{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.036340038935756006, 'fraction_numerical': 0.01135626216742375, 'mean_word_length': 5.117063492063492, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Searching for autonomy in and over precarious Japan

This introductory review aims to subject Anne Allison’s Precarious Japan (2013) to wider thinking and practices of autonomy, and to open it up to the book review forum for non-Japanese-speaking readers. First, it should be noted that so-called radical thought in Italy has permeated Japan and the English-speaking world since the publication of Empire in 2000. The translation of this and other key works of this thought has raised awareness of the intellectual and political background of concepts such as operaismo (workerism) and autonomia (autonomy). Further, some of the major concepts emanating from these movements, such as withdrawal, autonomy, refusal, composition, and creativity have penetrated the sphere of influence of some activists and researchers in Japan. Two famous thinkers from this Italian intellectual circle have visited Japan in recent years: Franco Berardi (alias Bifo) and Toni Negri. During their stay, both tackled the social and political issues of Japanese capitalist society (or ‘precarious Japan’) from their workerist stance. On first reading Precarious Japan, I immediately recognized frequent references to Berardi’s insights. Allison admits trying to ‘apply what he [Berardi] argues about soul alienation, and resistance [...] to the condition of precarity and precariat in twentyfirst century Japan’ (p. 16). This seemed quite a striking idea, because Berardi himself proposed a similar intention after going to Japan to protest against the G8 in 2008. Based on his experiences and discussions with representatives of the Japanese precariat, he subsequently wrote a text about precarious Japan in an appendix to the Japanese edition of his book Dell’innocenza. 1977 (Of innocence. 1977) on the histories of Italian autonomist movements in the 1970s. This appendix is provocatively entitled ‘Hikikomori of the world, unite!’ Hikikomori are mainly young male adults who represent social withdrawal inPrecarious Japan. Allison explains that ‘these individuals [...] often withdraw and remain in a single room they rarely, if ever, leave. Hikikomori are socially disconnected and detached from human contact: “homeless at home”’ (p. 3). Hikikomori, not only displaced from society but also from their own families, have no place they can call home (ibasho). If their parents do not have enough savings to pay for their sustenance, they are also at risk of becoming homeless or refugee-like (nanminka) in the streets or net cafes. The impression conveyed by the term hikikomori is of a state of extreme isolation, inactivity, and pain. From his autonomist perspective, however, Berardi ventures to consider hikikomori as a form of autonomous subjectivation. ‘The tendency which can be seen in this kind of behavior [of hikikomori] is that of withdrawal, of retreat, and of isolation or shut-in because they have nothing to do with the system of competition, psychological violence, and frustration’ (Berardi, 2010: 263). He then proposes a research agenda for Japanese as well as Western society: