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The Emerging Consciousness of Japanese Voluntarism
Author(s) -
Rausch Anthony S.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
international journal of japanese sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.133
H-Index - 15
eISSN - 1475-6781
pISSN - 0918-7545
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6781.1998.tb00054.x
Subject(s) - voluntarism (philosophy) , consciousness , terminology , perspective (graphical) , social consciousness , sociology , political science , epistemology , law , philosophy , linguistics , artificial intelligence , computer science
This paper examines Japanese voluntarism from a historical perspective, through which it can be seen that it is not volunteerism and volunteer activity per se which is emerging in contemporary Japanese society, but instead an emerging consciousness of volunteerism and an associated emerging terminology of volunteerism. This emerging consciousness is in part a function of social evolution, and in part due to an administrative generated movement to generate a volunteer spirit in Japan, the borantiu‐katsudo movement. This emerging consciousness has on the one hand benefitted existing categories of volunteerism by increasing their visibility and expanding their dimensional character and relevance. On the other hand, this emerging consciousness has also generated some unforeseen forms of contemporary volunteerism.