ABSTRACT
This introductory part outlines the framework of the book: the focuses and the aims of the research, the overall structure of the book, and the author’s stance. It begins by explaining the unconventional nature of “self-searching migrants,” and clarifying the meanings of “self-searching” and “migrants.” Next, the author argues that this research aims to maintain both the specificity of self-searching migrants as a young Japanese phenomenon and its ubiquity as a postmodern, postindustrial, and postadolescent phenomenon. Then the book’s dismissal of two conventional themes in migration studies and youth studies is explained: (a) “acculturation” because the self-searching migrants’ monadic, nonlinear move does not encourage it; and (b) “identity,” because “identification” is more appropriate for emphasizing the proactive nature of self-searching. The introduction then presents the overall structure of the book, which proceeds from theoretical (Part I) to fieldwork-based discussions (Part II in Canada and Australia; Part III in Singapore)—the fieldwork locations are presented in this order because the Japanese self-searching migrants who hit glass walls in the former, the Anglophone West, tend to move to the latter, the Anglophone East. Finally, the author reiterates her critical stance toward Anglophone West-centrism and androcentrism.
