The Organization for Intra-Cultural Development (oicd.net) works to promote social cohesion and contribute to conflict resolution and prevention through engaging local social identities in alternative interpretations of their histories and providing them with re-packaged cultural and national symbolism. As part of our Cultural Symbolism and Nation Building program, we work with a variety of politically independent individuals and organizations in creating high-impact media campaigns which challenge sectarianism and discrimination and celebrate common cultural diversity.

This video (concept stage only; “fair use” copyright assumed)  is part of a proposed campaign project seeking partnerships for implementation in Fiji. The full campaign is likely to consist of one longer video (approximately the length of this one), and up to six smaller 30 second segment pieces with pick up the theme of cultural diversity as it relates to the a variety of cultural groups.

The footage in this video is taken from a music video produced for the Council for Building a Better Fiji. The OICD felt that current efforts to put forward the messages of cultural diversity contained in the video were impressive, but needed to address the historical interpretations of Fiji’s settlement more directly. We hope we have in part demonstrated this in the reworking. The small subtitles in the bottom-centre of the video are from the original music video and are unconnected to the OICD campaign ideas.

The OICD is in no way affiliated with the National Council for a Better Fiji and is a politically independent organization. The song chosen is “I’ll work for your love” by Bruce Springsteen. As the video is currently at the proof-of-concept stage, we have not yet approached Columbia records or Sony Music for permission to use a clip of the song.  Nor have we as yet approached the National Council for a Better Fiji. Again, this film is a conceptual demonstration of the kind of campaign production techniques that can be employed to empower and enrich cultural and national identities around the theme of common diversity and global membership.

OICD Director, Dr. Bruce White www.oicd.net

Photo essays, art work, documentaries, and film are primary, but not exclusive, mediums that Global Ethnographic hopes to feature.

For submission information see SUBMIT GE.

by Yuko Nishimura

Introduction:

In 1968, Shintaro Ishihara (now the governor of Tokyo) stated, ‘there is no other country like Japan, people who are virtually mono-ethnic, who speak the same language which is like no other country’s and which has a unique culture’ (Oguma 1995:358). 40 years later, similar statement was still repeated by Taro Aso (then the foreign minister of Japan) who maintained Japan is ‘one nation, one civilization, one language, one culture, and one race[1].”

Conservative government and nationalists like them have believed and fostered the image of Japan as a unified, mono-lingual, and mono-cultural nation（Burgess 2007). Yet the truth is that Japan has never been mono-ethnic.  According to Lie, such a myth of mono-ethnic Japan is fundamentally a post-World War II construct (2001:141).  Thus, during the long and stable economic boom of Japan from the 1960s through the 1980s the myth of Japan’s uniqueness was propagated widely inside and outside of Japan. For example, the Japan Foundation was established, in 1972, during the term of Premier Tanaka. From its inception, the aim was to promote Japanese culture outside of Japan. Scholars and artists of traditional Japanese art forms such as Kabuki, Noh, bunraku, calligraphy etc, were sent abroad to demonstrate ‘the uniqueness of Japanese culture’ (Large 1998:306). These efforts culminated in 1979 with publication of the Japanese ego boosting book by Ezra Vogel titled, Japan as No.1 (Vogel 1979).

According to Dale(1986), nihonjinron （theories on the uniqueness of Japanese）, which were rampant during this period, implicitly assumed that the Japanese people constituted a culturally and socially homogenous racial entity whose essence was virtually unchanged from pre-historical times. Nihonjinron also presupposed that the Japanese differed radically from all other known peoples. These arguments promoted a kind of cultural nationalism which were hostile to both individual experience and the notion of internal socio-historical diversity. Yet according to Lie, such a discourse of strong mono-ethnic ideology emerged only in the 1950s, under the 1955 System or the postwar Japanese political arrangements (Lie 2001: 125).

Japan has never been a mono-ethnic nor a mono-language nation. Its inhabitants include the indigenous minorities of Ainus and Okinawans, resident Koreans[2] and Chinese who immigrated during Japan’s colonial era of the 19th century and more recent immigrants from Asia and South America. Including those who have naturalized and adopted Japanese nationality, the estimated number of “non-Japanese” is comparable to 1992 figures for the United Kingdom, a far from negligible minority (Lie 2001:4).

Besides making Japan “number one,” the economic boom of the 1970s created an acute shortage of labour and brought an influx of Asian and South American immigrant workers into Japan. Changing demographics alarmed the Japanese government and the public and, for the first time the concept of Japan as an ethnic melting pot was openly discussed: who are the Japanese? How Japanese identity should be defined in a globalizing world.

This paper will discuss the process of reconstructing new identities among minority groups in Japan. Having been discriminated against and placed at the margin of society, the Japanese ‘Dalits’(the depressed) are now seeking to be included in the mainstream. While accepting the explicit socio-political order and the values of the dominant culture, they are also trying to change this ‘cultural hegemony’ by creating a counter-hegemonic sub-culture. Emerging minority leaders are trying to assure their communities that they both belong and do not belong; to pursue multiple identities and become ‘the Other Within’ (Yovel 2009).

Japan’s ‘New’ Minorities

The 1970s-80s was not only the period of ‘nihonjinron’ but also the economic ‘bubble period’. Japan, in short supply of labour, attracted many foreign workers, who are now called the “New Comers.”  In 1990, Japan’s immigration law was amended to allow emigrants of Japanese ancestry of up to the 3rd generation to return to Japan as Japanese citizens. Large numbers of foreign born niseis (the second generation) and sanseis (the third generation) have chosen to do so. Faced with barriers and discriminations in Japan, many of them joined civic organizations to force the Japanese government to protect their rights. Many joined existing Japanese working class organizations, changing the face of the organization itself. Thus, 80% of the members of the Kanagawa City Union are now non-Japanese temporary workers who speak Spanish, Portuguese, or Korean[3]. Their physical features and languages are quite different from mainstream Japanese and they do not (or cannot) hide their cultural identities. To the discomfort of many ‘native’ Japanese, these newcomers are assertive and proud to represent two cultures.

