At the joint JAWS/AJJ conference held at Hyogo University held in Kobe April 4-6, judging was conducted to award the third edition each of the Harumi Befu prize and the Mark Bookman prize.
The Befu Prize, which awards ¥250,000 to the best presentation at the conference by a non-tenured scholar, was won by Marta Fanasca, for her very impressive presentation, “Ritualizing Intimacy: Gender, Female Agency, and the Commodification of Desire in Contemporary Japan’s Pink Economy.” There was one other outstanding presentation, “Changing Ritual Practices in the 21st-Century Rakugo World” by Marco Di Francesco of Oxford University, who was a worthy runner-up.
The Bookman Prize, awarding ¥50,000 to the best presentation at the conference by a non-tenured scholar on the topic of people with disabilities or other marginalized groups, was won by Celia Spoden from the German Institute of Japanese Studies, for her presentation on “Avatar Robots as an Alter Ego: New Opportunities for Work or Technological Fixes?” With its focus on the use of remotely controlled robots to serve as avatars for the disabled people operating them, it was an excellent fit with the intellectual legacy of Mark Bookman, and the undisputed winner.
The two winning abstracts follow below:
Marta FANASCA (University of Bologna, Hosei University): Ritualizing Intimacy: Gender, Female Agency, and the Commodification of Desire in Contemporary Japan’s Pink Economy
In contemporary Japan, the market for female/female commodified emotional and/or sexual intimacy, though a niche market, is developing at the intersection of private desire and money. Several businesses focused on providing emotions, support, or more bodily-oriented and less platonic services for women are emerging, shaping a new sector of the pink economy closely tied to the urban landscape. Despite differences among these services (dates, sex, sexual massages etc), it is impossible not to notice the constant performance of certain acts or the repletion of sequences of actions—not only across repeated meetings within the same business, but also between different types of services—which imbues encounters between providers and clients with a sense of “ritual”. Using Joy Hendry’s suggestions about the relationship between reality and authenticity (2000) as a starting point, and drawing on Baudrillard’s concept of hyperrealism (1981/2001), this intervention highlights and discusses how paid encounters between providers of commodified intimacy and clients can be understood as “semi-ritual” space to explore gender, sex and emotions. Taking as case studies a) the business of Female-to-Male crossdressing (dansō) escorts offering dates to their female clients, and b) female prostitution for women, my aim is to explore how these practices navigate the intersections of gender, commodification, and female agency, highlighting how ritualized interactions serve as a medium through which clients and providers negotiate identity and intimacy within a market-driven framework.
Celia SPODEN (German Institute for Japanese Studies, Tokyo): Avatar Robots as an Alter Ego: New Opportunities for Work or Technological Fixes?
In the DAWN Avatar Robot Café, located in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, people who have difficulties leaving their homes – the majority with disabilities – remotely control an avatar robot called OriHime. The robot acts as their alter ego, enabling them to serve customers at the café from their homes or sometimes from a hospital room. Approximately 70 individuals scattered throughout Japan work remotely in the cafe. Drawing on fieldwork in the café and interviews with the avatar pilots, I explore what it means when avatar robots become a second body in the physical world and mediate social interaction. By presenting my interlocutor’s perceptions of social participation, work, and disability, I show how the avatar opens up new opportunities, leads to a feeling of independence and belonging, helps to regain or adopt a positive attitude towards the future, and challenges common understandings of “disability.” Moreover, I contextualize these avatar technologies within the Japanese government’s science and technology research and development strategy – such as the concept of a super smart society (Society 5.0) and the “Moonshot Research and Development Program” – and ask what it means when these technologies become technological fixes to social problems, which remain untouched by welfare policies.