Home Away from Home

“An incisive and even affecting work that situates home life as a nexus for global forces and local practices. . . . This fine ethnography should contribute to debates in Japanese studies as well as to broader ones surrounding gender and transnationalism.” - David Leheny, Journal of Anthropological Research

“For anyone interested in transnational identities and the domestic work of globalisation this book makes fascinating reading. . . . A tantalising invitation to explore further the intimates spaces of dislocation and transnational angst, particularly as felt by women.” - Cory Taylor, Asian Studies Review

“Sawa Kurotani offers an engaging and persuasive account of how the kaigai-chûzai experience, or corporate overseas posting, affects Japanese housewives. . . . There is much to recommend in this enjoyable and elegantly written study.” - Ronald P. Loftus, Journal of Gender Studies

“This well-written book offers us detailed ethnographic descriptions about Japanese women in a particular group outside Japan who are reexamining their lives as wives and mothers.” - Ayumi Sasagawa, Social Science Japan Journal

"Home Away from Home offers an interesting and highly readable account of small communities of Japanese expatriate wives in the United States. . . . These are indeed interesting findings which add to our understanding of aspects of the very complex phenomenon of globalisation." - Rumi Sakamoto, The Australian Journal of Anthropology

"Given the lack of attention afforded to privilege migrants, and women's roles in the corporate assignments described here in particular, Kurotani's study is a timely and important contribution to an emerging field." - Anne-Meike Fechter, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

"Sawa Kurotani's ethnographic work . . . is . . . a delightfully easy read for anyone interested in the ideology of Japanese domestic life. . . . Revealing. . . . Fascinating." - Colin Donald, Daily Yomiuri

“Sawa Kurotani reveals the centrality of women’s domesticity to transnational mobility among Japanese families and families everywhere. She has a fine and affectionate ethnographic eye.” - Karen Kelsky, author of Women on the Verge: Japanese Women, Western Dreams

“Sawa Kurotani’s absorbing study offers new ethnographic insight into a common manifestation of globalization—the social bubbles created by corporate, government, and military families on foreign assignments. She sensitively analyzes how Japanese company wives in the U.S. work hard to maintain Japanese domesticity and how these efforts inadvertently but powerfully forge a new self-awareness. Home Away from Home teaches us a valuable lesson about how the local is constituted within the global.” - William W. Kelly, editor of Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan