Abstract

Staying unmarried and not starting a nuclear family is increasingly common around the globe. At the same time, living arrangements are diversifying. Both living alone and sharing housing are growing trends, especially in urban areas. This is also true in Japan, where experts anticipate the emergence of a so-called ‘Hyper-Solo-Society’, despite the norm to get married remaining strong. In this regard, Japan can serve as an excellent case study for investigating the relationship worlds of unmarried adults through and in relation to their living arrangements. My data draw on a qualitative study of unmarried individuals—primarily women—between the ages of 24 and 45 in different living arrangements in Tokyo and Kyoto and point to a diversification of relationship worlds, offering insights into how this development is interwoven with the diversification of living arrangements and revealing the shifting, partly blurring boundaries of dwelling, relating, and belonging. Furthermore, the data indicate that ‘new’ spaces of relating and belonging—spaces of one’s own, spaces of (unfocused) embeddedness, and spaces of togetherness with friends, partners, or one’s family of choice—are emerging and/or actively being created. These spaces, which partly break with conventional gendered configurations, are fluid and comprise ambivalences and ambiguities, but they can play a salient role for shifting notions of what ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ mean. By identifying changing perceptions of home and belonging, this paper contributes a new perspective to current global debates on ‘singles’ and their practices of relating and belonging at the intersection of gender, mobility, and space.

摘要

保持未婚和不建立核心家庭在全球越来越普遍。与此同时，生活安排也在多样化。独居和共享住房都是增长趋势，尤其是在城市地区。在日本也是如此，专家预计会出现所谓的“超单身社会”，尽管结婚的规范仍然很强大。在这方面，日本可以作为一个很好的案例研究，通过他们的生活安排来调查未婚成年人的关系世界。我的数据基于对东京和京都不同生活安排的 24 至 45 岁未婚人士（主要是女性）的定性研究，并指出关系世界的多样化，提供关于这种发展如何与生活安排的多样化交织在一起的见解，并揭示了居住、关联和归属的不断变化的、部分模糊的界限。此外，数据表明，相关和归属的“新”空间——一个人自己的空间、（不集中的）嵌入空间，以及与朋友、合作伙伴或自己选择的家人在一起的空间——正在出现和/或正在积极创造. 这些空间部分打破了传统的性别配置，是流动的，包含矛盾和模糊性，但它们可以在改变“家”和“归属”的概念方面发挥重要作用。通过识别对家庭和归属感不断变化的看法，