The Spectre of Loneliness: Engaged aging in Japanese communities of care

Abstract: The spectre of loneliness is pervasive in contemporary Japanese society, which is increasingly characterised as muen shakai - a society without social ties, or an alienated society. In this paper, I describe multiple ways in which people try to ward off loneliness and create communities of care, craft relationships of support, and remain engaged in older age. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in a community organization in downtown Osaka, I examine multiple ways in which people sustain circulations of care to keep their communities alive. I explore how people make their lives liveable when their support networks fray and wither - for instance by cultivating relationships with more-than-human entities and focusing on self-cultivation. Based on recent fieldwork, I discuss the working lives of the elderly engaged in paid and unpaid employment, and the ways in which working in older age—while not always actively desired and sought after by elders—often inadvertently provides opportunities for involvement and maintaining social ties. Having focused on meaning making, care, connection and wellbeing in my work over the years, by reading my ethnography in inverse, I trace the affective and moral work performed by loneliness as a moral sentiment that orients people's actions.