In this research note,“Withdrawal and Belonging: Ethnographic Insights from a Hikikomori Rehabilitation Center in Japan,” published in the Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, I draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a rural rehabilitation center in Japan to illuminate the lived experiences of those deemed hikikomori.
The article examines hikikomori not as social anomalies, but as windows into how contemporary societies organize work, belonging, and moral value in an increasingly lonely world. It argues that further ethnographic research is essential to foreground the experiences of people too often reduced to stereotypes.
Elements of this research were previously explored in a public-facing essay for De Groene Amsterdammer; this article develops those insights into a broader anthropological and theoretical analysis.
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