Constructing an Interior Public: uchi and soto in the Japanese Sharehouse

Abstract

Abstract The present article considers how the categories of private and public spheres (uchi and soto)—key terms of Japanese social behavior—are constructed through material practices in the home. In response to earlier discussions of uchi and soto that emphasized their stability, the article will explore how, in practice, their distinction is not absolute but relative, and relatively fluid. Based on fieldwork in a Japanese sharehouse, I discuss how residents used personal belongings, signs, and techniques of self-presentation to make claims about the nature of shared space, and what these claims reflected about their understandings of public and private in the more conventional Japanese home.