Race and migration in Imperial Japan
By: Michael Weiner.
Series: The Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge series
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1994
Place of publication: London; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 278
Subjects: Koreans -- Japan -- History.; Japan -- Ethnic relations.; Korea -- History -- Japanese occupation, 1910-1945.
Description: A high degree of cultural and racial homogeneity has long been associated with Japan, with its political discourse and with the lexicon of post-war Japanese scholarship. This book examines underlying assumptions. The author provides an analysis of racial discourse in Japan, its articulation and re-articulation over the past century, against the background of labor migration from the colonial periphery. He deconstructs the myth of a `Japanese race'. The author also pursues a second major theme of colonial migration; its causes and consequences. Rather than merely identifying the `push factors', the analysis focuses on the more dynamic `pull factors' that determined immigrant destinations. Similarly, rather than focusing upon the immigrant, the author examines the structural need for low-cost temporary labor that was filled by Korean immigrants.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-270) and index.