{"product_id":"making-meaningful-lives-iza-kavedzija-9780812251364","title":"Making Meaningful Lives: Tales from an Aging Japan","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhat makes for a meaningful life? In the Japanese context, the concept of \u003ci\u003eikigai\u003c\/i\u003e provides a clue. Translated as \"that which makes one's life worth living,\" \u003ci\u003eikigai\u003c\/i\u003e has also come to mean that which gives a person happiness. In Japan, where the demographic cohort of elderly citizens is growing, and new modes of living and relationships are revising traditional multigenerational family structures, the elderly experience of \u003ci\u003eikigai\u003c\/i\u003e is considered a public health concern. Without a relevant model for meaningful and joyful older age, the increasing older population of Japan must create new cultural forms that center the \u003ci\u003eikigai\u003c\/i\u003e that comes from old age. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eMaking Meaningful Lives\u003c\/i\u003e, Iza Kavedzija provides a rich anthropological account of the lives and concerns of older Japanese women and men. Grounded in years of ethnographic fieldwork at two community centers in Osaka, Kavedzija offers an intimate narrative analysis of the existential concerns of her active, independent subjects. Alone and in groups, the elderly residents of these communities make sense of their lives and shifting \u003ci\u003eikigai\u003c\/i\u003e with humor, conversation, and storytelling. They are as much providers as recipients of care, challenging common images of the elderly as frail and dependent, while illustrating a more complex argument: maintaining independence nevertheless requires cultivating multiple dependences on others. \u003ci\u003eMaking Meaningful Lives\u003c\/i\u003e argues that an anthropology of the elderly is uniquely suited to examine the competing values of dependence and independence, sociality and isolation, intimacy and freedom, that people must balance throughout all of life's stages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Iza Kavedzija\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0812251369\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780812251364\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pennsylvania Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 07\/26\/2019\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 216\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.05lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.00d","brand":"Iza Kavedzija","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":43988284309759,"sku":"9780812251364","price":50.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_ad074174-8a02-4b82-9ed7-35797ccf0039.jpg?v=1683293662","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/making-meaningful-lives-iza-kavedzija-9780812251364","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}