I can’t make things that make life easier. I can’t heal illness with my hands. All I have are words. So I cast my words into the future, and keep going with reflection, ingenuity, and effort— in the hope that they will lead to a better one.
Maho Isono / Anthropologist
Specialized Fields
Cultural Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
Professor, Institute for Liberal Arts Research and Education, Tokyo University of Science (Formerly Tokyo Institute of Technology)
Director, De-Silo General Incorporated Association
Director, Applied Anthropology Research Institute / ANTHRO
Obedience Without Law：Japan’s COVID Years: Voluntary Compliance and the Power of Social Pressure
Open
When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn-Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher Living with Terminal Cancer and a Medical Anthropologist (co-authored with Makiko Miyano. Shobunsha, 2019)
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To Be Thin, To Be Loved: An Anthropologist's Message from a Country of Underweight Women
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Making Decisions Without Answers-An Anthropology of Healthcare Professionals and the Hidden Work of Care
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When Everyday Eating Breaks Down -A Cultural Anthropology of Eating Disorders and the Moral Life of Food (2015, Shunjusha. Tokyo)
Open
Obedience Without Law:Japan’s COVID Years: Voluntary Compliance and the Power of Social Pressure
🏆 Winner of the 33rd Yamamoto Shichihei Award (2024)
The Yamamoto Shichihei Award is a Japanese literary and non-fiction prize honoring outstanding works of social commentary and cultural criticism.Yamamoto Shichihei (1921–1991) was a Japanese essayist and social critic, best known for his sharp analyses of postwar Japanese society, organizations, and patterns of thought through historical, cultural, and religious perspectives. One of his best-known works is A Study of “Air” (Kūki no Kenkyū)
🏅 Ranked 6th in the 2024 Kinokuniya Humanities Award
The Kinokuniya Humanities Award is a Japanese book prize organized by Kinokuniya, one of Japan’s leading large bookstore chains, highlighting outstanding humanities titles each year.
Overview
While much of the Western world grappled with the tension between state mandates and individual liberty, Japan navigated the COVID-19 pandemic through a different mechanism: "Voluntary Compliance." Without a single legal lockdown, the nation achieved some of the highest rates of cooperation in the world. But as a cultural anthropologist, I felt a growing sense of unease: at what cost to our social fabric?
In this book, I offer an anthropological reflection on Japan’s "shadow mandates." This work is rooted in fieldwork I conducted across three distinct regions and interviews with those on the front lines, including physicians involved in cluster suppression, nurses, and care workers. My goal was to uncover the cultural and structural machinery that drove Japanese behavior during this unprecedented crisis.
In this work, I explore:
The Normalization of the Absurd: I investigate why excessive infection measures—such as outdoor masking in sweltering heat, ubiquitous acrylic partitions, and the three-year ban on lunchtime conversation in schools (moku-shoku or "silent eating")—persisted for three long years. While some measures were perhaps understandable in the initial confusion, their continuation for over 1,000 days was an anomaly. I look at the devastating human cost of this period: families unable to visit loved ones in their final moments, and the heartbreaking reality of being barred from attending cremations or saying a proper goodbye.
The Narrative of "Loosened Discipline": I analyze how the concept of ki-no-yurumi (loosened spirit/discipline) was used by experts to blame infection surges on individual behavior, creating a suffocating cycle of social surveillance and shame.
A Different Way of Caring – "Iroha": Amidst this national climate of excessive restriction, I highlight a nursing care facility called Iroha in Kagoshima. While most facilities across Japan made strict visitation bans the "new normal," Iroha prioritized the daily lives and dignity of the elderly. Through my observations and interviews at Iroha, I reveal how they recognized the "strangeness" of the national situation early on and maintained care that truly valued both life and living.
Through the lens of medical anthropology, I challenge the ethics of a society that prioritizes collective harmony and "safety" over the lived experiences of individuals. This book is a reflection on what happens when safety becomes an unquestionable dogma, and a defense of the "non-essential" human connections that define our very humanity.
