This multidisciplinary book analyses the contradictory coexistence of
consumerism and environmentalism in contemporary Japan. It focuses on
the dilemma that the diffusion of the concepts of sustainability and
recycling has posed for everyday consumption practices, and on how these
concepts have affected, and were affected by, the production and
consumption of art. Special attention is paid to the changes in
consumption practices and environmental consciousness among the Japanese
public that have occurred since the 1990s and in the aftermath of the
earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disasters of March 2011.