Out of interactions between “Old Comers” and “New Comers”, new self-help organizations have been born, particularly in urban areas. In Kanagawa prefecture for example, non-Japanese migrant workers and their Japanese supporters have started several nonprofits supported by the local government[4]: the Sumai Support Center (a rental house intermediary agency which offers mediation between Japanese landlords and non-Japanese migrant workers[5]), MIC Kanagawa (a volunteer medical interpreters association of seven languages), and the Kanagawa City Union of Japanese and non-Japanese temporary workers.

Cultural interactions on a grassroots level also have inspired and enriched the Japanese youth culture. Recently, for example, Mixed Roots Japan held a cultural festival called ShakeForward 2008.

Multi-language and multi-cultural pop groups such as Soul Blendz, Ainu Rebels, KP, Los Kalibres, and Tensais MC’s participated[6].  Mixed Roots Kansai is an offshoot of a multilingual FM station called FM Y-Y, which was started soon after the great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake of 1995. Started by a resident Korean woman with the help of an activist Catholic priest, FM Y-Y provided life-related information and cultural programs to non-Japanese speakers in seven languages. This station became a hot multicultural venue for young foreign born niseis and sanseis in Kansai (Western Honshu) area and has also attracted large numbers of Japanese youngsters who are dissatisfied with mainstream radio programs[7].

FM Y-Y has also proved to be a bridge between foreign born Japanese mutual self-help groups and the local government by providing public-information announcements and forums, from both sources, in multiple languages.  FM Y-Y’s ethnic programs boost the self-esteem of foreign born Japanese and also make Japanese minorities visible to mainstream Japanese society.

Japan’s ‘Old Minorities’

Ainus, Okinawans, Resident Koreans and Chinese were the old minorities with distinct cultural traditions. According to historical research, Ainus were not only hunters and gatherers but were also adventurous sea traders who traded between northern Japan and the Asian continent (Amino 2000, 2001). Nevertheless, attempts have been made to deprive them of their history, their language and their culture under the false pretense of making Japan “one nation, one language, one culture and one race.”

When Okinawa was occupied by US forces after the World War II, large numbers of Okinawans migrated to Japan’s mainland and to South America in a search of economic opportunity. Faced by open discrimination from ‘true’ Japanese, the Okinawans tried to hide their identities. At the same time, fearing the American military presence on the island would wipe it out, they tried to maintain their cultural heritage[8]. In Kawasaki City near Yokohama there are an estimated 40,000 ‘displaced’ Okinawans. In an effort to pass on their culture to the younger generation, they have organized a non-profit called the Society to Study Okinawan Music and Dance. This resulted in the local government designating Okinawan music and dance as an intangible cultural asset of Kawasaki City. In purportedly mono-cultural Japan, it is rare for a local government to designate a cultural asset originating from an entirely different region as their own. The interest in multiculturalism is also found in the cultural synthesis between Okinawans and nikkeis, the South American returnees. The nikkeis many of whom have some Okinawan ancestry add an interesting cultural mix to Kawasaki City that attracts youth who throng around multi-ethnic restaurants and shops in the city. The attraction of Okinawan culture is not limited to youth or to Okinawans—the majority of the members of the music and dance association are non-Okinawan[9].

A similar kind of resurrection of their culture is observable among the Ainu, the original inhabitants of Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido.  The Ainu became victims of Japan’s modernization policies when Hokkaido was settled by Japanese in the late 19th century. Although they were given protected status as a backward community by the Meiji government, their self-esteem was destroyed by other government policies which encouraged public disrespect towards the Ainu culture.

To escape, some young Ainus moved outside of Hokkaido in the 1960s. Osamu Hasegawa is one. He is now a prominent civic leader of Ainus in the Kanto-Tokyo region of Honshu. Jointly, with members of an urban Ainu association  lela no kai, he now owns a popular Ainu restaurant called lela chise or the house of lela.

First, though, after leaving Hokkaido, he became a Christian pastor, hoping to help the poor and the destitute. However, he was fired when he started to work with Japanese ex-untouchables or Burakumin. It seems the conservative non-Buraku Christians of his parish did not want to be identified with the buraku community. He then became an organic farmer and day-laborer. He also became an organizer, founding an organization called the Ainu Liberation Federation. The AFL was modeled on the Buraku Liberation Federation, a powerful Buraku civic organization (discussed below).

Born soon after World War II, Hasegawa is typical of other rebels from the baby boom generation who challenged the establishment with militant political tactics and civic engagements. The baby-boom’s children, now in their late 20s and 30s, were influenced by rebellious parents, but most are often less interested in political action and more interested in expressing themselves through pop culture. For example, all of the above-mentioned hip-hop groups have websites and make political statements through the internet, posting their performances on YouTube.

Regardless of approach, they do embrace their ethnic identity and actively work to end discrimination. Hasegawa as a youth felt he had to blend into mainstream Japanese culture and only later re-defined himself as a rebellious Ainu. Thanks to his courage and that of other ‘rebels’ of an older generation, today’s minority youth feel free to   acknowledge and express their multiple identities on a national and international stage.

For instance, one of Hasegawa’s daughters married a foreigner, an Australian. At a UN conference she made a presentation about Ainus, the aborigines of Japan. She appealed for international pressure on the Japanese government to acknowledge Ainus as an indigenous minority so the Ainu can regain ownership of “taken” land and preserve their cultural heritage. Another daughter married a Korean organic farmer. And his youngest daughter is studying in the US to become a curator to promote Ainu history and culture. Hasegawa does not mind them marrying non-Ainu or non-Japanese. He often quotes his daughter who said “my father is half Japanese-half Ainu. My mother is Japanese, my husband is Australian and he is a quarter Australian Aborigine. So my children have a quarter identity of all of them.” Such statements show ‘the power of new identities’ (Castells 1997) created in a globalized world.

