08.06.2016 - 14:15

GRK 1613 Reserach Forum – David Chiavacci

Japan’s Immigration Politics, 1966-2016

Date: Wed., June 8, 2016, 2.15 pm

Venue: IN-EAST, Room LE 736, Campus Duisburg

It is often assumed that Japan’s immigration policy is the result of its predominant ethno-nationalism that explains a restrictive immigration policy and a preference for ethnic return migration. However, this is not more than a kind of negative Nihonjinron. An empirical analysis of the interrelationship between Japan’s new immigration movements, its immigration debates and its policy reforms shows a much more complex reality. In fact, Japan’s immigration policy is marked by institutional fragmentation, ideational diversity and its embeddedness in the East Asian migration region. In this presentation, I will discuss Japan’s immigration policy and new immigration movements from the South Korean trainee proposal in 1966 to the current reform propositions in 2016. This half-century is marked by four waves of immigration debate and the emergence of Japan as a new immigration country in the late 1980s.