Begun back in 1993 as an ethnographic investigation into the experiences of young Japanese women who, by remaining unmarried past age 25 and remaining at work, were not conforming with prevailing norms, this study became a long-term exploration of the ways in which these women navigated their departure from the norms of their upbringing. Over the course of the study, the author developed the notion of long-term resistance in order to capture the tensions and ambivalences of agency that characterized the women's lives as they navigated evolving cultural and societal pressures in relation to their own individual desires. She explores the ways in which her Japanese women subjects experienced the ambiguities of long-term resistance in the globalized and destabilized Japan of the 1990s and 2000s, particularly across urban/rural and class differences. Annotation ©2014 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)