Triangular Circulation: Japanese Brazilians on the Move between Japan, Australia and Brazil

Abstract

This article considers the place of Australia within the network of sites through which Japanese Brazilian migrants move. In doing so, it aims to demonstrate the importance of moving beyond a bi-focal analysis of transnationalism to one which encompasses a multiplicity of sites and migrants’ diverse strategies to cross these national borders. Here I analyse the triangular circulation of young middle-class Japanese Brazilians and the establishment of transnational social fields among Brazil, Japan and Australia. I argue that in order to negotiate these multiple borders, Japanese Brazilians mobilise economic, social and cultural capitals and by doing so undergo changes in subjectivity in all three nodes of this triangular circulation. Moreover, I contend that their middle-class status makes for a very specific migration pattern in which acquiring cultural capital (which will later be converted into economic capital) is more important than migrating in search of economic capital alone.

Keywords:

• Transnationalism
• Migration
• Migration Pattern
• Japanese Brazilians
• Class
• Cultural Capital
• Mobility

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank three anonymous reviewers and Paul Allatson for the close reading and suggestions on how to improve this article.

Notes

[1] For Glick Schiller and Salazar (2013: 189), these refer to ‘both of individual states and changing international regulatory and surveillance administrations that affect individual mobility’.

[2] In her study of Brazilians in New York in the 1980s and early 1990s, Margolis (1994) observed that Brazilians were middle class and well-educated. However, in the past decade more working class and less educated Brazilians have been arriving in the US (for more on this see, for instance, Beserra 2003; Sales 2004; Jouët-Pastré and Braga 2008; Marcus 2013: 98).

[3] According to Besser, ‘Sydney has been ranked at the bottom of a list of the world's most important 20 cities for the quality of its transport infrastructure, behind Mumbai, São Paulo and Mexico City’ (2008: 5).

[4] For more on the Japanese migration to Brazil, see Lesser (1999, 2007) and Lone (2001). Dekasegi literally means temporary workers, a term first used in relation to internal migration in Japan. Since the mid-1980s, it has been synonymous with descendants of Japanese migrants, such as Brazilians and Peruvians, who have gone to Japan to work temporarily.

[5] According to Japanese Government figures, there are around 33,500 Japanese Brazilian children between the ages of 5 and 14 years in Japan. Only 10,000 of them are in Japanese schools, the other 23,500 either go to Portuguese-language schools accredited by the Brazilian Government or do not attend school (Onishi 2008).

[6] This is an Australian Government provision which allows 18- to 30-year-old citizens from select developed countries to work full time and travel in Australia for a year.

[7] Perroud also found that many young Japanese Brazilians experience emancipation for the first time when they work in Japan. This is, in fact, one of the thrills of living overseas for them (2007: 60). In Brazil, middle-class youth will start working only when they finish university. Menial jobs are filled by the large non-skilled workforce.