Abstract
This article uses the simple example of a Japanese business card as a threefold way to explore identity making, essentialist features, and what it is that anthropologists do. In Japan, the transmission of idealized forms of identity has been explained through numerous processes, such as national discourses or education. Yet, how stereotypical ways of being are reproduced and embedded in insignificant little things – like the worlds that collide on the two faces of a business card – is a subject that has received far less attention. Anthropology has much to gain by focusing on how everyday objects simplify, encapsulate or sanitize identities in ways that disregard the lived experiences of many.
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