ABSTRACT
Squatting and slums are a global issue, felt most urgently in the over-urbanized cities of the global South (Davis 2006; Pratt 2009), although a few squatter areas remain in Japan, despite the maturity of its development. Many squatter areas emerged throughout Japan after World War II; most of them were amalgamations of minority groups, such as Koreans, Okinawans, repatriates, and buraku people. The burakus are considered to be descendants of outcast communities of the feudal era, and their communities are often called “slums” or “poor people’s enclaves” and stigmatized as typical residential environments for urban and rural poor (McLauchlan 2003; Mizuuchi and Jeon 2010). All squatters shared extreme poverty, although they came from different backgrounds.