Hasegawa’s restaurant is also a cultural center for urban Ainus who want to regain their self-esteem by embracing their heritage. Hasegawa notes that young Ainus are eager to create a new image of which to be proud. He says intergenerational exchanges are also extremely important in keeping Ainu culture vibrant and attractive. Some Ainu elders in Hokkaido object to the hip-hop music of the Ainu Rebels because it is not ‘traditional.’  Other elders, however, see how the music and dance of the Ainu Rebels have changed the attitude of young Hokkaido Ainus who were previously ashamed to participate in the traditional dances or speak the Ainu language in public. One of the Rebels told her dying grandmother that she is proud of being an Ainu and that her mission as an Ainu Rebel is to popularize Ainu culture among Japanese children, helping them admire Ainu culture and see it as ‘cool.’ This strategy seems to be working. In their appeal to the younger population, both inside and outside of their own community, Okinawans and Ainus seem to be successful. Associating with immigrant cultural organizations, they are helping to create a fusion of multi-cultural hip-hop in the urban areas of Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Kobe.  But, this culturally affirming strategy seems to be difficult to achieve by Japan’s other ex-untouchable community—the Burakumin.

The Burakumin[10]

Japan’s ex-Untouchables or Burakumins are the invisible race—physically indistinguishable from other Japanese—but historically suppressed as pollutants (eta) and inhuman (hinin). In this regard, they are very much like India’s Dalits or ex-untouchable castes. Although buraku organizations, like the Buraku Liberation League, have a long history and are models for many “mainline” community-based organizations, buraku leaders lament that they cannot now attract young people from their community. The leaders say that, today, relatively few buraku acknowledge their unique culture and history and many feel ashamed of the community into which they were born. Many youth leave the buraku neighborhood in an attempt to erase their cultural identity and live as ‘nobody.’  When found out, they face discrimination in jobs and marriage opportunities. Marriage partners often face opposition from their parents and relatives and the divorce rate is extremely high. Although the community as a whole has a rich tradition of socio-cultural contributions to today’s Japan, the younger generation dismisses the great achievements of the civic movement led by their parents’ generation.

Buraku history goes back at least to the 3^rd century A.D., when they were “assigned” numerous special occupations of hereditary origin. Just like the Indian untouchable castes, the Buraku were essential mediators between nature and culture. They were embodied with symbolic magico-religious powers and were considered essential because they could remove ‘impurities’ and ‘evil spirits’ from the “sacred” space required for Shinto rituals. For instance, the famous Gion ritual festival of Kyoto is conducted in the summer to ward-off epidemics and calamities. In the pre-Meji era, untouchable (Buraku) ritualists were ‘the purifiers’ who walked in front of the palanquins to absorb the “impurities” and evils that might be present.

Just like the Indian hierarchical dichotomy between Brahmins and Untouchables, the Japanese Buraku and the Imperial Emperor represented the dichotomy between the “pure” and the “impure”; the Emperor was dependent on the services of Buraku to purify his ritual space and the capital.  Similarly, many Shinto priests entered their shrines through a symbolic entrance created by sticks held by the untouchable ritualists. While the Untouchables needed political protection from the government, the Emperor and Shintoism needed the Untouchables for purification of the religious space.

In 1873, after the Meiji restoration, the government abolished the eta and hinin status and ex-Untouchables were re-labeled shin-heimin (“new commoners”). By claiming to be ‘modern’ by western standards, the Meiji government removed the magico-religious function of untouchables which had been passed down for hundreds of years. This of course, was one-sided as the emperor remained ’sacred’ and pure in his own right, just like the Christian God. Thus ended a long history in which the ritual role of Burakumins was essential to Shinto ceremonies.

Although they were considered pollutants and assigned the lowest rung on the social hierarchy ladder, many Buraku services were essential.  They were low level watchmen, criminal arresters, and executioners. Some industries such as leather goods, bamboo crafts, and animal butcheries were their monopoly and, often, they were economically better off than other peasants.

Japanese traditional theater such as Noh, Kabuki, and Bun-raku originated from the Buraku community entertainment industry. The famous Burakumin philosopher and Noh performer Zeami closely served the Shogunate. Famous zen gardens were crafted and made by Burakumin as they had the power to transform nature into culture.

The first dissection of a human body in Japan in 1772 is credited to Genpaku Sugita, a Japanese doctor who translated the Dutch book, Tables of Anatomy. However, the actual dissection was done by a Burakumin called Torakichi, as none of the doctors in those days knew much about the human body. As Sugita wrote in his diary, it was Torakichi who showed him details of anatomy by dissecting a body at an execution site. However, Torakichi’s name is never mentioned in the official records of Japanese medicine. The unique status of the Burakumin was stripped away by the “reforms” of the Meiji government. The Buraku people, without education or capital, were soon impoverished. They, along with resident Koreans brought to Japan as labourers, soon constituted modern Japan’s underclass.

The BLL and the Special Measurement Law

After World War II, the Buraku Liberation League[11] was quickly formed by Buraku leaders as a grassroots community improvement organization. The BLL initiated a literacy movement for Burakumin and it organized evening classes in neighborhood halls. The BLL also made sure that all the poor people could get into decent public housing.  After the Japanese government established the Special Measures Law for Assimilation Project in 1969, Buraku welfare projects (such as construction of public housing in the Buraku neighborhoods) became common. With strong backing from the Japan Socialist party, the BLL developed tactics called kyudan or “denunciation” in which it openly, and sometimes violently, confronted non­-Buraku people and organizations that were against BLL policies and measures (see Neary 1997 and Upham 1987).  The government and most media turned a blind eye to these denunciations, as the buraku issue had became an embarrassment to a supposedly democratic country. Once the buraku issue become a taboo subject, the gap between the non-buraku and the buraku was exacerbated.  The Special Measures Law, which was won by the political tactics of the BLL, improved the living standards of the community, but it also fostered a culture of dependency, corruption and mismanagement in their community organizations. When the government terminated the SML and assimilation projects in 1992, buraku neighborhoods had little economic vitality.  As youth assimilated into the ‘homogeneous whole’, neighborhood population dwindled. Those who acquired a stable job left the neighborhood to educate their children and get assimilated into the mainstream society and erase their buraku identity.

