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Paper short abstract:

This paper examines a recent trend in the Japanese news media of using the term ‘refugee’ as metaphor. It suggests that the metaphor has shifted the term’s implications from visual to conceptual, and from international to domestic, diverting public attention from the reality of refugee protection.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines a recent trend in the Japanese news media of using the term ‘refugee’ as metaphor. The rise of refugee Diasporas is one of the significant transformations the international community has faced in recent decades. Yet, Japan itself accepts few refugees. According to the Japanese Association for Refugees, out of nearly 20,000 applications for refugee resettlement in 2017, Japan accepted only 20. Why does Japan grant asylum to so few refugees? In order to provide lexical observations on this situation, this paper explores how the term ‘refugee’ (nanmin) is used in the Japanese news media. In 2007, a Japanese journalist popularised the sensational term ‘net cafe refugee’ for those who do not have a fixed address and sleep in 24-hour Internet cafes. While the word was selected as one of the ten ‘new words of the year’ by the media company U-Can, the usage of ‘refugee’ in this context provoked a controversy and prompted the Japan Complex Cafe Association to release an official statement asking journalists to refrain from using the term. In this statement, the owners of Internet cafes argued that the metaphor gave internet cafes a negative image due to popular Japanese stereotypes that associate refugees with criminality. Despite the outcry, the term ‘refugee’ remains popular today as metaphor for those who lack access to particular facilities, services, or experiences – for instance, ‘insurance refugee’, ‘information refugee’, ‘shopping refugees’, and so on. Through the analysis of textual data containing these metaphorical expressions extracted from newspaper archives, this the paper seeks to unveil the discursive meaning of the term ‘refugee’ and its possible impact on public perception of issues related to refugee protection. It concludes by suggesting that through the refugee metaphor, the term’s implications have shifted from visual to conceptual, and from international to domestic, with the possible effect of diverting public attention from the reality of refugee protection to social issues in Japan.