- Convenor:
-
Oscar Samuel Wrenn
(Kobe University)
Send message to Convenor
- Discussant:
-
Shilla Lee
(University of Duesseldorf)
- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Anthropology and Sociology
Short Abstract
This panel examines the lives of foreign migrants in rural Japan through the lens of mobility. The papers look at different scales of material and social movement for migrant groups, showing how the interplay between compelled, limited, and free movement shapes migrant livelihoods and stability.
Long Abstract
Much of the influx of foreign migrants into Japan has been concentrated in rural areas, supporting manufacturing or agricultural industries, building families with Japanese partners, or as part of immigrant communities. The mobility of these migrants, necessarily moving large distances utilising personal and/or organisational networks that stretch across national borders, lies in contrast to the depiction of rural Japan, as depopulated, stagnant, and disconnected.
This paper takes the idea of the contrast between migrant ‘mobility’ and the immobility of rural Japan as a starting point, to provide a more complex understanding of what it means to move for foreign migrants in rural Japan. Specifically, it uses the perspective of ‘mobility’ – as a broad concept that captures the relative freedom or restriction in movement, whether in everyday activity, longer-term movement, or social mobility – to examine how migrants are able, unable, or forced to move, and how migrants’ mobility is implicated in their ability to make lives for themselves, in Japan or abroad. We argue that a nuanced and multi-faceted understanding of migrant mobility – neither treating migrants as ‘free’ to move in search of economic opportunity, or entirely bound by other forces out of their control - is vital to understand both recent migrant livelihoods in Japan as they search for stability, as well as the changing social and material landscape of rural areas.
The three papers in this panel take different perspectives on migrant mobility, looking at different migrant groups, to provide this complex picture. This includes a paper looking at domestic migration patterns for Japanese-Filipino individuals as they continue to move within Japan in search of stability, both highly mobile but institutionally restricted. A second paper on the working lives of South Asian women in rural Japan shows how, while able to move between jobs with advantageous residence status, they are unable to achieve social mobility without training. The final paper on technical intern trainees working in agriculture focuses on everyday, banal movement within work, showing how the inherent constraints of their social and material position are overcome through creative and skillful means of ‘keeping going’.
| Abstract in Japanese (if needed) |
Accepted papers
Paper short abstract
This paper examines the movement of technical intern trainees working in agriculture in upland Japan. It shows how they keep moving, and make themselves indispensable, despite being constrained in an isolated community, whilst also highlighting the limits of these creative mobile practices.
Paper long abstract
Agricultural practice in Japan has shifted dramatically over the past 30 years, with an ageing rural population, liberalisation of agricultural markets, and the removal of subsidies that propped up a proliferation of part-time, small-scale Japanese farmers. The sector has now come to rely heavily on foreign labour, particularly in the form of ‘technical intern trainees’ who ‘learn on the job’ in various short-staffed industries. In practice, this means local farmers being responsible for young farmhands often from South-East Asian countries, who find themselves in isolated rural communities, often without a means of getting around beyond foot, bicycles, and lifts from their employer.
This paper looks at the everyday mobilities of technical intern trainees working as farmhands in one upland village in Nagano prefecture Japan, and the techniques they use to ‘keep moving’ despite the limitations that are placed upon them. First, it will look at the ways that rhythmic mobility is maintained during the working day for trainees without being able to drive, despite the consolidation of farmland and expansion of activities that make constant movement vital to manage large areas. This includes utlising different means of moving between and within fields as part of work, and to other vital locations such as shops and supermarkets, with and without the help of their employers. Secondly, it will look at how, as young individuals, trainees maintain movement beyond their everyday work, both locally and across the country, finding ways of maintaining networks with other trainees, for example through sporting activities.
