We are happy to announce that Asian Women and Intimate Work edited by Ochiai Emiko and Aoyama Kaoru and published as the 3rd volume of The Intimate and the Public in Asian and Global Perspectives (IPAP) series from Brill has been selected in Choice magazine's 2014 list of Outstanding Academic Titles.  Choice is a publication of Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) and a division of American Library Association (ALA). We are pround that two volumes from the same series that is the outcome of our collaborative endeavor have been awarded. The 1st volume, Ryōsai Kenbo: The Educational Ideal of 'Good Wife, Wise Mother' in Modern Japan by Koyama Shizuko, was also a winner of the Choice Award in 2013.

Reviews

Winner of the 2014 Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award: Kyoto University (Japan) sociologists Ochiai (with Barbara Molony, Asia's New Mothers, 2008) and Aoyama (Thai Migrant Sexworkers, 2009) have compiled a formidable volume on the construction of Asian women as skillful at intimate work, and how women live within this construction. The study stands out for its elucidation of the viewpoints of Asian women engaged in intimate labor, which the contributors define and investigate in capitalist and postsocialist states. Sociologists based in Asia and writing in Asian languages (translated into English) contribute 11 chapters that explore intimate work in India, China, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, and Holland. The book's three parts cover the historical formation of intimate work, the emergence and transformation of the ideal image of Asian women as good wives and wise mothers, and the international migration of Asian women. The forms of intimate work treated include housework, sex work, elder care, childcare, and marital duties. Much of this labor occurs transnationally as well as, increasingly, within Asia. Authors underscore the fact that more than half of all international labor migrants are women, the majority of whom engage in intimate work, which makes this volume an important addition to the scholarship.
Summing Up: Essential.Upper-division undergraduates and above.

--T. L. Loos, Cornell University

[This review appeared in the February 2014 issue of Choice.]
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