【Speech for the 33rd Yamamoto Shichihei Award】
Newspaper Reviews, Interviews, and Dialogues
A poison called "harmony" circulates faintly in the air of this society, poisoning us unnoticed. Like a canary in a coal mine, this book warns of that danger. And it shows where the exit might be.
Mihoko Ishii / Nikkei Newspaper
"The state of emergency resembles a rain dance," "This isn't about 'life versus the economy,' but 'life versus life,'" "Japan thought it could suppress COVID with sheer willpower." All are striking words from medical anthropologist Maho Isono, featured in this book.
Fumio Otake / Mainichi Shimbun
His clever twist on the phrase "harmony leads to extremes" to describe this nation's tendency toward vague yet extreme countermeasures is brilliant.
Mayumi Nakazawa / Fukushima Nippo
Even in the COVID era, the case of a care facility where each staff member acted based on their own thinking, thereby avoiding "extremes," is extremely interesting. It really hits home how important—and difficult—it is to avoid mental paralysis during emergencies.
Junko Sakai / Shukan Bunshun
Also featured in Chubu Keizai Shimbun (by Kenji Oirei of Orai-do Bookstore), Weekly Dokushojin (by Sho Iriyama), and the nursing care magazine Bricolage (by Toshiki Kobayashi of Haikoncho).
"When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn-Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher Living with Terminal Cancer and a Medical Anthropologist" (co-authored with Makiko Miyano. Shobunsha, 2019)
🎥Film adaptation directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi confirmed
🏅 Kinokuniya Jinbun Grand Prize 2020 - Ranked 10th
Overview
I first met the philosopher Maiko Miyano in September 2018. Our encounter would, a year later, take shape as a book composed of twenty letters exchanged between us. Yet in July, two months before its publication, Makiko finished writing everything and passed away.
To speak without betraying the words written here. That is my vow, and also the way I keep my promise to Makiko.
By an uncanny turn of fate, this book has been set to be adapted into a film by director Ryusuke Hamaguchi, acclaimed for works such as "Drive My Car." At last, it is scheduled for release in 2026.
It has also been translated into Korean and Traditional Chinese.
Book Review
One could read this book as a life story where Miyano's existence flows toward death, accompanied by Isono's exhortations. Yet what truly propelled Miyano's life was the fundamental, unpossessable depth of the time we encounter each other.
Sakamaki Shitone* / 'Society and Ethics'
* The person who facilitated Miyano-san and my meeting.
The conclusion Miyano reached—to love a world filled with the beginnings of living with others through chance and destiny—is overflowing with a depth and beauty that resonates with all of us living together in society.
Keisuke Sato/Kyodo News
Their dialogue, woven with sincere feelings toward each other, is powerful, sometimes even intense.
Urata Chihiro, Jinbun Shoin / Kyoto Shimbun
There was a possibility the correspondence would be interrupted if Miyano's condition worsened. Yusuke Esaka (42), the editor in charge at Shobunsha, says, "In a sense, it was a gamble." The book was published on the 25th, and its content and production process embodied the "heart of Miyano's philosophy."
Reporter Kōshi Machi / Mainichi Shimbun
Featured in Weekly Economist, UOMO, VERY, "NHK Hirumae Hotto," and the Asahi Shimbun evening edition.
To Be Thin, To Be Loved: An Anthropologist's Message from a Country of Underweight Women
🏅 2019 Selected for 100 Children's Books to Share with the World, curated by the Japanese Board on Books for Young People (Japan's national section of IBBY)
Overview
Based on research into eating disorders, this book was written for young people struggling with body image. It unravels the power of numbers and the relationship between body shape and self-identity from a cultural anthropology perspective.
As I grew older, I felt the tangible sense of my former body image struggles fading away. I wanted to capture that feeling in a book before it vanished. Yet, this book has been read not only by young people but also by men over 50.
Published in 2019 by Chikuma Primer Shinsho. Edited by Yosuke Hashimoto. Currently in its 5th printing.
