Perilous Wagers: Gambling Dignity, and Day Labores in 21st Century Tokyo

This book talk introduces "Perilous Wagers: Gambling, Dignity, and Day Laborers in 21st Century Japan," a recently published ethnography that examines the lives of construction workers in Tokyo’s old day-laborer district, San’ya.
The author will discuss how one group of day laborers embodied a transgressive masculinity intimately intertwined with honorable mobster values of old and how they created dignity and sociality under abject conditions of life.