Like many industrialised nations, the current employment trend in Japan centres on thediversification of the labour market with an increased use of temporary labour. Among a wide range of non-regular labour arrangements, haken, or 'dispatched workers'are a newly legalised category of non-regular workers who are typically employed by the employment agency while working at t Like many industrialised nations, the current employment trend in Japan centres on thediversification of the labour market with an increased use of temporary labour. Among a wide range of non-regular labour arrangements, haken, or 'dispatched workers'are a newly legalised category of non-regular workers who are typically employed by the employment agency while working at the facilities of and being under the authority of the client firm. In recent years, their numbers have expanded exponentially under the states deregulation policy and assumed considerable symbolic significance in public debate, especially with regard to the nations widening gaps.Contrasting sharply with the Japanese post-war salarymen/women modelhakengenerate internal cultural debatewhere traditional and global, or positive and negative values are juxtaposed, contradicted, and negotiated. The debate between and among various interest groups and powerful actors in turn provides important clues to the constantly changing relationship of the individual to the state, to firms, to entrepreneurial opportunities, and to the wider world. Drawing on a range of ethnographic data and documented materials, the book seeks to bring a better understanding of personhood in Japans shifting landscape of employment.Huiyan Fu's book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese business, organisational behaviour, employment relations and Japanese anthropology.