Japan is regarded as a society that provides cradle to grave security to those who conform to its standards. This ethnographic study of social life in Kotobuki, an inner city district of Yokohama, documents the lives of those on a low income who have missed the Japanese economic miracle. Kotobuki is the toughest neighbourhood in Yokohama and a traditional home to day labourers. The author has spent a number of years in the district and has closely examined the lives of those who live there, mostly the unemployed, elderly and disabled. Also she has sought to understand the small number of...