becoming, not vanishing
Eminent scholars from Fredric Jameson, Alain Badiou, to Slavoj Žižek used the term “vanishing mediator” to refer to the transience of concepts, practices, and individuals mediating antagonisms and contradictions. Vanishing is a word they use, quite naturally, as European intellectuals theorizing the historical nature of social phenomena. Adopting the gaze of shutai, however, the object of their analysis looks to me like the subject of my practice as a translator and an interpreter of European theory. I am a mediator of European theory and I do not vanish! Hence I place an emphasis on becoming over vanishing in the hope of transforming the antagonism which my becoming stands in relation to their vanishing as part of our collective history.
My Journey to Shutai
I grew up between Japan and the United States—my father worked for a Japanese electronics firm, while my mother, an educator, wanted her children to become bilingual so I spent my weekdays attending an American public school and my Saturdays at a Japanese supplementary school. This early experience of moving between two worlds sparked a lifelong fascination with how culture shapes—and is shaped by—the choices people make.
In college, I discovered Cultural Anthropology and wondered if it could help clarify some of my experiences of not quite feeling at ease with the world. Graduate school taught me social science theories, which helped me learn concepts that could explain some of the difficult experiences I had growing up, which liberated me from a culturally- and policy-mediated binary thinking.
When I went out into the world after receiving my Ph.D., I realized that people everywhere—teachers, corporate workers, politicians—spoke obsessively about becoming shutai as if it held the key to solving all our social problems. But no one could clearly explain what shutai actually meant.
That question became my driving force. If shutai is so central to how we think about becoming and belonging, I needed to understand it deeply—not as a concept to apply, but as a lived practice. This is what led me to create Metabolic Sociology: a framework for exploring how we become mediatiang agents of change through concrete, embodied engagement with the world.
The role of policy
Anthropologists often discuss the nature-culture divide, yet rarely address the impact of policy in shaping both. Japan was occupied by the Allied Forces from 1945 to 1952. The postwar period, especially the economic boom from the 1960s to the 1980s, was deeply influenced by occupation policies. These policies shaped cultural narratives such as ‘Japanese collectivism vs. American individualism’ and ‘Japanese homogeneity vs. American diversity.’ Policy took the outcome of history and naturalized it as distinctions. It facilitated an international division of labor, reinforcing security while expanding economic influence.
Nature's Copernican Turn
Today, there is growing consensus that prioritizing economic growth above all else is unsustainable. Concepts like Gross Domestic Happiness were introduced to shift focus from wealth to well-being, but their success has been limited. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment’s concept of ecosystem services and the System of Environmental Economic Accounting (SEEA EA) are revolutionary steps in integrating nature into economic decision-making. These ideas influence all aspects of life, including culture and society.
Learning about ecosystem services, particularly cultural services, was an eye-opener for me in an era where culture is increasingly used as an economic instrument. As a graduate student, I taught Japanese pop culture simply because it was part of the curriculum. However, when teaching study-abroad students, I couldn’t ignore the fact that the course often functioned as an entertainment-driven, credit-earning mechanism rather than a meaningful educational experience.
There is nothing wrong with making money or enjoying entertainment, but when these motives overshadow education, we must reassess priorities. Capitalism’s consumerist mentality extends beyond goods—it commodifies knowledge and people. I became convinced that institutions should resist reducing education to mere transactions.
Body as Capital
In Japan, people not necessarily limited to the working classes often mention that ‘my body is my capital’ (karada ga shihon). It is said with the idea that physical activity, whether in sports, leisure, exercise, or commuting, builds not only a healthy body but also a balanced mind. It also conveys the understanding that no amount of social nor economic capital can replace our health, which is a capital all other capitals depend on.
This phrase, karada ga shihon, also highlights how culture can be seen as a service derived from nature. Physical skills, whether in sports or the arts, cannot simply be bought or replicated by AI. They require years of embodied practice, reinforcing the connection between culture and nature.
Why Study Shutai?
As a graduate student, I was interested in machizukuri, which may be translated as ‘village-making.’ I thought machizukuri turned the traditional enterprise of Anthropology of ‘village-study’ inside-out.
If village-study was about anthropologists armed with European theories to study non-European cultures, then machizukuri was all about the practice of making cultures. Machizukuri does not discriminate the ‘expert’ anthropologist from the ‘lay’ locals. Machizukuri invites everybody to participate in the making of one’s village or city.
Graduate school trained me to become an anthropologist. While anthropological theories may have helped me write my dissertation, they didn’t help solve any social issues. And there are many social issues in Japan today like an aging population, declining birth rate, rising government debt, and a dwindling economy.
Soon I noticed that shutai was being used like a magical word that held the key to solving all the pressing social issues that we were collectively facing. Teachers want their students to become shutai, companies want their workers to become shutai, politicians want citizens to become shutai. Everybody wants others and themselves to become shutai, but I didn’t know what it meant.
If I don’t know what shutai means, then I can’t be or become a shutai. So I decided to take it upon myself to study shutai, and so began my adventure to become. . . .