Table Of ContentMigration,
Whiteness, and
Cosmopolitanism
Europeans in Japan
Miloš Debnár
Migration, Whiteness, and Cosmopolitanism
Miloš D ebnár
Migration, Whiteness,
and Cosmopolitanism
Europeans in Japan
Miloš Debnár
Department of Sociology
Doshisha University
Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan
ISBN 978-1-137-56526-6 ISBN 978-1-137-56149-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56149-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949253
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A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book would not have been completed without the support of many
people who shared with me their experiences, provided me with advice
and guidance, and supported me in good and bad times. First of all, my
thanks go to all interviewees who shared their personal stories and opin-
ions, which formed the essence of this thesis and helped me to understand
the topics addressed here. Unfortunately, given the personal character of
their narratives and considerably large number of the interviewees and
other informants, I can thank them only as anonymous participants here,
yet I believe the message would be conveyed to them. Without the will-
ingness to participate in this project and the sincere attitude of each of
them, the empirical part of this project would have been signifi cantly
harder to accomplish.
I also want to express my deep gratitude to all those who helped me to
develop the ideas presented in this book. It is impossible to ‘rank’ all the
individuals who helped me on my way, yet I wish to start with my advisor,
Prof. Motoji Matsuda, who helped me not only as an academic and tutor
with countless hours of discussions and advice, but was also sensitive to
my personal situation and would support me when I needed it the most.
I also wish to thank Prof. Kimio Itō, Prof. Yasuko Takezawa, and Assoc.
Prof. Hiroshi Tarōmaru, who helped me to develop my ideas by being
generous with their comments and advice. I greatly appreciate the help of
all my former colleagues and friends from the Department of Sociology
at Kyoto University, and my present colleagues at Doshisha University.
They have not only provided me with valuable comments and advice
but also with inspiration and encouragement for my work. Daniel Milne,
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Kyle Thompson, and Martin Čieško helped me with corrections in English,
for which I am grateful. The insights and advice of all the people listed
here and all others whom I cannot thank personally were of great value for
this study. Nevertheless, it is necessary to emphasize that all opinions and
interpretations of the fi ndings are mine as well as are the possible mistakes
or misinterpretations.
And last, but defi nitely not the least, I wish to thank my wife, son,
and other members of the family who provided me with much-needed
emotional support, energy, and inspiration, without which I would not
have fi nished this project. They all showed a lot of patience and were of
great support on this long journey which I choose to take and wanted to
accomplish.
C
ONTENTS
1 Introduction 1
Part I Migration 2 7
2 European Migration to Japan: Historical Roots and
Recent Development 2 9
3 Between Entertainers and High-Skilled Elites: Skills,
Study, and Marriage 65
Part II Integration and Privilege 109
4 Race and Privilege in Integration: Occupations,
White Privilege, and Gender 1 11
5 White Privilege Revised: White Man’s ‘Burden’ in Japan 1 43
vii
viii CONTENTS
Part III Cosmopolitanism 177
6 Integration and Social Relations: Between Ethnicity
and Cosmopolitanism 179
7 Conclusions 209
Index 2 29
L F
IST OF IGURES
Fig. 1.1 N umber of registered Europeans living in Japan and the main
countries of origin (1986–2014). S ource : Based upon data
from the Statistics on the Foreigners Registered in Japan for
years 1986–2014 (Ministry of Justice, Immigration Bureau) 1 4
Fig. 2.1 N umber of foreign residents in Japan, 1986–2014. S ource :
Based upon data from Statistics on the Foreigners Registered
in Japan for years 1986–2014 (Ministry of Justice,
Immigration Bureau) 31
Fig. 2.2 N umber of European residents in Japan, 1986–2014. S ource :
Based upon data from Statistics on the Foreigners Registered
in Japan for years 1986–2014 (Ministry of Justice,
Immigration Bureau) 4 1
Fig. 2.3 M ajor visa categories of European residents in Japan, 2014.
Source : Based upon data from Statistics on the Foreigners
Registered in Japan, 2014 (Ministry of Justice,
Immigration Bureau) 43
Fig. 2.4 C hange in the share of the major visa categories, 1986–2011.
Source : Based upon data from Statistics on the Foreigners
Registered in Japan for years 1986–2011 (Ministry of Justice,
Immigration Bureau) 4 4
Fig. 6.1 Social network of Vaclav. The fi gure was created in dedicated
software for visualizing and handling ego-centric social
networks VennMaker (available at w ww.vennmaker.com ) 1 84
Fig. 6.2 T he social network of Europeans surrounding university.
The network was visualized in a dedicated software Gephi in
version 0.8.2 (available at w ww.gephi.org ) 1 87
ix
