{"id":426,"date":"2020-05-14T09:45:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-14T08:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/?p=426"},"modified":"2020-05-14T09:45:38","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T08:45:38","slug":"material-culture-mask-behaviour-in-rural-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/2020\/05\/14\/material-culture-mask-behaviour-in-rural-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Material culture: mask behaviour in rural Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PhD researcher Chisaki Fukushima is currently in Japan\nconducting fieldwork. Covid-19 has caused the nature of her fieldwork to\nchange, which she has had to adapt to, but it has also provided an opportunity to\nobserve other phenomena, particularly, the changing role of masks in the\ncommunity.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Masks handmade by Machiki-san. Credit: Chisaki Fukushima\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Transformation, observation\nand Covid-19<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It took only\na couple of weeks from the beginning of March for the small rural town I have\nbeen living in for my field research to turn into a ghost town. All the stores\nwere shut except for the supermarket and franchise convenience stores, and no one,\nexcept a few people in cars, was visible on the street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given a large\npart of my research involves human contact, methods such as face-to-face interviews\nand participant observation became impossible to conduct, apart from the latter,\nat a distance. My \u2018outsider status\u2019 has made my fieldwork further challenging; people\nrecognise that I am from outside of the community, and, even worse, that I am from\nabroad, where the terrible Covid-19 crisis is taking place. Despite the fact\nthat I have observed a quarantine period and observe scrupulous hygiene measures,\npeople see the \u2018outside\u2019 world in <\/em>me. (I am continuously reminded that\nmy existence has multiple social layers that will impact the data I produce.)\nTherefore, in order to minimise my \u2018alien\u2019 attributes, I moved into my\ninformants\u2019 neighbourhood, which allowed me to interact with them daily and\nreduce the anxiety some people may have felt about me moving in and out of\ntheir space. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Material Culture: Mask Behaviour<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While some elements of my fieldwork have been compromised, new\nopportunities have arisen. For example, I have had occasion to observe how the\nrural Japanese community I have been living in has adapted to the public health\nthreat that is Covid-19. I have noticed the rise of social conformity regarding\npublic hygiene, and mask wearing is a significant part of this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kinds of masks<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The mask is a\nrelatively recent development in public health, originally introduced in Japan\nduring flu outbreaks just before World War One[1]<\/a>. The\nmasks I refer to are not face masks but \u2018surgical masks\u2019 which cover the mouth,\nthe nostrils (depending on how they are worn) and the surrounding area,\nregardless of the size or fit. These come in an array of categories: unisex,\nmen\/women, adult\/child, S\/M\/L. They are available in an astonishingly varied range\nof materials, brands, character designs, patterns, colours and so on. Some people\nopt for a utilitarian look, while others seem to want to express themselves,\nusing their masks as a fashion statement. Both are quite commonly observed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mask wearing<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Because of its\ncoastal topology and a history of fishing spanning hundreds of years, the\nregion is exposed to numerous and diverse diseases and natural disasters.\nPeople practice(d) exorcist rituals and the worship of an epidemiological god.\nHowever, wearing masks has not historically been one of their practices.\nAlthough fishing is no longer economically viable, the rituals and the storytelling\naround fishing are still actively practiced and maintained on a daily basis.\nFishermen\u2019s patriarchal kinship is still dominant, and status and position are inherited\nby men from prominent families. I do not know if fishermen\u2019s machismo has\nsomething to do with not wearing masks, but this is a population proud of being\nhealthy because of its high fish diet, and there are some people who seem to have\nactively resisted wearing masks so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
PhD research Chisaki Fukushima in a hand made mask. Credit: Chisaki Fukushima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Masks and sneezing<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The common\npattern when people sneeze without a mask is to cover their mouth with the palm\nof their hand. Coughing and clearing the throat are associated with more varied\nhand gestures, including covering the mouth with the hand either stretched or\nin a fist. Using a hand to cover one\u2019s mouth remains common in public spaces with\nor without mask. However, people in the home environment tend to alternate behaviours\nby not using their hand at all or covering their mouths with their hand slightly\nfurther out in front of the mask. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gendered divisions<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

I have\nobserved that both purchasing and crafting masks from scratch generally seems\nto be done by female family members, either the wife of the head of household\nor the wife of the older generation of the household. Machiko-san, an informant,\ncomplained, \u201cThere are no masks at the shop so I thought, I must make it\nrather than exposing (one\/my)self to risk without wearing a mask!\u201d<\/em> She\npicked a couple of masks out of her beautiful batch for me. When she is praised\nby people, she demurs, \u201cNo, no, no, I just made use of a piece of textile that\nwas of no use at home, handkerchiefs and towels, rather than let them go to waste.\nThey are not authentic at all and only made up by myself (laughter)<\/em>.\u201d I\nwear her mask every day and sometimes see the same patterns and designs worn by\nstrangers on the street. I assume they were given by Machiko-san. Handmade masks\nare becoming very popular these days because people stay at home with reduced outside\nwork, and this is something they can make at home. That is an interesting case\nof people\u2019s needs matching their interests and talents in the face of the Covid-19\nemergency.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, masks are the first thing to run out stock at stores. It is\nnot an exaggeration to say that the everyday discussions start and end with\nmasks. I clearly see the mask becoming perceived to be one of life\u2019s\n\u2018necessities\u2019. The cultural connotations of this are profound, but as yet,\nunknowable.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Palmer, Edwina<\/a>; Rice, Geoffrey W<\/a>.(1992) \u2018A Japanese Physician’s Response to Pandemic Influenza: Ijiro Gomibuchi\nand the “Spanish Flu” <\/em>in Yaita-Cho, 1918-1919\u2019. Bulletin of the History of Medicine<\/strong><\/a>; Baltimore,\nMd. Vol.66 Issue.4<\/strong>: 560. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PhD researcher Chisaki Fukushima is currently in Japan conducting fieldwork. Covid-19 has caused the nature of her fieldwork to change, which she has had to adapt to, but it has also provided an opportunity to observe other phenomena, particularly, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7447,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7447"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/cre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}