Introduction to Occupation or Nightwork

Introduction to Occupation: The Art and Science of Living: New Multidisciplinary Perspectives for understanding human occupation as a central feature of individual experience and social organization

Author: Charles H Christiansen

Human occupation is nothing less than the way we describe the experiences that account for our pathway through life - the activities that fill up each day. Its study leads to a greater understanding of how people view, orchestrate, draw meaning from, and improve their lives, as well as the satisfaction that they draw from life. Broad in perspective, Introduction to Occupation: The Art and Science of Living brings together an outstanding team of authors to explore both informal and formal ways for studying occupation.

Features:

• Discusses numerous ways to learn about occupation through observation.
• Details formal and informal ranges of research methods.
• Presents a framework for occupation across the lifespan.
• Highlights how identity is shaped by occupation.
• Outlines social responsibilities that result from occupations.
• Companion Website - prenhall.com/christiansen - provides interactive self-assessment with instant feedback.

Interesting textbook: The Fundraising Planner or Entrepreneurship

Nightwork: Sexuality, Pleasure, and Corporate Masculinity in a Tokyo Hostess Club

Author: Anne Allison

In Nightwork, Anne Allison opens a window onto Japanese corporate culture and gender identities. Allison performed the ritualized tasks of a hostess in one of Tokyo's many "hostess clubs": pouring drinks, lighting cigarettes, and making flattering or titillating conversation with the businessmen who came there on company expense accounts. Her book critically examines how such establishments create bonds among white-collar men and forge a masculine identity that suits the needs of their corporations.
Allison describes in detail a typical company outing to such a club—what the men do, how they interact with the hostesses, the role the hostess is expected to play, and the extent to which all of this involves "play" rather than "work." Unlike previous books on Japanese nightlife, Allison's ethnography of one specific hostess club (here referred to as Bijo) views the general phenomenon from the eyes of a woman, hostess, and feminist anthropologist.
Observing that clubs like Bijo further a kind of masculinity dependent on the gestures and labors of women, Allison seeks to uncover connections between such behavior and other social, economic, sexual, and gendered relations. She argues that Japanese corporate nightlife enables and institutionalizes a particular form of ritualized male dominance: in paying for this entertainment, Japanese corporations not only give their male workers a self-image as phallic man, but also develop relationships to work that are unconditional and unbreakable. This is a book that will appeal to anyone interested in gender roles or in contemporary Japanese society.

Table of Contents:

	Acknowledgments
	Prelude	1
	Introduction	7
Pt. 1	Ethnography of a Hostess Club	31
Ch. 1	A Type of Place	33
Ch. 2	A Type of Routine	42
Ch. 3	A Type of Woman	57
Pt. 2	Mapping the Nightlife within Cultural Categories	77
	Introduction	79
Ch. 4	Social Place and Identity	84
Ch. 5	The Meaning and Place of Work: The Sarariiman	91
Ch. 6	Family and Home	102
Ch. 7	Structure of Japanese Play	114
Ch. 8	Male Play with Money, Women, and Sex	124
Pt. 3	Male Rituals and Masculinity	143
	Introduction	145
Ch. 9	Male Bonding	151
Ch. 10	The Mizu Shobai Woman: Constructing Dirtiness and Sex	168
Ch. 11	Impotence as a Sign and Symbol of the Sarariiman	188
	References	205
	Index	211