Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
You need to be logged in to avail of this functionality,
and to see the links to virtual rooms.
Log in
- Convenor:
-
Stephen Christopher
(University of Copenhagen)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Thomas Baudinette
(Macquarie University)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
- Location:
- Lokaal 2.20
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
This panel focuses on the nexus of migration, interracialized desire and transnational families. Through interdisciplinary approaches and ethnographic data, we explore new forms of emergent romantic desire and family structure in contemporary Japan and in the Japanese diaspora.
Long Abstract:
This panel focuses on the nexus of migration, interracialized desire and transnational families among Japanese abroad and ethnic minorities living in Japan. Anchored on the limitations of previous scholarships on these themes, the panel consists of papers that examine underexplored areas of inquiry through interdisciplinary approaches and ethnographic data. Rather than privileging whiteness and gendered desire for Euro-American men (Kelsky 2001; Ashikari 2005), we explore the eroticization of Tibetan men as part of a larger shift in racialized desire towards Asian ethnic minorities. How does Japanese women’s desire for Tibetan men instantiate oriental orientalizing tropes about Tibet while allowing self-identifying wounded and misfit women to find self-transformation, healing and self-confidence? Departing from studies that deal with newcomer Filipina female migrant experiences in Japan through the lens of mizu-shōbai culture and marriage migration, we analyze the impact of Japanese male migration as well as the socio-political nature of Japanese-Filipina intimacy in the Philippines. How are gendered, classed and ethnicized meanings of intimacy re/configured and practiced outside of Japan? And rather than arguing that Japan’s “global age of migration” is a permanent fait accompli (Douglass and Roberts 2015), and that Japan is already an immigrant nation (Liu-Farrer 2020), we consider the Indian diaspora, a lesser-known diaspora in the landscape of Japanese minority communities. How do race, gender and cultural differences impose restrictions and possibilities on social aspirations of Indian trailing spouses in Tokyo? How do they overcome the struggles of immigrant integration, and aspire to new forms of labor mobility in a precarious economy that disadvantages migrant women? Such questions allow us to advance our understanding of new forms of emergent romantic desire and family structure in contemporary Japan and among Japanese abroad.
Ashikari, Mikiko. 2005. “Cultivating Japanese whiteness.” Journal of Material Culture 10(1): 73-91.
Douglass, Mike, and Glenda Roberts. 2015. Japan and global migration. Routledge.
Kelsky, Karen. 2001. Women on the verge. Duke University Press.
Liu-Farrer, Gracia. 2020. Immigrant Japan: Mobility and belonging in an ethno-nationalist society. Cornell University Press.
Satake, Masaaki. 2004. “Filipina-Japanese intermarriages: a pathway to new gender and cross-cultural relations.” Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 13(4): 445-473.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Stephen Christopher (University of Copenhagen)
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores how a subset of self-reporting wounded Japanese women find self-transformation, healing and confidence through encounters with Tibetan men at home and abroad through spiritual/romance tourism.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores how a subset of self-identifying wounded and misfit Japanese women find self-transformation, healing and self-confidence through romantic encounters with Tibetan men, by engaging with Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan culture/language classes, by volunteering with Tibet organizations or through tourism to Tibet and Tibetan areas of South Asia. I conducted interviews with 20 Japanese women who have dated or married Tibetans men or are longtime volunteers for Tibetan causes; 15 Tibetan men who have dated or married Japanese women and two queer Tibetans.
The ethnographic material is diverse, including an overview of how cis-gendered female Japanese manga artists erotically depict Tibetan monks within the yaoi and shōnen-ai genres (Christopher and Laumonier 2023); how the Japanese media, following the lead of CCP tourism promotions in Tibet, sexualizes Tibetan boys; how Tibetan temples, singing bowl businesses and Tibetan monks commoditize ‘Tibetanness’ as healing- and romance-oriented; and how a Tibetan counseling center in Nagano, run by a Japanese pharmacist who is the first foreigner to ever complete the full Men-Tsee-Khang training in Dharamsala, provides healing to majority female clients. This healing involves recreating a ‘Tibetan atmosphere’ through engagements with nature and fostering resilience.
