Care, ethics, and omoiyari: doing ethnography in Japan

This research note proposes an adapted version of an ethics of care that begins from the position of omoiyari, empathy based on close attention, as a means of creating an ethical framework for ethnographic study design, research practice, and writing. Applying this ethical intention to research practice can enrich engagement with the focus of research, whether that focus is a person or a group of people, or a text or archive. Drawing from a four-year ethnohistorical research project in Japan, I demonstrate how omoiyari, applied as an adapted ethics of care, can show us new aspects of a research field and the study participants we work with, and identify design errors in the research plan as well as how to amend these errors. Finally, I explore writing strategies that not only underline the ethics of care shaping the research but also attempt to engage the reader in a relationship of care with the study participant. Weaving an omoiyari-informed ethics of care through research project design, fieldwork, and writing practices in this way can address care theorist Nel Noddings’ call to “build the conditions under which caring can flourish.”