Guidelines for a genealogical analysis of Japanese civil society: An approach from the history of mentalities, historical sociology, and ethnography

Abstract

This article aims to synthetically value the analytical and discursive mechanisms on which the doctoral research work that gives rise to this text has been based. Over a period of five years and under the title Genesis, development and characteristics of Japanese civil society, I have been examining the cultural and socio-political processes involved in the theoretical and factual transformation of the idea of “civil society” in Japan, especially in conjunctures of natural and human catastrophe. Thus, the article exposes how the hypotheses and objectives of the work have been configured and constituted, as well as the theoretical-methodological frameworks that have supported an investigation characterized by the analysis of multiple layers of complex reality, and in which some authors such as Koselleck, Bourdieu, Durkheim or Weber have exerted a notable influence.