ABSTRACT
The preceding chapters revealed that searching for one’s true self can be equivalent to searching for one’s true vocation, and that the aesthetics of self-work identification are intense in certain culture-societies in a certain historical period, such as in postwar Japan. This chapter discusses how the act of searching for one’s self/work can lead to self-searching migration, that is, a more mobile and opportunistic kind of lifestyle migration that tends to occur in postadolescence. Drawing on migration studies and mobility studies, the chapter first defines key terms, followed by an overview of changes in people’s moving patterns on a global level since the nineteenth century, as well as changes in how these phenomena are studied. It is argued that global mass migration in early modern times was motivated by overpopulation and colonialism, more or less state-led, while migration became increasingly more self-initiated from the end of World War II. The chapter then reviews the broader concept of lifestyle migration before discussing the self-searching aspects of Japanese migration from the 1990s, and their implications in later years. The chapter points out the Anglophone-West-centrism behind the Japanese migrants’ choice of destination, which prevails even with the growing importance of neighboring Asian countries in the world economy.