Achievements of Community Development by the Buraku People and the BLL

Despite the problems and controversies, between 1950 and the 1989, the BLL created remarkable examples of progressive community building, which proved to be an inspiration to later community development efforts in non-buraku communities (cf. Uchida 2006).

For example, in buraku community development and “liberation” projects, the residents themselves were encouraged to participate. This was new and different in Japan, where most community development programs were led and dominated by local government bureaucrats.  Neighborhood participants drafted neighborhood-assessment white papers and, based on their documented findings, negotiated with the local government about what was to be done.  The community assessments activities included community building workshops for residents, grassroots research activities and field visits to more advanced community building neighborhoods. These programs were later adopted by non-buraku neighborhoods, but few non-buraku community leaders will acknowledge they used buraku communities as their model.

Some of the measures the government took to help the community are also notable and progressive. For example, the Special Measures Law allowed local governments to loan money from the central government to finance low-rent public apartments and provide low-interest housing loans in buraku neighborhoods.

However, as the quality of life in buraku neighborhood began to improve, the population dwindled. And, when the government tightened its budget, the community ended up being split between middle-income and low-income sectors. When many of the former started to move outside the community to hide their buraku background, the poorest were left behind. Losing their most successful and talented people, the neighborhoods began to deteriorate.

Over time, the community became disillusioned with the BLL tactics of denunciation and the tendency of some BLL leaders to use the threat of these tactics to divert government funds into their own pockets.  More legitimate community leaders began to search for new ways to pursue their goals of economic independence and buraku self-esteem.

Kyoto’s Sujin Machizukuri Council led by Masao Yamaguchi is one example. This neighborhood leader and amateur historian, was appointed director of the Kyoto Branch of the BLL in 2000, following a highly publicized embezzlement scandal. After sorting out the organization’s finances and forcing the involved staff to return embezzled funds, he left the BLL.  He along with a few other local leaders interested in community development began the Sujin Machizukuri Council.

Working closely with the Kyoto city government, this civic organization invited non-community members (such as the director of the Kyoto Police Department, lawyers, accountants, and university professors) to become board members and made the organization’s operation transparent. The Council, working closely with city government, encouraged private developers to build mixed-use shopping centers that included market-rate housing. The model of mixed-use development has made the area more livable and has attracted a younger generation of residents that includes non-buraku people. The Council is also trying to develop theaters and museums featuring the neighborhood’s multi-culturalism and rich folk tradition. These cultural assets include not only buraku culture, but also that of resident Koreans, Ainu and Okinawans.

Conclusion

Japan is not mono-cultural. Even though opinion makers such as the media and elected officials have denied it, Japan has a rich multi-cultural history. It also has a history of discrimination again fellow Japanese, whether “native” or “naturalized who are physically and linguistically indistinguishable from the general population. At times, the opinion makers and thus the public, deny their existence, at other times they denigrate them.

The understandable anger felt by Japan’s minorities has too often been turned inward as they felt ‘ashamed’ of their heritage and tried to hide it through denial or self-destructive behavior.  Recently, though, there has been something of a transformation. Ainu youth are rebelling against negative stereotypes by incorporating Ainu traditional arts and culture in popular music and hip-hop. No longer ashamed, they are proud to be Ainu and other Japan youth are embracing them, challenging the cultural hegemony of the mainstream.

For Burakumin, reclaiming their cultural heritage as something positive as opposed to something to hide is proving more problematic. They have much to be proud of, not least of which is a history of community organizing and community building that has been copied by “mainstream” activists. Still, many buraku youths find it easier to meld into the mainstream, hiding their heritage instead of embracing it. Today’s buraku organizers see it as their task to bring buraku heritage out of the shadows and into the light, and along with it a sense of self-worth for the buraku people. If they are not successful, buraku culture may one day be little more than a footnote in Japan’s history and the Burakumin will lose recognition of the cultural history owed them.

Japan’s Buraku are, of course, not alone in struggling with multiple identities. The Marrano Jewish community in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) provides a historical reference point. There, in medieval times, Jews were forced to convert to Christianity. Yovel (2009) explains how they and their descendants survived with multiple-identities.

The Marranos suffered from such social stigma and discrimination that even their economic and political success would not allow them to embrace their Jewish identity. They behaved as Portuguese or Spanish ‘Catholics’ in Europe and used their European names while doing business abroad, including India. At the same time, they maintained their Jewish names within the Jewish community and maintained the Jewish Marrano network to support their businesses and their Jewish identity. Outside of their community, they were rejected by ‘religious’ Jews as renegades and despised by most Christians as Jews with ‘impure’ blood. Yet, like a person who switches hats according to the needs and situation, the Marranos carried different identities and cultures; they incorporated Iberian lifestyles into their Jewish life; living as ‘Spanish’ or ‘Portuguese’ outside Iberia, and Jews at home. They had not a single identity, but created a new culture mixing Jewish and Christian symbols and lifestyles.

Many central features of modern Western and Jewish experience can be traced back to the Marranos “split” identity, according to Yovel.  He describes them as ‘the Other within’, arguing that the Marranos contributed to the dissolution of a single pattern of being Jewish, giving in return: Christian Jewishness, nostalgic Jewishness, social Jewishness or selective Jewishenss[12].

