SOC 248 Chapter Notes - Chapter SOC 248- Reading notes- Cultivating Japanese Whiteness: Western Standard, Japanese Aesthetics, Light Skin

• School: Stony Brook University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 248
• Professor: Caglar Cetin, Samee Shirazi, Tiffany Joseph

Document Summary

Meaning of a symbol is not simply produced or reproduced but represented and authorized through the body decoration in public . Idea of human agency missing: preference for white skin is matter of both beauty and race. Racial" group: many people attributed differences in skin tones to their birth placees, average skin tone of northern area and on sea of japan side=lighter, people in southern part + pacific side= darker. In reality every region has both: emphasizes that different skin tones are due to the different weather of the regions, okinawan informants did not apply theory of skin tone and birthplaces. Insisted the difference between okinawan people and us" was difference in ethnicity of culture, not in race: japanese people decided that her/his skin was dark because she/he came from. Informants said okinawan people were different not just culturally or historically but physically.