The Metamorphosis of Excess: ‘Rubbish Houses’ and the Imagined Trajectory of Things in Post-Bubble Japan
Year: 2018
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: This chapter looks at the ways in which the 'rubbish house' (gomi yashiki) emerged in Japan as a socially recognized phenomenon in the years after the collapse of the bubble economy.Rather than understanding it as a local variation of hoarding, the aim is to locate the gomi yashiki as a phenomenon related to consumption at the intersection of two distinct regimes of value: the bubble years of overconsumption in the 1980s and the years of economic stagnation in the 1990s.The rubbish house can be conceptualized as a place of stagnation, from where things can always return.Uncomfortably straddling the gap between discourses on wastefulness (mottainai) and self-enhancing consumerism, it becomes a manifestation of the ambiguity of value itself.
Author: Fabio Gygi
Institution: University of Amsterdam
Language: English
Topic: Japanese History and Culture
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W2904948272