PERSONAL, PORTABLE, PEDESTRIAN: BOOK REVIEW

The authors of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole have a key understanding of the complex and nuanced interplay between culture and technology. Shingo Dobashi’s piece in particular, The Gendered Use of Keitai in Domestic Contexts, addresses this interplay in a culturally relevant way. Because understanding the cultural framework surrounding the keitai is paramount in understanding the technology as a whole, Dobashi’s ethnographic approach to his piece is the focus of this paper. The value of any technology anywhere in the world is most effectively studied through its relationship with the immediate culture that surrounds it—a facet of research that does not necessarily limit its meaning to that particular culture. The research conducted and conclusions drawn in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian (and Dobashi’s piece specifically) embody many of Annette N. Markham’s research suggestions in her Internet Inquiry chapter addressing issues of time, space and culture. Where Dobashi’s piece (and all the essays included in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian) fall short is the lack of transparency regarding the researcher’s gender and sexuality, an element that Lori Kendall suggests can give important context to research.

Markham writes that “the adroit management of contingencies in the ever-changing internet contexts relies on solid grounding the practices and principles of social inquiry” (Markham 2009, 151). In any approach to the ever-changing sphere of digital media, especially when dealing with the subtexts of a highly metamorphic technology such as keitai, adhering to solid research methods is paramount in substantiating conclusions drawn about the culture being studied. In addition to abdicating solid research methods Markham illustrates the importance of understanding the framework that contextualizes your research. This idea becomes especially important when researching and writing about specific cultures. The researcher must both acknowledge the local situational factors and their relevance in a greater context.

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole addresses issues of locality versus globalism. In the introduction Mizuko Ito writes “we argue against the idea that variable technology use is an outcome of a universal technology (the mobile phone) encountering a particular national culture (Japan); both technology and culture are internally variable and distinctive” (Ito 2006, 14). Ito and the other essay authors address the immediate locality of their pieces (often within the umbrella culture of Japan as a whole), and yet explain why these cultural trends are important on a larger scale. Dobashi tackles the cultural hierarchy surrounding the Japanese housewife, and in so doing also deals with both the locality of the Japanese housewife in particular as well as alluding to a larger conversation about gender roles in different societies and their subsequent relationships with technology. He writes that “keitai can be understood not only as a transformation of existing social order, customs and culture but also as a simultaneous process of maintenance and reinforcement, depending on the social position of the user” (Dobashi 2006, 220).

In general the authors Personal, Portable, Pedestrian who take an ethnographic approach tend to be more diligent about defining their own role in the research, sometimes including specific information about their history in relationship to the culture they are studying. The point could be made that the nature of ethnographic studies requires a more transparent disclosure of the researcher’s own position, and yet discourse analysis, the collection and interpretation of quantitative data and a political economy approach all endow the researcher with a degree of power regarding what information is included and what is not—a subjectivity that is an important factor in how the research is conducted and presented.

Dobashi’s research was conducted primarily through interviews with Japanese housewives. His research group gathered information and interpreted it in an academically viable way. It is also culturally interesting and adheres to Markham’s guidelines for conducting work that is “meaningful across time, space and culture” (Markham 2009). While Dobashi exercises some sensitivity regarding the subtleties of gender issues, he and his research group do not include any transparency regarding their own embodiment of gender issues in the way Lori Kendall suggests in How Gender and Sexuality Influence Research Processes. Kendall views gender as a spectrum instead of a duality and hypothesizes that the work could be enriched with the researcher’s embodiment both of gender and sexuality. Dobashi does not include any mention of his own gender or sexuality in his research. Neither do any of the other essayists in Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, but because Dobashi’s chapter focuses specifically on one gender and on one subculture of that gender, it could be argued that his own assumptions and position regarding gender and sexuality are especially relevant.

Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole stands up remarkably well to the research suggestions outlined by the various authors of Internet Inquiry. On a more specific scale, Dobashi’s The Gendered Use of Keitai in Domestic Contexts is concurrent with many of Markham’s ideals regarding the necessity for a local context while still remaining viable in non-Japanese contexts. Dobashi attempts to cultivate a degree of sensitivity regarding issues of gender in his approach to studying Japanese housewives. He achieves this in part, but fails to deliver the degree of transparency regarding his own gender and sexuality suggested by Kendall. Still, despite this minor (and highly acceptable) shortfall, Dobashi’s approach to keitai use among housewives not only brings to light specific nuances of this subculture, but also aligns nicely with the overarching themes of Personal, Portable, Pedestrian as a whole.