Book Review 
 
Review of Kavedžija, Iza. Making Meaningful Lives: Tales 

from an Aging Japan. Philadelphia: University of 
Pennsylvania Press. 2019. pp 208. Price: $45 
(Hardcover); $24.50 (Paperback and eBook). 

 

Theresa Southam 

Teaching and Learning Centre, Selkirk College 
tsoutham@email.fielding.edu 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anthropology & Aging, Vol 43, No 2 (2022), pp. 116-118 

ISSN 2374-2267 (online) DOI 10.5195/aa.2022.434 

 

  

 

 

 
 

 
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 

 
This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as 

part of its 

D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. 



           Book Review | Southam |  

  

 

Anthropology & Aging  

Vol 43 No 2 (2022) ISSN 2374-2267 (online) DOI 10.5195/aa.2022.434 http://anthro-age.pitt.edu 

116 

 

Book Review 
 
Review of Kavedžija, Iza. Making Meaningful Lives: Tales 
from an Aging Japan. Philadelphia: University of 

Pennsylvania Press. 2019. pp 208. Price: $45 
(Hardcover); $24.50 (Paperback and eBook). 

 

Theresa Southam 

Teaching and Learning Centre, Selkirk College 

tsoutham@email.fielding.edu 

 

 

  

 

“Must an anthropology of the elderly be about aging?” With this provocation, anthropologist Iza 

Kavedžija opens Making Meaningful Lives, a book in which she pursues prevailing issues in 

contemporary ‘aging’ Japan based on fieldwork in community salons for older adults. Her focus is on 

how ‘care’ is here maintained during a rapid demographic change and more specifically to “the 

moments when—against the odds or despite the challenges that face them—people manage to hold 

things in balance, and care works” (172). Making Meaningful Lives explores moral compasses over a large 

spectrum, from individuals at her ethnographic field sites—community salons—to civil society in 

Japan. The salons Kavedžija attends as her field sites are rooms, in storefront locations with tables and 

chairs, where older adults can pass the time and have a cup of tea. She pays particular attention to how 

the changing roles of the government, particularly in programs like these salons as well as home support 

for older adults, ripple down as everyday care. 

 

In Making Meaningful Lives, care relates to an attitude expressed in Japanese as ikigai. Kavedžija says of 

ikigai, what and who one cares for is “closely related to purpose in life [and] sometimes considered the 

basis of ikigai”(3). The kind of care Kavedžija documents resonates with what is articulated in an ethic 

of care: a moral theory developed in the mid-eighties (Gilligan 1993; Noddings 1988). An ethic of care 

places emphasis on relationships, social networks, and other human interdependencies. Kavedžija’s 

research participants struggle to maintain the wellness of both care-receivers and caregivers. For 

example, newer generations in Japan can interpret ikigai as personal happiness, having perhaps seen 

their parents weight familial or work responsibilities at the expense of their own happiness. This sole 

focus on personal happiness might result in a loss of purpose in life, an outcome that is captured in the 

last of the five phases of the ethic of care as developed by Joan Tronto (2013). The first four may seem 

familiar: caring for, caring about, caregiving, and care receiving. However, the last, caring with, 

emphasizes the reciprocal nature of caring, where the carer must also receive some benefit. The 

ethnography Making Meaningful Lives examines how traditional interpretations of ikigai which include 

a “sense of contribution to the larger social whole”(2) can be maintained by not only caring for others 

but receiving, in turn, a life with purpose.  

 

The chapters of Making Meaningful Lives analyze interviews with the salon’s members and organizers 

in relation to seven main themes: aging communities, mutual help, living well together, life stories, 

intimacy and interdependence, life as a path, and the good life. The first two chapters introduce readers 

to the field sites Kavedžija attended to in 2009—Shimoichi in old downtown Osaka and Awara in Fukui 

http://anthro-age.pitt.edu/


           Book Review | Southam |  

  

 

Anthropology & Aging  

Vol 43 No 2 (2022) ISSN 2374-2267 (online) DOI 10.5195/aa.2022.434 http://anthro-age.pitt.edu 

117 

Prefecture, Japan—and to some key concepts in Japanese cultures such as ikigai—the social value of a 

person’s life—and living “a good life,” a theme that emerged from her research. In Chapter 1, “Subjects 

of Care,” we learn that in the salons, care is done “through giving gifts, offering measured statements 

that are polite yet friendly, dropping in on each other, giving information and recommendations, taking 

up volunteering, and helping out”(7). These acts of caring, Kavedžija finds, are “intimately related to 

the idea of purpose in life, as these entwinements with others so often lie at the very heart of one’s sense 

of a meaningful existence” (8). Throughout the book, photos of the communities in which the salons are 

situated give a sense of the differences in the degree of urbanity that surround the two salons. In Chapter 

2, “Aging Communities,” the author argues that salons create communities of care in a civil society that 

is struggling with demographic change. Kavedžija outlines how the government of Japan socialized 

care of older adults in response to the “perceived weakening and the limited capacities of families to 

care for the elderly” (26). The government introduced long-term care insurance (LTCI) in April 2000. 

LTCI is government funding for people over the age of 65 who need support to avoid full 

institutionalization or total reliance on family. The government funding is dispensed through both 

public and private providers. The salons are part of the distribution of this insurance as their staff 

organizes and pays home care providers. 