The history of Marranos shows that Burakumin experience can be ‘uniquely’ Japanese and yet universal: their forced multiple identities can be turned into a positive asset. This could be a powerful strategy for Japan’s minorities in the 21^st century.

References

Amino, Y. 2005 Chusei no Hinin to Yujo, Kodansha, Tokyo.

— 2000 Nihon towa Nanika, Kodansha, Tokyo.

Asahi.com 2007 “Weekend Beat”, June 9.

Burgess, C. 2007 “Multicultural Japan” remains a pipe dream Ideology, policies, people not ready for major influx of foreigners’, The Japan Times, March 27.

Castells, M. 1997 The Power of Identity, Blackwell.

Harada, T. 1975  Hisabestu Buraku no rekishi, Asahi Shinbun sha.

Kingston, J. 2004 Japan’s Quiet Transformation, Routledge.

Lie J. 2001 Multiethnic Japan, Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Neary, I. 1997 ‘Burakumin in Contemporary Japan’ in Japan’s Minorities: The illusion of Homogeneity, ed. by M. Weiner, Routledge, pp.50-78.

Oguma Eiji 1995 Tan’itsu shinwa no kigen: ‘Nihonjin’ no jigazo no keifu, Tokyo, Shin’ yo-sha.
(in English)

The Japan Times 2005 ‘Aso says Japan is nation of “one race,” Oct. 18.

Uchida, Y. 2006  ‘Community Work o katsuyo shita Machizukuri’(Community Development  through Community Work) in Machizukuri to Community Work, Tokyo, Kaiho shuppansha, pp.4-18.

Upham,F.　1987 ‘ Instrumental Violence and the Struggle for Buraku Liberation,’ in Law and Social Change in postwar Japan, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press,  pp.78­-123.

Vogel,E 1979 Japan as Number One: Lessons for America. Cambridge, Harvard University Press.

Yovel,Y. 2009 The Other Within: The Marranos: Split Identity and Emerging Modernity. Princeton, Princeton University Press.

Suggested website references:

Ainu Rebels

Buraku Liberation League

FM YY

Hasegawa,Osamu

Kanagawa City Union and Satoshi Murayama

KP

Los Kalibres

Tensais MC

Lela no kai (lela chise)

MIC Kanagawa

Mixed Roots Japan

Shakeforward 2008

Sumai Support Center

[2] Both Ainus and Okinawans were forcefully incorporated into Japanese nation state in the 19^th century but they are the old inhabitants of Japanese islands. Although there have been constant migrations from China and Korea throughout Japanese history, those who are called ‘Resident’ Koreans and Chinese　（Zainichi） are mostly the descendants of migrants before and during the World War II. In order to hide their ethnic identity and merge into mainstream, many of them obtained Japanese names and registered as Japanese but some do not, and they have been creating distinct cultural characteristics often with the suffix zainichi’(foreign residents in Japan). Nowadays, many of the second and third generation zainichis do not speak Korean or Chinese. They are called the Old Comers to distinguish them from those New Comers who have migrated to Japan after the 1970s.

[3] Satoshi Murayama, personal communication.

[4] Some local governments such as Kanagawa prefecture, Kawasaki city and Yokohama city are particularly willing to tackle issues related to non-Japanese foreign workers and work with local nonprofits. The Kanagawa government launched an advisory board consisting of non-Japanese residents in 2000. Kanagawa Gaokoku-seki Kenmin kaigi (Kanagawa Foreign National Residents Council) and the nonprofits Sumai Support Center and MIC Kanagawa were born out of these efforts.

[5] Finding an accommodation in Japan has been extremely difficult for non-Japanese partly because of cultural misunderstanding between the Japanese landlords and the non-Japanese renters. The SSC provides housing information to non-Japanese and also ‘educate’ the tenants about Japanese life such as garbage disposal and noise issues.

[6] The members of Blendz are Japanese with African heritage. Ainu Rebels are the young Ainu hip hop group; members of KP are the descendants of resident Koreans in Japan. Members of Los Lalibres are the descendants of Spanish -speaking Peruvian-Japanese and Tensais MCs consist of Portuguese speaking Brazilian Japanese and young Japanese singers.

[7] See such websites as (http://www.wajju.jp/shake2008/ ).

[8] See for example, Asahi.com June 9, 2007, ‘weekend Beat.’

[9] According to Okinawan Folk Art and Music association in Kawasaki city, the membership increased 14 times since its start in 1956 and there are non-Okinawan young members who are interested in Okinawan culture and become members (http://www.city.kawasaki.jp/61/61kusei/kigyoshimin/pdf/06-08.pdf).

[10] There are large number of books and papers written about Japan’s Burakumin. In this paper however, I limit my reference to the following two books: Harada, T.(1975), and Amino (2005).

[11] BLL has its origin in the pre-war civic organization called Suiheisha (Levelers’ Association) started in 1920. Initiated by Burakumin youths and non-Burakumin intellectuals, the establishment of this left-wing organization prompted the pre-war Japanese government to reconsider their policies towards buraku neighborhood (see Neary 1997).

[12] According to Yovel, just like Marranos who chose to ‘Judaize’ the customs for social or nostalgic reasons, many secularlized Jews in today’s United States still choose to remain within a Jewish social framework but with little or no religious faith. Prominent Jewish intellectuals express such split identity more or less like Marranos. For example, Derrida calls himself a ‘non-Jewish Jew’ and Freud calls himself a ‘Godless Jew’ (2009: 366-367).

As social animals human beings could be said to occupy two kinds of worlds simultaneously. The first of these could be seen as the concrete world made up of physical infrastructure, buildings and public and private spaces. The second might be thought of as a symbolic world built from stories and images and identities. These two worlds are of course deeply entwined with one another in that seeing a flag in the concrete world may have a variety of meanings that link into and affect change in the symbolic. Or the reverse: that a connection made or destroyed in the symbolic world will lead to action and change in the concrete.