The argument of this paper triangulates into several bodies of scholarship. How misfit Japanese women (Allison 2013) discursively frame Tibetan masculinity as sensual, natural, tantric and naively virtuous—the opposite of effete, digitally-distracted, shilly-shallying Japanese men— updates the scholarship on interracial desire (Kelsky 2001) and interrogates inter-Asian ethnic minority sexualization as a counterpoint to only white desire (Ashikari 2005). How Tibetan Buddhism is gendered, commodified and situated among diverse spiritual therapies extends recent scholarship on spiritual alternativity (Gaitanidis 2022). And how Tibetan monks framing of Tibetan Buddhism as bringing healing to Japan’s hyper-urban, stressed-out millions fits within the literature on ethno-commodification (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009) and the Tibetan refraction of mimetic desire (Adams 1996; Lopez 1998).
Megha Wadhwa (Free University of Berlin)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to understand position of 'trailing spouses' as 'women', 'wives', 'mothers', and 'workers' and the role their gender, nationality and relationship status plays in crafting their life as migrants in a foreign land – in this case, Japan.
Paper long abstract:
The number of Indians residing in Japan is around 36,058 as of December 2021, of which only 30% are Indian women. Most of these women are well-educated, and some had decent jobs before moving to Japan. The majority of them are 'trailing spouses' (Yeah and Khoo: 1998) who follow their husbands, who move for job opportunities or marry men who have been residing and working in Japan.While their husbands are referred to as 'highly skilled', the skills of these women often remain unregistered as they move as dependents.
This paper aims to understand their position as 'women', 'wives', 'mothers', and 'workers' and the role their gender, nationality and relationship status plays in crafting their life as migrants in a foreign land – in this case, Japan. It focuses on the role of 'agency' and how it helps them adjust to their new environment and face the reality of their migration experiences vs expectations. It further emphasizes how their experiences as migrants influence their (im)mobility, and how their dreams and notions of migration have changed over the years.
This paper is based on (visual) ethnographic research and life history interviews conducted since 2013 with married Indian migrant women residing in Japan for more than a decade and those who have moved in recent years. Through the narratives of these women, the paper will illustrate how 'gender' shapes the experiences of men and women differently and how these women are actively working on their ‘selves’ while coping with gendered disadvantages in the labour market (Kerkhoff and Kirk: 2018) to find their niche.
Jocelyn Celero (University of the Philippines)
Paper short abstract:
This ethnographic research focuses on the dynamics of intermarriage and transnational family lives of Japanese-Filipino couples residing in the Philippines.
Paper long abstract:
Japanese-Filipinas international marriages emerged in significant number as part of the labor and marriage migration trends in the 1970s, which shaped the Japan-Philippine migration corridor. Existing studies focus on Filipinas migrating as spouses to farmers in rural villages (Bauzon, 1999; Samonte, Suzuki 2004, Satake 2004), and as temporary migrant workers venturing in intimate liaisons with the Japanese across Japan (Suzuki 2002, 2005), little is known about the marriage and family lives of Japanese migrants in the Philippines.
This ethnographic research focuses on the dynamics of intermarriage and transnational family lives of Japanese-Filipino couples residing in the Philippines. It looks into the profile of Japanese who sought Filipino women as their spouse, the desirability of the transnational marriage market, and the gendered ways in which these couples define cross-cultural intimacy through their notions of love, marital life satisfaction as well as social mobility.
This study aims to provide insights into how cohabitation and re/marriage, along with migration, become strategic transnational family life course decisions that go beyond formalizing marital status to pursue labor migration in Japan (cf. Tokoro 2016). Analysis of couples’ narratives gathered from semi-structured interviews also suggests that Japanese and Filipinas negotiate gender-differentiated goals of socio-economic mobility, children’s education, as well as transnational family lifestyle. The current research highlights how gender intersects with class/status and generational identities in the lived experiences of Japanese and Filipina intermarried couples and families. It also aims to contribute to ongoing debates about masculinity (and femininity) in intermarriages.