ABSTRACT
It has been estimated that perhaps thirteen million people are currently working as labour migrants in the Asian region (Matsui 1999: 46-7). Since the 1980s, Japan has been one of the receiving countries for migrant labour from Southeast Asia, South Asia and the Middle East. As Japan deals with its place at the centre of regional labour markets, as a magnet drawing immigrant workers from the Asian region and beyond, questions of difference have emerged into public discussion. Until recently, questions of difference were kept at a conceptual distance, safely externalised, seen as happening in a distant past or outside the borders of the Japanese nation-state. With the increased presence of immigrant labour in Japan, such distance has become harder and harder to maintain. In this chapter, I will consider some feminist attempts to deal with difference in the particular context of labour migration to Japan. This discussion will be organised around some themes which I shall call the ‘histories of difference’, ‘spaces of difference’, ‘everyday practices of difference’, ‘embodiment of difference’ and ‘dealing with difference’.
