Paper short abstract:

This study discusses how a virtual ethnic enclave, developed by ICTS among Indonesian nurses and care workers in Japan, has transformed affective responses to transnational migration and how it differs from a traditional ethnic enclave.

Paper long abstract:

Based on the bilateral IJEPA scheme, candidates for nurses and care workers have been accepted by hospitals and nursing homes all over Japan. Under this scheme once candidates pass the Japanese National Exam for Nursing or Care Workers, they are entitled to obtain a working visa for three years, renewable without limit. Otherwise, candidates have to go home.

We have interviewed them in order to examine their experience in Japan, affect accompanying and their meaning attached to this migration and found that a sort of virtual ethnic enclave has formed by the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This virtual enclave by active utilization of the internet and the mobile phone functions as a social support network to cope with difficulties they confront in Japan and as a site of information exchange about salary and working conditions, which sometimes breed dissatisfaction with institutions they have been accepted. Within this enclave a study group by the skype emerged to prepare for the National exam for nursing. This presentation discusses how the virtual ethnic enclave has transformed affective responses to transnational migration among young people as well as how it differs from a traditional ethnic enclave.