ABSTRACT

Japan and Global Migration brings together current research on foreign workers and households from a variety of different perspectives. This influx has had a substantial impact on Japan's economic, social and political landscape. The book asks three major questions: whether the recent wave of migration constitutes a new multicultural age challenging Japan's identity as homogenous society; how foreign workers confront the many difficulties living in Japan; how Japanese society is both resisting and accommodating the growing presence of foreign workers in their communities.
This book contains the most up to date, original data on Japanese migrant culture available. Its inescapable conclusion is that the multicultural age has finally come to Japan; the question is whether foreign workers will be legally and socially assimilated into the fabric of Japanese society or will continue to be treated as temporary entrants with limited civil rights. The book is written with postgraduate students in Asian studies, Japanese studies, political science, sociology, anthropology and migration studies, in mind.

part I|117 pages

Global and historical perspectives on migration to Japan

chapter 2|15 pages

Foreign workers in Japan

A historical perspective

chapter 3|18 pages

Japan in the age of migration

chapter 4|20 pages

The discourse of Japaneseness

chapter 5|29 pages

The singularities of international migration of women to Japan

Past, present and future

part II|100 pages

Livelihood and living in Japanese workplaces and communities

chapter 6|30 pages

“I will go home, but when?”

Labor migration and circular diaspora formation by Japanese Brazilians in Japan

chapter 8|20 pages

Local settlement patterns of foreign workers in Greater Tokyo

Growing diversity and its consequences

chapter 9|21 pages

Identities of multiethnic people in Japan

Growing diversity and its consequences

part III|83 pages

Government policies and community responses

chapter 11|30 pages

Foreigners are local citizens too

Local governments respond to international migration in Japan