Winner, 2023 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics, Media Ecology Association

Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure?

In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.

"An intriguing analysis of virtual reality as a new vessel for a contaminated kind of individualism, the product of people retreating deeper into personal devices instead of the larger, collective world." - Kotaku

"[This book] offers a bounty of insights for historians of technology." - H-Sci-Med-Tech, H-Net Reviews

"The Immersive Enclosure offers an antidote to Western-focused, and especially American-focused, studies of VR, while also underscoring the universal promises and perils that VR holds for contemporary, globalized societies everywhere. . . Highly recommended." - Choice Reviews

"Roquet successfully demonstrates how virtual reality in Japan emerges from a uniquely cultural and historical perspective, inspiring others to address the local specificity of their virtual reality. The Immersive Enclosure can be their guide." - Japan Review

"Readers willing to enclose themselves in the pages of The Immersive Enclosure: Virtual Reality in Japan can expect to perceive with greater clarity the relationship between perception and bias, especially regarding virtual reality (VR) technologies. Paul Roquet’s account of the development of VR helps uncover implications of the media ecological intersections between a medium, its name, its environment, and its relationship to cultural and political biases." - Explorations in Media Ecology

"The Immersive Enclosure sets a high bar for research quality, clarity of writing, and insightful arguments. It is strongly recommended for apprehending the history, development, and significance of a technology in Japan that is poised to shape our collective media future in new and potentially unforeseen ways." - Journal of Japanese Studies

"Roquet’s insights offer a fresh perspective on how the history and development of emerging technologies could shape the future of digital governance, labor markets, and interpersonal relationships." - Convergence

"The Immersive Enclosure should be required reading for anyone studying VR, in any culture." - Configurations