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Accepted Paper:

Playful togetherness and the puzzle of Chinese migrant community in Tokyo  
Jamie Coates (University of Sheffield)

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Paper short abstract:

Within this paper I draw on 4 years of ethnographic fieldwork with young Chinese migrants in Tokyo to posit that extant framings of migrant community reduce questions of togetherness to a political economy of exclusion. I focus on play as a way of moving beyond the migrant as 'suffering subject'.

Paper long abstract:

Within this paper I draw on 4 years of ethnographic fieldwork with young mobile Chinese people in Ikebukuro, Tokyo to problematise how we frame migrant togetherness. I posit that extant framings of migrant community rely too heavily on negative aesthetic modalities that reduce questions of togetherness to coping strategies within a political economy of exclusion. Whether as Chinatowns, enclaves, networks or communities, much of the work on Chinese migration has focused on these socialities as a politics of recognition that responds to forms of marginalisation. However, for new and relatively mobile Chinese people in Tokyo, the politics of recognition and concerns about stigma are often a lower priority than we might assume. Finding inspiration in theories of play and playfulness, I explore how learning from the playful practices of migrants is an important opportunity for social theoretical reflection. There is a rich tradition of ethnographic work on migrant playfulness, and on play as a concept metaphor for anthropological inquiry. Yet, within migration studies and its cognate fields these approaches are too often side-lined through a focus on migrants as suffering subjects. From challenging assumptions about migrant communities and identities, to theorising how meanings and affects are re-produced in new contexts, putting play at the centre of migration studies affords new possibilities. It directs our attention away from focusing on those who move as a means to address the ‘problem’ of migration, and encourages us to learn from migrant lives to reflect on other anthropological horizons.

Panel P003c
Beyond the 'Suffering Subject' in Migration Research III
  Session 1 Wednesday 27 July, 2022, -