Immigrant Japan: Mobility and Belonging in an Ethno-nationalist Society

by Gracia Liu-Farrer

Immigrant Japan?  Sounds like a contradiction, but as Gracia Liu-Farrer shows, millions of immigrants make their lives in Japan, dealing with the tensions between belonging and not belonging in this ethno-nationalist country. Why do people want to come to Japan? Where do immigrants with various resources and demographic profiles fit in the economic landscape? How do immigrants narrate belonging in an environment where they are "other" at a time when mobility is increasingly easy and belonging increasingly complex? Gracia Liu-Farrer illuminates the lives of these immigrants by bringing in sociological, geographical, and psychological theories—guiding the reader through life trajectories of migrants of diverse backgrounds while also going so far as to suggest that Japan is already an immigrant country.

Genres: Japan, Japanese History

276 pages, Hardcover

Published April 15, 2020

About the author

Gracia Liu-Farrer is Professor of Sociology at the Graduate School of Asia-Pacific Studies, Waseda University, Japan.

Reviews

[Edward · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Eskil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Det er utrolig hvor stor forskjell det kan gjøre at en bok har én forfatter, og ikke er satt sammen av bidrag fra mange forskjellige forfattere. For det første hever det nivået, ofte enormt, og det gir også et mye klarere bilde på hva boka vil få fram. Jeg føler at jeg har lært veldig mye om noen av de forskjellige innvandrergruppene i Japan, og hvordan den sosioøkonomiske statusen deres påvirker rollene og mulighetene deres i Japan.

[Alek Sigley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Illuminating study of the experiences of immigrants in Japan. The author, herself a US-educated Chinese married to an American, has naturalised as a Japanese citizen and holds a position at Waseda University. She brings her own experiences to the research, together with semi-structured interview data filled with engaging anecdotes that lend a human face to her description of a changing Japan. The book is broad in scope, covering what attracts outsiders to Japan, their experiences of work and education, their sense of belonging (and exclusion), as well as sections on immigrant children (including the author's own trilingual, tricultural daughter) and their complex, multifaceted senses of identity.

Despite being ostensibly a monoethnic, non-immigrant country, Japan is increasingly pluralistic. Immigrants are one of the groups that may well challenge and shift Japan's conservative self-perception in the near future as economic necessity and globalisation continue to alter the make-up of Japanese society. That will only make this book all the more relevant.　オススメです。