In this short article, I would like to speak to what I see as an essential and yet constantly underrepresented application of anthropological theory and practice: its ability to contribute to improving the “infrastructure” of the symbolic world in which we live, and its potential thus to create new forms of social cohesion. Applying the term “Intra-Cultural Development”, I would like to make a case for the importance of monitoring and managing the symbolic discourse that individuals use to represent and legitimize themselves in the world, again attempting to highlight the need for anthropology to apply itself more systematically to this task.

Anthropologists’ ability to understand, and, on occasion, to speak, the language of cultural symbolism, of symbolic discourse, has already contributed a great deal to the way in which countless millions of people represent themselves in the world as members of cultures. Mead, for instance, attributes Benedict’s Patterns of Culture to the fact that “today the modern world is on such easy terms with the concept of culture, that the words ‘in our culture’ slip from the lips of educated men and women almost as effortlessly as do the phrases that refer to period and to place…”.

Cultural Relativism

When cultural relativism was being defined at the beginning of the 20^th century by anthropologists such as Boas, Sapir, Benedict & Mead, the ability that ordinary people had to represent themselves in the symbolic world was limited to underdeveloped notions of racial or cultural superiority/inferiority, forms of monocultural nationhood and culturally deterministic ideas about one’s sense of place in a variety of hierarchal social systems. If we continue to use the concrete community development analogy, we might recall images of housing estates where the houses and gardens are all on the same layout, where there is little variety of access to alternative modes of living and where people have access to the same limited stock of materials and designs.

In many ways the Boas/Sapir/Benedict/Mead promotion of cultural relativism through their ‘personality writ large’ frame were attempts to build an understanding of cultural relatively into a globally-shared symbolic discourse of the human being. In so doing, their ideas helped to prop individuals up in new ways, to give them interesting representations for their own personalities by linking them to diverse traits and characteristics that were seen “as possible” within the context of universal human experience. Suddenly, through the idea that cultures could be seen as “equal” and representative of a common human diversity, people were able to begin to see parallels between themselves and others from outside and inside their own nations. These ideas allowed an increased freedom of movement within the symbolic world—people were no longer restrained to see themselves as “destined” to be somewhere along a social Darwinian evolutionary scale, and were now freer to create new relationships within themselves and with each other.

Of course, I do oversimplify the development and spread of these ideas greatly, but I do so in order to make a central point: The Boas/Sapir/Benedict/Mead cultural relativism was not merely destined to become an example of classical anthropological theory.  In providing an imaginative environment that sustained individuals in their desires to seek out and find positive self representation in their everyday lives, these anthropologist’s efforts were also a splendid example of Intra-Cultural Development; or community development in the symbolic rather than concrete habitat.

Intra-Cultural Development

Again, then, I wish to see the “development” of the symbolic landscape of self representation as akin to the development of physical infrastructure and community development in the traditional sense of the term. In both endeavors, the importance of good management, planning and construction are vital. As with its concrete counterparts, intra-cultural development must identify problem areas where little or no infrastructure exists and work to design and build sustainable architectures and environments.  These environments will work to diversify and enrich the symbolism available for self-representation, seeing that such symbolism is broadly and equally accessible and representative across the diverse sectors of societies and personalities.

Intra-Cultural Development is in motion across vast areas of interdisciplinary activity. The range of projects which have the potential to improve and develop the quality of our imaginative landscapes is limitless. Hosts of media projects, role-play and dramatic workshops, and educational and experiential programs attempt to directly redress unbalances within the individual-cultural identity representation system.  However, anthropologists well versed in symbolic language of individuals and cultures—the bricks and mortar of this intra-cultural development—share a special responsibility to return to a once influential, even leading, role.

Task List for Intra-Cultural Development Practice

Innovative anthropological research into the workings of identity needs to continue to be consolidated and further innovated in order to continue to provide for people rich representations of human diversity.  This research must be marketed, popularized and distributed in accessible forms so that individuals can digest and utilize these enriched representations of diverse symbolism and meaning. A long-term project here is to distribute the contemporary ideas of the universality of contextual, improvised, selves—to make it “acceptable”, even “natural”, to be culturally multi-sited, (Koven, 1998), or contradictory, in ones affiliations and choices of symbolic representation.

Areas where intra-cultural development has been deliberately halted, restricted, or seized through media campaigns, misinformation and/or propaganda need immediate pluralization.  As a means to achieve this, anti-propaganda campaigns and other applied approaches to restoring diversity in symbolic representation need consolidation, innovation and deployment.  Formal training programs and curricula aiming to equip students, a variety of actors and diplomats with the interpretative skills necessary to make their own professional contributions need to continue to be designed and put into action.

These aims cannot be achieved by anthropologists alone, (Moore and Sanders, 1996), but their trade and its tradition dictates action.  Interdisciplinary networks and terminologies, resources and forums need to be built in order for intra-cultural development to be fully realized as an organized cooperative endeavor. The anthropological tradition of building sustainability into the concepts of humanity and community is unquestioned.  What needs now to be considered are “concrete”, systematic, approaches to the development of symbolic infrastructures and architectures—the development of environments that simply must succeed our current unequally resourced and under-developed landscapes of identity.

Bruce White is the director of the Organization for Intra-Cultural Development (OICD)

References

Benedict, 1989 Patterns of Culture. Mariner books

Koven, Michele E.J 1998 Two Languages in the Self/ The Self in Two Languages: French-Portuguese Bilinguals’ Verbal Enactments and Experiences of Self in Narrative Discourse. Ethos　26/4: 410-455.

Moore, R., and Sanders, A.1996  The Limits of an Anthropology of Conflict: Loyalist and Republican Paramilitary Organizations in Northern Ireland. In Wolfe, Alvin and Yang, Honggang (eds,) Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution (Southern Anthropological Society Proceedings). University of Georgia Press

Wolfe, Alvin and Yang, Honggang (eds,) 1996 Anthropological Contributions to Conflict Resolution (Southern Anthropological Society Proceedings). University of Georgia Press

Here, There, and Me is a compilation of stories and reflections from a new generation of mixed cultural heritage children who grew up in Japan.

