The latest Pitt Magazine, a publication of the University of Pittsburgh, profiles PhD student Amanda Robinson and her study of Japanese cat cafes.
Between 2012 and 2014, she spent 18 months in Tokyo, interviewing business owners, employees, and customers from a smattering of Tokyo’s more than 30 cat cafés. Robinson discovered that these places aren’t just about the cuddly creatures—they are about finding a way, in complex modern cultures, to connect with the world and find comfort.Robinson, says the Japan Studies webpage at Pitt,
[is] completing her dissertation on the booming healing business in contemporary Japan. She has done extensive fieldwork in cat cafes that she analyzes as responses to the shifting place of youth in a deregulated labor market.
