午夜剧场

Of all the books I have written so far, this is the one I was most happy and proud to publish. I think it is because it felt less like "my book" and more like "everyone's book."

By "everyone," I mean the members of the "Tojisha-Kenkyu Group for Difficulty in Living." People who face some form of "difficulty in living," such as school non-attendance or social withdrawal (hikikomori), gather to share their own questions through dialogue. This book is the result of fieldwork conducted with this group.

Some might think, "Difficulty in living? That has nothing to do with me." However, what I sought to examine in this book is the universal challenge of how a person lives. While every human being is a distinct individual, humans are also beings who cannot help but live within connections. In that context, how can "being oneself" and "being with others" coexist? This is a difficult question for anyone, but for those who have experienced difficulty fitting into everyday organizations like schools or workplaces, it often becomes a binary choice: "suppress oneself to fit into the group" or "express oneself and be excluded from the group." Through the practice of creating a concrete space, I considered ways for individuals and groups to exist that do not fall into that trap.

Words like "ibasho" (a place where one belongs) and "dialogue" carry an impression of being inherently "good things." In reality, however, there is much conflict, and they are not always purely positive. An "ibasho" can be as chaotic as a "yaminabe" (mystery hot pot), and "dialogue" is often accompanied by a sense of inadequacy or pain. Relationships are fluid and change even as I write about them. Rather than being an observer, I was part of the space—getting caught up in it, struggling, and going through a long period of writing and then discarding what I wrote. Something began to move when I realized that I should—and indeed, had no choice but to—write about this state of being "caught up" itself.

This book originated as a doctoral dissertation and barely maintains the form of an academic text. However, there are worlds that cannot be seen from the "objective and neutral" standpoint that is the basic stance of academic writing. Throughout this book, "I" appear here and there. It was "everyone" who dragged out the "I" that had been hiding in the background, and behind my thoughts and words were the questions posed to me by "everyone." That is why I believe the true authors of this book are "everyone."

Rie Kido

Nippon Hyoron Sha

336 pages, 2,750 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.