Identification for Career: Contemporary Young Japanese Diaspora in Asia

Most literature on contemporary Japanese diaspora has been focused on male expatriates and their families following the offshore transfer of Japanese companies. Under the popularization of international migration, however, the flow, period or style of migration and the social background of migrants are getting increasingly diverse. This paper focuses on a new type of young Japanese migrant workers in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Singapore.

They move individually and are locally hired, usually through staffing agencies. In most cases, they find positions under expatriates in Japanese companies abroad, which leads them to be marginalized in Japanese communities. They speak local language and work with local people under the management of expatriates. Therefore their identification becomes more complicated when compared with expatriates, who are strongly embedded in Japanese companies and communities. In addition, their identification influences and is influenced by their choice of staying/moving/circulation. They are contract-based workers and can easily change their jobs and working/living place. It means their mobility is connected with their career planning. Considering these situations, they are drawn to 3 directions: localized, globalized and national under their working conditions and future plans. Localized and globalized identities are necessary for daily working and career building in abroad. Japaneseness has to be preserved for re-entering Japan labor market after return as well as for business communication with Japanese companies abroad. These identities coexist, conflict or are combined in each context.

What forms their diasporic identity, how does it change, and how do they try to control/fail to control it? Based on rich empirical work since 2009, this paper reveals the process of Japanese young diaspora’s identification.