politics. Participants transform the focus group into a “community of practice” and through this process provide insight into how any study group, regardless of topic, upends traditional modes of knowledge production. Women's study groups yield alternative definitions of democracy and political practices that clash with “elite” national politics in Japan.Less
This chapter introduces two sets of focus group participants—all women of voting age living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. These women use emphatic narratives about education, self-improvement, community, and national development when talking about electoral participation. They assume responsibility for teaching themselves and analyze their own interactions with the state in everyday life as their primary data source for evaluating national politics. Participants transform the focus group into a “community of practice” and through this process provide insight into how any study group, regardless of topic, upends traditional modes of knowledge production. Women's study groups yield alternative definitions of democracy and political practices that clash with “elite” national politics in Japan.
