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- Convenors:
-
Noel B. Salazar
(CuMoRe - KU Leuven)
Shinji Yamashita (Teikyo Heisei University)
- Discussant:
-
Glenda Roberts
(Waseda University)
- Location:
- 103
- Start time:
- 16 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
Keywords, as concept-metaphors, play a crucial role in theorizing human mobility. This panel critically disentangles the culturally distinct use of words and discourse associated with the mobility of people.
Long Abstract:
Concept-metaphors of mobility, from 'flows' to 'nomads', function as buzzwords in contemporary social theory. While such key concepts have been used abundantly across the social sciences and humanities, as of yet a working vocabulary of these has not been fully developed. Given this context and inspired in part by Raymond Williams' Keywords (1976), this panel presents ethnographically informed conceptual contributions that critically analyse mobility-related keywords. Popular English keywords related to mobility include transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, motility and freedom. In this panel, we are interested in comparing this with conceptualizations in other languages and cultures. The Japanese concept of 'tabi' (travel, journey) or 'kanko' ('seeing light'), for example, may be different from English 'tour' and 'tourism'. The English term 'migration' does not find any satisfactory Japanese counterpart. Or in recent Japanese urban tourism, emphasis is on 'machiaruki' (town walking), a concept that may resemble Walter Benjamin's 'flâneur'. In his formative work, Williams sought meanings to formerly understood words through examination of general discussions and separated disciplines, a process which "posed new questions and suggested new kinds of connection" (1976:12). Focusing on keywords of mobility in a comparative cultural perspective, this panel explores the epistemology and ontology of human mobility in more enriched, general terms beyond the currently dominant Western concepts. By design, the focus of each presentation on a particular keyword will form the foundation of an intellectual conversation about the complex interrelationship between ethnography, these concepts, and their analytical value for anthropological knowledge production.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
This presentation examines the usage of "diversity" to represent Japan in archaeological discourses focusing on the mobility of the Jomon culture. It examines the connection to the contemporary reimagining of Japanese culture as diverse and multicultural.
Paper long abstract:
Over the past twenty years, academic and popular discourse has seen an increased usage of terms such as diversity (tayosei) and multicultural coexistence (tabunka kyosei) to describe Japan. Underlying these descriptive categorizations is an understanding that they reflect the movement of, and interactions between, people of various backgrounds. This presentation begins by examining the relationship between these contemporary discourses and the usage of diversity within Japanese archaeology, especially research focused on the Jomon period. It examines how "diversity" has become a keyword for describing Jomon culture, arguing that it reflects increased research and evidence that shows a fertile cross-fertilization of cultural influences stemming from the mobility of Jomon period people. Discussion focuses on the link between discourses on "Japanese identity" and research on prehistoric cultures in the Japanese archipelago, positing that as Japanese "diversity" today is connected to (and helps enable) the reimagining of Jomon cultural diversity.
Paper short abstract:
An analysis of the Japanese concepts of migration reveals the changing political conditions in which transnational mobility has acquired varied social values. Concepts such as imin, ijūsha, zaigai dōhō, and Nikkeijin are examined in relation to Japan’s emigration policy in the twentieth century.
Paper long abstract:
A close analysis of the Japanese concepts of migration reveals the changing political conditions in which transnational mobility acquired varied social value. In Japanese, the generic term, "imin," is used to refer to both the act (im/emigration) and subject (im/emigrant) of mobility. Throughout much of the twentieth century, however, the word was typically associated with the image of emigration rather than immigration as the Japanese government sought to counter the problem of overpopulation through a large-scale emigration program. Brazil was the largest destination.
While emigration to Brazil played a central role in the Japanese understanding of migration, the vocabulary of mobility became subject to contest. In the first half of the twentieth century, Japanese emigrants in Brazil often perceived themselves as victims of a failed state project, saying that "emigrants were abandoned people" (imin wa kimin). After World War II, the Japanese government introduced a rather neutral term, "ijūsha," in an attempt to bypass the negative connotation associated with the more conventional term. At the same time, the notion of "Nikkeijin" was put into use as Japan sought to reformulate its ties with the overseas population, formerly called "zaigai dōhō". Today, many Brazilian emigrants proudly refer to themselves as imin and remain cautious of the Japanese government's attempt to revise the past.
This paper will trace the history of the Japanese concepts of migration and analyze the process in which the subject of migration was constructed by both the state and the migrants.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the cross-border movement of retirees from a comparative cultural perspective.
Paper long abstract:
This paper explores cross-border movement of retirees from a comparative cultural perspective. Comparing the conceptualization of transnational mobility of Japanese older adults with currently dominant Western concept of international retirement migration (IRM), this paper aims to rethink mobility at the existential level.
Retirees' aspiration to seek for better ways of life through transnational mobility is an emerging global phenomenon. While retirees in North America and Western Europe have a long history of migration, technological advancement and affordability of long-distance travel has also facilitated the growth of retirement migration on an international scale. IRM has largely been studied in the field of tourism and migration from interdisciplinary approach, which anthropologists have offered ethnographic accounts on the phenomenon. Studies on European cases of IRM argue that the boundaries between tourism and migration, which have been considered to be different types of mobility, have become blurred. However, IRM as a key concept of mobility has not fully discussed beyond the currently dominant Western concept.
The transnational mobility of elderly Japanese people throughout Asia is recognized as one of the emerging cases, an overall relatively new phenomenon. It is noteworthy that the Japanese concept of 'rongusutei' (long-stay) or 'kaigai choki taizai'(overseas long-term stay) is different from English term 'retirement migration'. While the English term 'retirement migration' represents mobility, Japanese counterparts 'long-stay' or 'overseas long-term stay' represent immobility with the use of 'stay'. This paper examines the culturally distinct use of long-stay, and how it plays a crucial role in commoditization of Japanese retirement migration.
Paper short abstract:
This paper attempts an analysis of the various key terms related to environmental tourism and protection by examining critical concepts and practices. By referring to a key term in Japan, satoyama, this paper aims to provide useful outcomes to the clarification of human mobility in natural settings.
Paper long abstract:
Many mobility-related key terms have been proposed in the context of environmental tourism, for example, ecotourism, green tourism, and sustainable tourism. This excess of terms is the result of different stakeholders expressing their own environmental awareness, and of the variety of natural settings viewed as tourist attractions, from unexplored mountains to traditional paddy fields. Several international organisations offer frameworks for managing these natural settings, yet they all use different terms to indicate similar natural settings. For example, in relation to landscapes alone, there are protected landscapes, cultural landscapes and socio-ecological production landscapes, but several rural areas worldwide can be classified as all three landscapes.
This paper attempts an analysis of the key terms related to environmental tourism and protection by examining critical concepts and practices. The analysis is conducted with reference to the international keywords shown above, and also to satoyama, a Japanese term, which once meant a type of local forest, yet through national environmental discussion it came to indicate a whole set of rural environments. The Japanese government attempted to use the term internationally and proposed the environmental framework 'the Satoyama Initiative' in 2010. During the preparation for this Initiative, the definition of satoyama was changed to a mosaic of ecosystems, and since the launch of the Initiative, it has been altered again to an example of socio-ecological production landscapes. The examination of the transformation of the definition of satoyama as well as the evaluation of international keywords will offer the clarification of human mobility in natural settings.