Changes in the Discourse on Voluntary Work in Postwar Japan

Focusing on the Rhetoric of Personal Development and Subjectivity

Abstract

This paper considers how the rhetoric of personal development has become the dominant framework for evaluating voluntary activities in Japan. Until the 1970s, volunteer activities had carried various meanings. Some saw voluntary work as a social movement and were very sensitive to the social effects of voluntary activities. Once the welfare budget reached a high level and policies to encourage volunteer activities were initiated in the 1970s, the question of identity became more important than social problems, and volunteer activities came to be perceived as a mechanism for character building on the part of volunteers rather than as a mechanism for solving social problems.