Odours of Mobility: Mobile Phones and Japanese Cute Culture in the Asia-Pacific

This paper is based on ongoing research into the use of Japanese cute (kawaii) character customisation of mobile phones in the Asia-Pacific region. Far from illustrating a form of homogeneous Japanisation in the region, consumers are using kawaii customisation in diverse ways to articulate practices of interiority and exteriority, cultural capital and habitus. The dominance of cute character culture (‘cuteness’ or kawairashisa) as the mode for customising/personalising technologies such as mobile phones is very particular to this region. So what does this form of ‘humanising’ the dehumanised technological spaces say about local nuances and tendencies? How is kawairashisa being transformed through its appropriation outside mobile phones (in the form of hanging doll-like forms) and inside the telephonic and net spaces via ‘email pets’, as the region moves into 3G (third generation) mobile net telephony? And why has there been so little work into analysing cultural adaptations of kawairashisa outside Japan despite its apparent ubiquity? In his seminal work on Japanese global cultural production, Koichi Iwabuchi evokes the notion of Japaneseness as being ‘odourless’ (2002). This paper revises the notion of ‘odourlessness’ Japanese global products in relation to the use of kawairashisa adornments inside and outside mobile net telephonic spaces. By sketching some of the ways in which the kawaii has been theorised and the current research into mobile telephony, this paper seeks to outline a framework for understanding the ubiquitous phenomenon of mobile customisation that is still relatively under-theorised and under-researched.

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