Introduction: Globalization and Japan

The aim of this paper is to consider how the ‘area‘ called Japan can be studied in the age of globalisation. First, in order to understand the terms ‘globalisation’ and ‘global’ in a broad sense, and not in a narrow sense, as they relate to people living in Japan, I will clarify the usage and changes in the terms ‘globalisation’ and ‘global’ in Japan. Using the Asahi Shimbun database, I examined the usage of the terms ‘globalisation’ and ‘global’ from around 1990 to the present day. As a result, I identified changes in usage around 1990, when the term was limited to the field of international politics, around 2000 when it was limited to the field of the global economy, and around 2020 when it came to refer to various changes in a wide range of fields. Next, I summarise approaches to globalisation in Japanese studies and identify their problems. The term ‘Japanese studies’ here refers not only to the narrow field of Japanese studies conducted overseas, but also to all research that addresses the state of the ‘Japan’ area in some way or another. Through this summary, I identify the problem of spatial images that tend to be assumed in various Japanese studies that consider the ‘area’ of Japan, particularly the issues of ‘transcendence’ and ‘immanence’. By combining these two considerations, I will indicate two directions of future Japanese studies: the theme of ‘coexistence’ and ‘symbiosis’.