Based on an analysis of this movement, the paper will argue that technical intern trainees are highly mobile despite the constraints placed upon them, that this mobility works at multiple scales both within and beyond the confines of their working landscape, and that to maintain this mobility – a means of ‘keeping going’ that makes them indispensable to their employers whilst also allowing them to have social lives – requires a high degree of creativity. However, the contingent and limited way in which interns move, in contrast to their employers, impacts their ability to plan for futures beyond the farm.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines the domestic migration of Filipino-Japanese in Japan, focusing on Toyooka City as one ‘node’ in this migration process. It argues that the precarious nature of their employment compels future movement and making settlement always conditional, with impacts on life planning.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the settlement strategies of Filipino-Japanese (Nikkei Filipinos) in rural Japan by focusing on their continued internal mobility after migration to Japan. Drawing on a case study of Toyooka City in Hyogo Prefecture, it argues that Toyooka should not be understood as a final destination of migration, but rather as a node within a wider network of domestic migration shaped by Japan’s flexible labour regime.
Based on questionnaire surveys, in-depth interviews with Nikkei Filipino residents, and interviews with a labour dispatch agency, the paper demonstrates that most Nikkei Filipinos in Toyooka relocated from other regions of Japan rather than migrating directly from the Philippines. Their movements are largely mediated by staffing agencies that provide employment, housing, and daily-life support. These agencies concentrate workers in specific workplaces and residential areas, producing dense Filipino social environments that reduce the immediate need for Japanese language proficiency but also limit broader social mobility.
While many Nikkei Filipinos hold relatively stable residence statuses—such as “Long-Term Resident,” “Spouse or Child of Japanese National,” or permanent residency—their everyday lives remain highly precarious. Short-term employment contracts and company-provided housing tie their right to stay in a particular locality directly to continued employment. As a result, settlement in Toyooka is conditional and reversible: migrants remain as long as work is available, but are compelled to move again when contracts end. This situation is particularly acute for families with school-aged children, for whom repeated relocation disrupts education and long-term life planning.
By conceptualizing Toyooka City as a node of internal migration, this paper contributes to the panel’s broader discussion of migrant mobility in rural Japan. It highlights how mobility and immobility coexist: Nikkei Filipinos are highly mobile across regions through staffing networks, yet locally constrained in terms of occupational choice, housing, and interaction with local Japanese. Their experiences challenge binary views of migrants as either freely mobile or fully settled, revealing instead a pattern of “conditional settlement” sustained through repeated internal movement.
Paper short abstract
This paper examines the social mobility of Southeast Asian immigrant women in rural Japan. It contrasts high mobility in employment with the inability to create a stable livelihood, despite stable residency status. It argues that job training is vital to escape this limitation on social mobility.
Paper long abstract
I would like to present the findings on the uncertainty on occupational and social mobility among Southeast Asian migrant women who settled in rural Japan, based on their personal narratives.
In my study area, marriage migrant women built stable foundations for their daily life with their husband within a few years of arriving in Japan—obtaining stable residency status, forming families, purchasing land/homes, and buying cars. However, although their stable residency status such as Permanent Residence removes restrictions on the type of job category that they can apply for, most women are in low-skilled and low-paid positions in repetitive manual jobs in food processing plants and manufacturing factories that supply urban consumers. These jobs are often associated with technical trainees or other short-term residency statuses with job restrictions. Immigrant women frequently change workplaces every few years, with few remaining stably employed at a single job for an extended period.
In addition, they play a significant role in supporting the food system through producing ready-to-eat food products, including agricultural products. Yet they often work under precarious and vulnerable job conditions. Moreover, repetitive manual jobs in plants and factories often fail to develop professional skills, creating barriers to upward social mobility and keeping immigrant women workers in low-skilled positions.
Analyzing interviews with Southeast Asian immigrant women who have lived in Japan for over five years, this study examines workplace transitions within manual labor and highlights how these fail to enable social mobility. I would like to argue that, while their stable residency status eliminates job restrictions, this alone is insufficient for escaping low-skilled work and achieving economic stability without appropriate job training programs for immigrant women.