Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the similarities and differences of human rights activist women’s practice in Japan and Indonesia by providing an integrative account of their practice in both countries to understand the dynamic reinterpretation of human rights and gender equality presently going on in Asia.

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines the similarities and differences of human rights activist women’s practice in Japan and Indonesia as represented in what French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu refers to as “habitus” and “cultural capital.” While the 1990 is often described as a “lost decade” for Japan in terms of its economy, it was in fact an extremely significant decade for the advancement of human rights and gender equality discourse in the country, where women were believed to hold the key to the country’s revival after the burst of the bubble economy. The decade was equally important for the exaltation of human rights and gender equality discourse in Indonesia as since the onset of democratization in 1998 a great number of middle-class women have thrown themselves vigorously into activism to defend and promote human rights and gender equality. But beyond such a similarity, human rights issues addressed by Indonesian activist women are extremely diverse, including domestic violence, polygamy etc., and their activism to solve these problems invariably come face to face with religious authorities and political powers. In contrast, human rights activist women in Japan are more focused on legal battles to promote gender equality as many gender issues have been accommodated politically. By shedding lights on such similarities and differences, this study seeks to provide an integrative account of human rights activist women’s practice in the two countries and understand the dynamic reinterpretation of human rights and gender equality presently going on in Asia.

Paper short abstract:

Through oral history, I analyze how Okinawan women remembered their migration journeys to Argentina. Here I argue that these memories challenged the dominant collective memory of their communities while at the same time they shaped their relationship with Okinawa as a matter of diasporic identity.

Paper long abstract:

In Argentina, Okinawans represent roughly 70% of the whole Nikkei society. In this country, the history of Okinawan immigration started around 1908 when most immigrants arrived freely, escaping the harsh working conditions in Brazil and Peru. Decades later, Okinawan migration flows were stabilized under a system called yobiyose that allowed people already settled in Argentina to call over their relatives. Through the efforts of the people already living in the country many Okinawans left their home islands for Argentina after the Pacific War. Over the years, this form of migration shaped the collective memory of Okinawans in Argentina. In institutional discourses, the notion of yobiyose has been used to depict the bonds of solidarity and kinship as features of Okinawans’ diasporic identity. Yobiyose, as a memory narrative, intends to distinguish the Argentine Okinawan community from the neighboring settlements in South America populated by family-based agricultural migrants. The narratives of yobiyose extol the figure of the pioneer: a solitary male immigrant who, after years of hardships in foreign lands, summons his kin, rescuing them from war and economic privations. Nevertheless, these narratives largely ignore the diverse experiences of women that migrated under this system. How do Okinawan women reflect on their own migration experience? In which way do their remembrances diverge from the collective memories of the community?

Recently, narratives of pioneering immigrants have been mainly studied concerning the Japanese and American Empires. Only a few works refer to the history of Okinawan women in South America and the Nikkei identities as gendered constructions. Thus, to fully deconstruct the dominant discourses of the Japanese diaspora, we must consider the voices and experiences of different actors. To fill this gap, this paper will analyze the oral testimonies of Okinawan women and their descendants who arrived in Argentina during the postwar era. Through a combined analysis of oral history and written documents, I suggest that some of these women challenged the romanticized memory of the yobiyose system by telling a different story of uprootedness and quasi-forced migration. Stories and experiences that ultimately shaped their relationship with Okinawa and their lives in Argentina.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on in-depth interviews with nine Chinese mothers and four Chinese fathers from Chinese-Japanese intermarried middle-class families, this paper examines the interrelationships between class, gender and ethnicity when Chinese parents negotiate parental PTA duties within families in Japan.

Paper long abstract:

Parental involvement in education is greatly influenced by class, gender and ethnicity. Involvement in children's education varies between middle-class and working-class parents, mothers and fathers, and ethnic majority and ethnic minority parents. There has been an increasing attention paid to intersectionality of class, gender, and ethnicity when it comes to parental involvement in education. The concept of intersectionality, however, has presented a challenge to the exploration of interrelationships of class, gender, and ethnicity in parental involvement.

As a result of quasi-compulsory membership in school PTAs in Japan, PTA participation is universal among Japanese parents, particularly mothers whose children attend Japanese formal schools. Therefore, almost all existing research has focused on the involvement of mothers in PTAs and the gender inequalities embedded therein. As these studies presume mothers assume PTA duties because of gender roles, they do not examine how parents negotiate PTA duties within their families in light of other social differences.

It is therefore important to examine how parents negotiate PTA duties within families where there are multiple social differences, and the ways in which these differences are interrelated. By adopting an example of Chinese-Japanese intermarried middle-class families in Japan, this paper is able to identify differences in class, gender, and ethnicity between the parents of a family. In this paper, Bourdieu's class theory of forms of capital is employed to differentiate class differences between parents in the same family. Based on interviews with nine Chinese mothers and four Chinese fathers from Chinese-Japanese intermarried middle class families, the findings examine how Chinese parents describe their negotiation of parental PTA duties within their families and how class, gender, and ethnicity are articulated or muted. As such, this paper provides insight into the interrelationships between class, gender and ethnicity when parents with multiple social differences negotiate their parental PTA duties within families in Japan.