“Here, There, and Me” is a compilation of stories and reflections from a new generation of mixed cultural heritage children who grew up in Japan. Due to be published in paperback through Emic Press, Global Ethnographic’s partner publishing house, the book consists of twenty short essays from the young people that are the subjects of the book.

Global Ethnographic will be featuring some of the essays that appear in the book.   We start with Sarah Thomas.

“Here, There, and Me” by Penny Kinnear will soon be available for pre-order.

by Sarah Thomas

Everyone has their own stories of times when they have encountered a society new to them, cultures different from their own, or traveled to different countries.  Often, when people have these encounters they find adjusting to new ways, or being accepted a hard task.Yet, for most people these new adjustments regardless how often they must be made are still a small part of who they are, for they have a hometown, a city, a country where their own culture has developed and flourishes.  Being intercultural and biracial the biggest difference I find between myself and those with a single nationality is that I don’t quite fit in to any certain country.  If I travel to the States there are always the people who question me as if I were completely Japanese, and while I am in Japan those who don’t know me look at me as a foreigner.

At three I went to a small Japanese pre-school.  I clearly remember my first day.  Equipped with my lunchbox and indoor shoes, I walked through a large blue gate onto a small open playground.  For a moment I stopped to capture the new environment.  I scanned the playground, happy to see a shiny silver slide, monkey bars, and a chalk drawn miniature running track.  As I busily investigated the small preschool campus, I hardly noticed some of the other preschoolers slowly wander towards me.  They too, overwhelmed by their new surroundings started to investigate, however their process of investigation differed from mine.  While I carefully studied the buildings and playground they decided to study me.  They stood there in awe not moving a muscle not saying a word.  Recapturing themselves they ran back to their parents and asked why I was so abnormally tall.

On the day of the school’s undou-kai or sports day, I ran my first race ever.  After crossing the finish line ahead of all of the boys my teachers and classmates clustered around me,

“Why on earth can you run so fast?”

“Why do you run in such a funny way, with your hands straight as boards instead of in a fist?”

I stood lost and confused.  My height was perhaps a bit on the tall side but that was only to be expected because both my Japanese mom and American dad are tall.  The way I ran was exactly the same way I had seen my sister and everyone else run.  So what if I ran with my hands open rather then clutched in a fist?  I never quite understood why such small things like my height or the way I ran caught the attention of so many people who then picked me apart bit by bit trying to understand how I work.  Even as I grew older I encountered similar situations where I was “studied” because of my nationality.

At age ten I went to my first ever basketball camp in California.  I remember being absolutely horrified.  I had never left my parents for more than a couple nights.  All of the sudden I was snatched out of my relaxing summer and dropped into a huge college campus, with huge camp counsellors, and a huge group of kids.  Upon arrival, I carefully stayed behind my sister who also attended the camp.  Each step she’d take, I made sure I was right behind her so that if anything were to happen she could handle the situation for me. Then the dreaded occurred and the huge counsellors pulled us apart into different age groups.  Separated from my one defense against everyone else, I was tossed into a team, the crocodiles or the lizards or something, I remember standing there helplessly amongst fifteen or so other ten-year-old girls wondering if I was ever going to survive five whole days of camp.  I stood there completely in my own world. My body was numb with all I had to take in, and I could not hear a word of what my counsellor said, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.  Startled, I looked around to see a small blonde girl looking at me curiously from head to toe.  When she saw that she had got my attention she tilted her head to one side and said,

“Hello, where are you from?”

A little relieved at the simplicity of the question I smiled and answered,

“Tokyo, how about you?”

Instantly I had five girls swarm me.

“Can you speak Chinese?” one girl asked.

Chinese? I remember thinking to myself.  Why on earth could I speak Chinese?

“Can you fly?”

At this I blurted out, “Fly!? I wish I could.  Why can you?” These girls must be insane.

The girl looked at me as if I were the stupid one and said,

“Of course I can’t fly, I just thought you could, you know like ninja’s do when they go from rooftop to rooftop”.

Three years ago, my family and I took a trip to Boston, Massachusetts to visit my aunt’s family.  A couple of days into the visit, while enjoying a wonderful afternoon on the front lawn with my aunt, three cousins, and their black lab, Dodger, a friend came from across the street to chat and say hello.

“This is my niece, Sarah.  She’s half Japanese and she’s come all the way from Tokyo to visit us,” my aunt introduced me.

The neighbour smiled,

“Oh!” She paused. “I would have never guessed.  Well, you look like a normal teenager.”

This remark has stuck with me ever since, not because I found it insulting but because I found curious what the lady considered normal.  From her perspective, yes, I probably was abnormal, just as I had been strange to the girls at camp, or my pre-school classmates.  So I am a stranger in both of my home countries, but only when I meet new people who pause or withdraw after hearing that I am interracial. When I am around my family or the people I grew up with I don’t feel like a stranger.

I sat on a stage on the day of our graduation with Yasmin who is part Austrian, Alex who’s father is Danish, Mijung from Korea and my other twenty four international classmates we recalled the ten long years that most of us had spent together.

Christmas is the American family holiday and New Years or Oshou-gatsu is the biggest Japanese family holiday. We spent Christmas with my father’s family and then returned home for New Years day with my mother’s family.  From my experiences and my perspective being intercultural, bilingual, and biracial is normal.

Although in preschool I felt like somewhat of an outsider, after the transition into international school I was able to feel very much right where I belong. Through courses taught in both English and Japanese I was able to stay fluent in both languages.  The annual Food Fair, when different families of the school serve food from all over the world on our tiny playground, introduced me to even more cultures then just my two.   Most importantly the diversity of the student body and faculty introduced me to new ideas and new people.  So even though others may find me strange, I know who I am and as long as I am not a stranger to myself I find being a biracial, intercultural child an advantage.  I am fluent in two languages, can interact with multiple cultures, and compared to most people I get to see a lot more of the world.

