Abstract
Issues of immigration and the rights of foreigners in Japan have been the focus of
much debate in recent years. On the one hand, the spectre of falling birth-rates and
declining population have encouraged some far reaching proposals to open Japanese
society to much larger flows of immigration. On the other, the current economic crisis
and rising unemployment have been accompanied by growing signs of unease about the
presence of foreign workers in Japan. Meanwhile, Japan has begun very cautiously to
increase its acceptance of asylum seekers, and has quietly allowed the resettlement on its
shores of almost 200 "returnee-refugees" from North Korea.
In this article, I argue that current debates about immigration, refugees and foreign
residents in Japan cannot be understood without tracing a process of repeated border
crossings that goes back to the days of the prewar Japanese empire. Beginning from the
present and working backward, I seek to trace these border-crossings, and to show how
the shadows of empire are still today cast across Japanese discourse about migration and
foreigners.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 39-62 |
Journal | The Journal of Social Science: Shakai Kagaku Kenkyu |
Volume | 86, 2010 |
Issue number | 2 |
Publication status | Published - 2010 |