Abstract

What is the “will” of homeless women? This book highlights the process of women’s descent into poverty based on seven years of interviews with homeless women, reexamining the image of human beings that our welfare systems and research have assumed. This is a newly revised and expanded edition of a famous book, with added commentary.

Recommended (Masahiko Kishi, sociologist)
This is the book that Satomi Maruyama set out to write, and she succeeded brilliantly. One that isn’t about “tough” people or “pitiful” people. Just people doing things, living their lives, and having reasons for what they do and how they do them, as depicted through their own words.
Reading this book, I was deeply moved by the fact that I’m reading about actually living people. The people that Maruyama writes about have faces. I’ve read this book so many times, in fact, that I feel like I know Eiko and Tamako… Through Satomi Maruyama’s book, we are brought face-to-face with them. That is the power of her ethnography.

Reviews
“I believe that only Ms. Maruyama, who spent 14 years as a volunteer and researcher with the homeless and those around them since her student days, could have grasped the reality of the female homeless.” ―Yamakawa Kikue Prize Recommendation
“The author has been researching female homeless people for more than 10 years, and has carefully collected the voices of these women who, in the context of their relationships with those around them, are unsure whether or not to continue living in the streets.” ―Asahi Shimbun

Author’s Information

Born in 1976. Graduated from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters with completed doctoral coursework. PhD (Literature). Specializing in sociology. Currently an associate professor at the Kyoto University Graduate School of Letters. Publications include “Living on the Streets in Japan: Homeless Women Break their Silence”(Trans Pacific Press, 2019), “New Horizons in Poverty Issues: The Trajectory of Moyai’s Counseling Activities” (edited and written by Shunposha, 2018), and “Qualitative Social Survey Methods: Sociology of Understanding the Rationality of Others” (co-authored by Yuhikaku, 2016).