Book Review
I especially recommend this book to those who desperately want to lose weight but feel inadequate because they can't.
The "line" the author presents is the trajectory of each individual life. She urges us to cultivate the ability to experience what emerges between ourselves and the world. Though published as a Chikuma Primer New Book aimed at younger generations, it also serves as an excellent guide for adults.
The "illusion" referred to here isn't limited to dieting; it's the overconfidence that "everything can be controlled." In a society where managing one's surroundings and self is valued, what should have been kept in check swells up, becoming like a fire-breathing dragon that spirals out of control.
I long to return to the days before I even thought about dieting. Or better yet, I wish I could install within myself the spirit to love my body just as it is. Unable to do either, I wallowed in self-pity. Maho Isono's Diet Illusion is the book that changed my daily life.
After realizing how serious my situation was when I had to undergo health counseling, I resolved to diet. Browsing for diet books for reference, I picked up "Diet Illusions," which stood out.
The Unanswerable World as Told by Medical Professionals: The Anthropology of "Guardians of Life"
Overview
In my first work, Why Can't I Eat Normally?, I focused on the patients themselves, which made the medical professionals' perspectives seem one-dimensional. Therefore, in this work, I depict the viewpoints of diverse medical professionals through interviews and observation. Fieldwork at the cardiology outpatient clinic and the Kampo (traditional Japanese medicine) outpatient clinic was also utilized.
What surprised me was how often medical professionals, who seemed like they should know the answers, actually didn't have them. They work on the front lines, constrained by organizations and systems, feeling stifled and conflicted. This book had a profound influence on my subsequent works.
Published in 2017 by Chikuma Shinsho. Editor: Yosuke Hashimoto. Currently in its third printing.
Reviews & Interviews
In the book's afterword, the author states, "I wrote this book hoping that the eight stories presented here would resonate in some way with readers' own lives." This book demands a readiness to respond to the author's challenge, yet it is an excellent work that undoubtedly guarantees a reward commensurate with that effort.
Seiji Saito / The Science of the Mind
The author questions whether the commonplace notion that "curing" illness is the essence of medical practice actually obscures the true nature of their work.
Ren Inaizumi / Yomiuri Shimbun
A cultural anthropologist observes the common sense and discrepancies between the medical professionals' side and the patients' side. Neither a medical expert nor a patient. Cultural anthropologists are those who observe without preconceptions.
Watanabe Toshiko / Weekly Bunshun
Why aren't the "obvious" practices in the field ever improved? Why do uncertain truths pass as certain ones? The author is a cultural anthropologist. Their perspective—neither clinician nor patient, but a third eye—should spark reflection on these questions.
Why Can't We Eat Normally? The Cultural Anthropology of Anorexia and Bulimia
🏅Ritsumeikan University Survival Studies Encouragement Award (2016)
🏅 Multicultural Psychiatric Society Young Scholar Award (2017)
Overview
"I've never thought food was delicious." This casual remark from one individual shaped the direction of my research.
While most papers and books focus on identifying causes, this book centers on how individuals with eating disorders perceive and experience food. Meticulously crafted with attention to detail, it is not available in digital format. Based on my doctoral dissertation.
Published by Shunjusha in 2015. Editor: Kimiaki Takanashi. Currently in its 7th printing.
Book Review
Isono meticulously questioned five research subjects about "what, when, and how they eat." Has any study on eating disorders—a form of deviant eating behavior—ever collected such concrete data?
Chizuko Ueno / Kumamoto Nichinichi Shimbun
The women's narratives, backed by extensive interviews, are vivid and powerful—never distant or abstract. Their painful, poignant eating patterns illuminate the very essence of food.
Psychiatrist Ichiro Kumagai / Kyodo News
The reading experience feels like a high-quality detective novel. I was drawn in not only by the brilliant tricks unique to cultural anthropology, but also immersed in the futility of human endeavors and the resulting tenderness they inspire .
Izumi Murata, Representative, Akari Project / Bricolage, a Caregiving Magazine
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