 

Chapter 3, “Mutual Help,” explains how Kavedžija’s field sites benefited from the LTCI while 

maintaining volunteer programs. In doing so the organizations weighed the benefits of volunteering 

where rich social relations can be developed against the potentially excessive demands that result from 

thick social networks. Both volunteers and users are charged a membership fee with the assumption 

that someone who at first gives volunteer support might in turn become a recipient. For example, a 

young mother might help an older adult and later receive some babysitting support. This mutual aid is 

organized with a voucher system. Kavedžija argues that such a formalized exchange of services could 

help to restore the balance between social interdependence and autonomy. This seems unlike 

community care that is less organized. Still, in larger urban centres, more formalized solutions to care, 

like those Kavedžija describes in Japan, may indeed be a solution to the systematic unravelling of social 

networks that can be a casualty of neoliberal agendas.  

 

In Chapter 4, “Living Well Together,” the balance between autonomy and dependence is further 

explored through the “personal but not intimate” (65) relationships that Kavedžija witnesses. There is 

an interesting discussion about how much tatemae persona—external and rule-bound—and how much 

honne persona—expression of one’s true self—occurs in the salons as well as how both personae can be 

cultivated throughout the lifecourse. Kavedžija explains that even when salon goers seem “all right” 

they might have difficulties of which their fellow salon goers are unaware. Outbursts from salon goers, 

although rare, are interpreted as possible expressions of one’s honne persona. Another communication 

form discussed is ‘talking practice,’ an integral part of coming together for tea in the salon. In the salons, 

dialogue on topics such as food, local geographies, politics, self-development, appearance, aging and 

health, death, family, and leisure can be okeiko. Okeiko indicates a kind of self-development that happens 

if the salon goers are self-reflective and making meaning of their lives through these exchanges.  

 

In Chapter 5, “A Life in a Story,” model stories endemic to Japan, such as the ‘salary man’ and the 

‘housewife’ are set against the life stories of some of Kavedžija’s research participants. Like Arthur W. 

Frank (2010), Kavedžija believes that our expectations are moderated by our life stories which “can only 

exist in relation to the others available in one’s culture or which circulate in society” (85). The meaning 

of our lives, Kavedžija posits, depends heavily on whether we adopt or resist model stories. Among her 

participants are older adults who followed and those who resisted model life stories. Both can be 

impactful in harmful and beneficial ways. The research participant Kawasaki-san resisted the model 

story of staying with one’s career throughout the lifespan by leaving teaching.  Kavedžija narrates: 

http://anthro-age.pitt.edu/


           Book Review | Southam |  

  

 

Anthropology & Aging  

Vol 43 No 2 (2022) ISSN 2374-2267 (online) DOI 10.5195/aa.2022.434 http://anthro-age.pitt.edu 

118 

 

Kawasaki-san felt that his work in school was utterly ordinary and unchallenging, and 

he felt he couldn’t bear to think that he would spend the rest of his time in such a way. 

He is a human being who needs stimuli: “That is my ikigai.” It seems that Kawasaki-san 

sees himself as a person who likes a challenge and dislikes routine, who replaced the 

security of this mild employment with the challenging and often dangerous 

environment of his insurance company work. (97) 

 

Chapter 6, “Intimacy and Independence,” adds further evidence to recent findings about the importance 

of intragenerational communication. Whereas in the past most of the emphasis has been placed on the 

importance of intergenerational relations for older adults, she finds that her participants are building 

up networks within their friend groups, especially where family ties have weakened, and that these 

relationships can be as beneficial as those with family. A salon goer who did not appear as expected one 

day was sought out by other salon goers before her family thought to investigate. Her fellow salon goers 

found she was ill and helped with groceries and friendship. In the seventh and final chapter Kavedžija 

summarizes her findings. She reflects on whether her participants are rational actors in their self-

development or if the choices that lead to the ‘good life’ are more a case of judicial opportunism.  

 

In the end, Kavedžija responds to her own opening provocation: Making Meaningful Lives is not 

necessarily about aging, but about living well throughout the lifespan. In this book we learn about lives 

finding meaning and lives losing meaning. It is an intermixing of rich life stories, observations of the 

salons, and artful critiques of life story approaches and narrative identity. The participants’ voices are 

directly quoted and remade as narratives by the author. Making Meaningful Lives will cause readers to 

reflect on how a society and country might respond to demographic changes with care. Similar increases 

in the percentage of the aging population are occurring worldwide and culturally specific caring 

responses are needed urgently. There are a few stunning gems in the text like “gratitude is not 

irrelevant” (159) which powerfully link to everyday care practices. Kavedžija herself says that “care in 

its multiple incarnations within efforts to live well offers a different perspective, one deeply embedded 

in everyday life” (172). Although participant voices are Japanese, an international public will benefit 

from the universality of the findings of the book such as the importance of mutual aid and care. If 

anything, the importance of these topics has been heightened during the pandemic.  

   

References  

Frank, Arthur W. 2010. Letting Stories Breathe: A Socio-narratology: University of Chicago Press. 

Gilligan, Carol. 1993. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, Ma: Harvard 

University Press. 

Noddings, Nel. 1988. "An Ethic of Caring and Its Implications for Instructional Arrangements."  American Journal 

of Education 96(2): 215-230. doi: 10.1086/443894. 

Tronto, Joan C. 2013. Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice. New York: NYU Press. 

 

 

 

http://anthro-age.pitt.edu/