Multiethnic Japan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: January 15, 2001
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780674002999
Subjects: Cultural studies; Multicultural studies; Social history; History; Asia - Japan; History - General History; History: World; Japan; Anthropology - Cultural; History / Japan; 1868-; Aliens; Civilization; Ethnic relations
First sentence: In the late 1980s the influx of foreign workers became the most widely discussed social issue in Japan.
Description: "Multiethnic Japan challenges the received view of Japanese society as ethnically homogeneous. Employing a wide array of arguments and evidence - historical and comparative, interviews and observations, high literature and popular culture - John Lie recasts modern Japan as a thoroughly multiethnic society." "Lie casts light on a wide range of minority groups in modern Japanese society, including the Ainu, Burakumin (descendants of premodern outcasts), Chinese, Koreans, and Okinawans. In so doing, he depicts the trajectory of modern Japanese identity." "Surprisingly, Lie argues that the belief in a monoethnic Japan is a post-World War II phenomenon, and he explores the formation of the monoethnic ideology. He also makes a general argument about the nature of national identity, delving into the mechanisms of social classification, signification, and identification."--Jacket.