Socio-material arrangements of impoverished youth in Japan: historical and critical perspectives on neoliberalization

ABSTRACT

In the past decade, in Japan, a new light has been cast on youth poverty in the context of the middle-class impoverishment caused by the advance of neoliberalization. Thus, the socio-material arrangements, that is, the configuration of people and artifacts pertaining to poor Japanese children, was explored. The authors conducted a field survey in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward, where poverty and the problems it brings have become more serious, and then analyzed that data. In the analysis, we introduced a historical viewpoint to understand the changes in the socio-material arrangements of poor youth that have been brought about by neoliberalization.