Power, family, and filial responsibility related to elder care in rural Japan

This article explores the discourse on filial responsibility as it intersects with familial roles and power relationships as represented by women living in rural Japan. Using case studies, I consider some of the intergenerational and intragenerational issues that arise as Japanese women contemplate or attempt to cope with care of elder parents and consider the manner in which the concept of filial piety, or filial responsibility, is expressed and conceptualized in relation to these issues. I argue that many continue to think about elder care in ways that emphasize the responsibility of children to care for their parents, but that the discourse on filial piety is continually constructed and reconstructed as people provide and contest roles associated with elder care, both from the perspective of the child and from that of the parents. To explore these issues, I consider the cases of two women who were facing issues related to provision of care to elder parents and who structured these in terms of notions about filial responsibility. The cases were obtained during extended fieldwork in an agricultural community in northern Japan.