Lecture by Dr Anna Wozny

Lecture: Marriage-hunting: Marriage ‘Markets’ and the Rationalization of Intimacy
in Contemporary Japan

Talk by: Dr Anna Wozny (Joint postdoctoral fellow at Tokyo College and Princeton
University)
Monday, April 22, 2024
13:00-14:30
Room 92B, 9th floor, Engineering Bldg. 2 Hongo Campus, University of Tokyo
(Location: https://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/campusmap/cam01_04_03_j.html)
In-person only, no registration requried.

Language: English
Organized by: Itatsu Lab, Supported by ITASIA Program
Inquiries: itatsu.lab”@”gmail.com

Lecture description:
The stratospheric rise of new dating technologies and services – from dating apps
to group dating events – is transforming the ways people meet their partners and
understand their intimate experiences in Japan. Termed “marriage-hunting”
(konkatsu), after the Japanese word for job-hunting (shūkatsu), these services
require that individuals approach finding a spouse in a manner similar to securing
quality employment in an increasingly competitive, unequal, and precarious labor
market. In this talk, I explore these parallels by showing how participation in the
marriage-hunting market renders the search for intimacy a rational, calculated
pursuit. The market logic of marriage-hunting compels individuals to look for
partners based on rigid, gendered criteria and to calibrate their expectations of
intimate relationships relative to their social location. By elucidating these cultural
logics of marriageability, this talk illuminates the linkages between commodification
of intimacy and the shifting political economy in Japan.

Dr Anna Wozny bio:
Anna Woźny is a joint postdoctoral fellow at Tokyo College and Princeton
University. She received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Michigan
in 2023. Her research focuses on contemporary Japanese society and analyzes
how changes in the political economy shape and are shaped by the shiing
conceptions of gender and family. Her research on marriage-hunting was
supported by the ACLS/Mellon Foundation and the Japan Foundation. An article
based on this research was published in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society. She is currently working on a book manuscript tentatively titled Marriage- hunting: Markets, Morals and Marriageability in Contemporary Japan.