Following is the English translation of: HABUCHI Ichiyo. "Shohyō: Chinen Ayumu-cho Yancha-na ko ra no esunogurafii: Yankii no seikatsu sekai o egakidasu." Kazoku shakaigaku kenkyū 31.2 (2018): 197-198.
*For citations, please use the original publication.
HABUCHI Ichiyo. “An Ethnography of ‘Yancha Kids’: Describing the World of Yankii (Seikyūsha, 2018) by CHINEN Ayumu.”
Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda
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Up until now, I had believed that the category of yankii (delinquent youth), like that of otaku (subculture fanatics, usually male) and fujoshi (female anime/manga fans, usually interested in “Boys Love” genre), was a self-imposed one (Sacks 1979). This book has prompted me to reconsider the validity of this view.
The book is based on author Chinen Ayumu’s ten-year qualitative research project on a group of young people designated as yancha (mischievous kids) by their teachers at X high school in Osaka prefecture. In this book, Chinen surveys the pre-existing research on yankii studies and divides it into three types: (1) ethnographic research that presents “yankii-ness as youth culture” from the perspective of the in-group; (2) socio-educational research that represents “yankii-ness as student culture”; and (3) poverty studies research that presents “yankii-ness as socioeconomic culture.” Each of these types of studies, Chinen argues, shows how the “yankii group” is regarded as a representative of a certain culture (chapter 1).
Along with previous research on the subject, the author acknowledges that there is a certain value in paying attention to the similarities within the yankii group and in clarifying its tendencies. However, the focus of this book is on the group’s heterogeneity. Chinen describes and analyzes the everyday practices of yankii that are established within different dynamics that play out in multilayered ways across different spaces, such as that of the ‘media street,’ the school, as well as the social environment. In this description, the author places particular emphasis on the differences and socio-economic hierarchies that emerge between members of the yankii group. So then, who are the yancha kids (Chapter 3)? The yancha kids at X High School employ non-linguistic means to show that they are yancha. Mostly they show this through their attitude, or by having a record of deviant behavior. The author analyzes how yancha kids use the interpretive frame of inkyara (editor’s note: this is an abbreviation of inki na kyarakutaa, which literally means “quiet/socially awkward characters”), that is, exhibit their dominance over the inkyara kids to demonstrate their relationship to different kinds of masculinity. There is no indication in this case study whether the delinquent youth consciously identify themselves with the term yancha. However, the author explains that yancha kids express themselves to distinguish themselves from inkyara kids by taunting and bullying them as well as by applying interpretive frameworks to position themselves vis-a-vis the inkyara.
According to Chinen, the school is like a magnetic field for yancha kids’ everyday practices (Chapter 2). Here, the author interestingly points out that yancha kids do not entirely subvert the values of school culture. They generally find it important to graduate from high school and display a positive attitude toward the teacher. But rather than lending itself to regular school attendance, in some cases, that positive attitude ends up having the opposite effect when kids become distanced from school. It seems that the main reason yancha kids stop going to school is due to family and economic problems.
Among yancha kids, there are those who grow up in an economically disadvantaged household, and those that do not. Chinen takes as an example three kids who grew up in economically impoverished households and analyzes their families as well (Chapter 4). In regards to previous research on families and poverty, it has been pointed out that Japanese society relies too heavily on the family to provide care. However, the family cannot be taken as serving merely an instrumental function in this regard, but also an expressive function. Within this expressive function, there is a demand for identity upon which the author shines an analytical light. In so doing, Chinen points out that, for yancha kids living with the reality of being from poor families, their identity in relation to their families is relative and constantly in flux. Additionally, the author describes how, for those who are raised in poor families, their identities are lacking inconsistency, which tends to be recognized by those around them.
As the author repeatedly points out, among the youth designated as yancha kids, there exist “societal rifts” created by their varying economic and familial situations. Such “societal rifts” between more fortunate and less fortunate youths are even more clearly observed and described in the context of the labor market (Chapter 5). Among the yancha kids who appear in this book, 8 out of 14 dropped out of high school. The major reason for this was the worsening conditions of their day-to-day environment that often resulted in deviant behavior, which then led to the youth being sent to juvenile reformatories and detention centers. From the perspective of the yancha kids, the main reason for their dropping out of school was the worsening conditions of their everyday environment. However, whether or not they dropped out of high school did not fully determine their job situation afterward. Rather, whether or not yancha kids were able to find a “job with prospects” depended more on how incorporated they were into their local network. This is where the “societal rifts” become discernible among the young people perceived as yancha kids.
The book shows how, concretely speaking, whether or not yancha kids were able to secure a stable living situation (i.e. whether or not they had relatively stable family relationships) as they moved from school to the workforce was a very important resource in their ability to choose their job. Access to parental “inherited capital,” in other words, differences in the environments in which they grew up and differences in past experience, is argued to be an important factor in yancha kids’ livelihood after they graduated or dropped out of school. This is explained as part of the process through which the “injustices in relationality” distribute social relations and capital.
This is an excellent book that makes full use of qualitative research methods to describe the heterogeneity and plurality of yancha kids. It succeeded in showing the process of how yancha kids move from the school to the workplace, as well as the variety of lifestyles among them. However, although I agreed with the book’s depiction of the complex and often contradictory lifeworld of the yancha kids, as a reader I was left wanting to know something that was not addressed in the text: namely, how do yancha kids understand themselves, and how do they categorize themselves? And what do they think about teachers and those around them referring to them as yancha kids? While I agree that they establish their position at school by distancing themselves from the figure of inkyara, is it the case that they think of themselves as yancha types? If yancha is not a self-imposed category, but rather a category imposed on them by adults, then it might be possible to conduct an analysis of the so-called labeling theory as well (though it’s a rather old theory).
Perhaps it is because teachers and others around them refer to these youth as yancha, that the category known as yancha exists at all. In order to affirm their own identity, the young people engage in delinquent behavior such as bullying the inkyara, thereby determining their role and position within the group. This process, suggested by Chinen, is not just an interpretive one but a conceptual one. If engaging in deviant behavior essentially confirms their position within the group, then perhaps the reference group is equivalent to the abstract notion of “yancha kids.”
It is also very interesting to see how the identity of the yancha kids changes alongside their own growth as well as changes in their environments. I was intrigued by the important finding that yancha kids’ inconsistency in their self-identity is linked to being from a poor family. When the inconsistency of these youths’ identity is recognized by those around them, it is possible that this undermines their ability to build relationships that offer them support. As a reader, I agree with the author’s suggestion that non-family members should offer support to poor families in a way that allows yancha kids to maintain their identification with their own families. I highly recommend reading this well-researched work.
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Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda, PhD.
Writer, teacher and translator. Dr. Kuroda received her PhD in Japanese from UC Berkeley in 2018, after which she became a postdoctoral fellow at the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies at Harvard University (2018-2019). Born in Tokyo, raised in Texas, she currently lives in Boston.
黒田ホフマン理沙 (文学博士)
ライター・教育者・翻訳者。２０１８年、カリフォルニア大学バークレー校にて日本文学博士号を取得し、その後一年間、ハーバード大学ライシャワー日本研究所で、ポストドクトラルフェローを務める。 東京生まれのテキサス育ちで、現在はボストンに在住。