Global Ethnographic is a new online magazine-journal designed to popularize and disseminate anthropological perspectives. Engaging articles, photographic exhibitions, films and features provide the general reader with new ways of interpreting current issues, topics, human relationships and own and other identities.

We bring together an exciting range of contributions from anthropologists and social/behavioral scientists on a range of topics. Collecting ethnographic research from across the world, Global Ethnographic is a unique open-access resource for incisive commentary and analysis on the social relationships, organizations and identities that are defining our new century.

Global Ethnographic (GE) attracts a wide and diverse interest from the public, students and social science professionals. While GE does hope to give a popular gleen to its articles and features–including photographs, links, features, interviews, life stories, etc.–it meanwhile hopes to encourage innovative approaches, methodology and social theory.

All GE submissions are peer-reviewed to the same standards as many international academic journals.

Read our guidelines on making a submission to GE. Read welcome messages from the Editorial Board.

If you represent a university department you may want to find out how to affiliate with Global Ethnographic helping you to market your courses to a large pool of potential students.

If you are a professional social anthropologist looking to become involved with GE in some way, why not look at how to become an editor.

Get involved now as a writer or editor and/or affiliate with Global Ethnographic!

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The Global Ethnographic (GE) Editorial Board members talk about their individual visions for the site. The GE editorial board members are all professional anthropologists working in a variety of different fields and regions.

Dr Richard Chenhall, Centre for Health and Society, Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne

Global Ethnographic is a new journal, one that we hope will reach a broad audience working in a variety of locations, and on a number different topics. The journal is applied in its focus and we hope that submissions can translate anthropological themes, both theoretical and methodological, to issues that have global relevance. In order to respond to such issues, authors who chose to publish in this journal may draw from a number of sub-disciplines within Anthropology. For example, medical anthropologists may wish to draw our attention to the way in which biomedical technologies are bringing about changes to society and individuals within it. Development perspectives may bring us an analysis of intra-cultural tensions or harmony within modern nation states. The journal would also like to showcase ethnographic examinations of different and varied groups (and their inter-relationships), from minority and Indigenous groups through to governments and powerful corporations. What can we learn from anthropological perspectives, how do they frame issues and responses to complex problems? In what ways can Anthropology engage with the global?

As a medical anthropologist, one of my interests is in how issues around culture and society intermesh to create us as human subjects. A variety of experiences become to be defined as medical problems within various societies, such as alcoholism, and suicide. However the ways in which these “states” come to be known and experienced as disordered is wrapped up in a number of processes related to institutional and government processes. Specific cultural and social norms exist around various “disordered states” and these help to define and support informal systems of control.  However, with the increasing medicalisation and bureaucratic control of medical understanding and response systems, informal system of control have little place in the constitution of human subjects. In what ways do humans work within these systems to bring meaning to their experiences, which are defined as disordered? How do they use cultural and social norms to support relationships with families, communities and others in similar states?

Dr. Mark Davidheiser, Department of Conflict Analysis and Resolution, Nova Southeastern University, and Director of the Africa Peace and Conflict Network (africapeace.org)

It is a pleasure to be a part of this exciting venture to broaden the reach od anthropological thought through conceptually rich but broadly accessible pieces in innovative styles and formats. Global Ethngraphic aims to contribute meaningfully to the shaping of evolving anthropological thought and to its dissemination.

Tamara (Tammy) Kohn (Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, University of Melbourne – BA (Berkeley), MA (Penn), DPhil (Oxford)

Global Ethnographic, in its interest in reaching out to a public that wants to engage with anthropology, is really offering a wonderful and necessary new resource.  I’ve been locked up in various academic ‘ivory towers’ in various parts of the world as a student and then lecturer for over 3 decades now, and ever since I first decided to ‘be an anthropologist’, I’ve felt that the most gratification I’d get from the job would be knowing that people who don’t necessarily pursue academic careers but work in the public sector in a range of disciplines and practices would learn to deeply appreciate the diversity of human experience through their studies.  This appreciation could then be applied effectively in the larger public sector, in political spheres, in medical professions, in social services.   The reason I’m so excited to be involved in OICD and its online magazine, Global Ethnographic,  is that it allows for quality descriptive and analytical ethnographic work to be read and enjoyed to all who would wish to access it, with merely a press of an button to the URL link.  Public knowledge, publically shared, globally effective, open to critical and supportive opinion – what more could one wish for!?

Dr. Bruce White (Associate Professor of Anthropology,

Doshisha University, Kyoto Japan)

It is exciting to finally bring you, dear reader, a site which is the culmination of almost a decade of conceptualization, networking, sourcing and online innovation.

When Global Ethnographic was conceived in 1999 there were few sources of “popular anthropology” writing either online or off. While today, professional and student/graduate anthropologists are more active in attempting to popularize anthropological perspectives, the discipline is still nowhere near, say, psychology or geography in terms of public appeal.

Unlike hardcopy magazines such as Psychology Today or National Geographic, anthropology still lacks a popular interface with the general public. And this at a time when the world needs the perspectives that anthropology brings to the local contexts of our social lives more than ever.

Over the last decade the vision of an online popular hub of readable ethnographic articles attracting established anthropologists, students and the general public has remained with us. A decade on and we are seeing the degree to which the vision needs to be made real; not only to satisfy established and emerging fans of the anthropological perspective, but to popularize the very perspectives the world now needs to begin to solve its many interconnected problems.

We hope that this site will demonstrate one way in which anthropological research and theory, ideas and action, can act as tools for us all. We hope that in the process, the site demonstrates the inherent value of all anthropological work—its ability to vastly enhance the lenses through which people understand and interpret the world around them.