Beyond Racism: Semi-Citizenship and Marginality in Modern Japan

Abstract

The special issue ‘Rethinking Race and Racism from Japanese Experiences’ explores how racism operates in modern Japan. This article contributes to that exploration by examining how racism is situated within a nexus of interrelated forms of discrimination and marginalization. In the article I propose the notion of ‘semi-citizenship’ as one framework which can help us to go beyond unfruitful zero-sum-game visions of marginalization put forward by racist groups such as the Zaitokukai in Japan. Rather than envisioning a dichotomous contrast between ‘citizen’ and ‘non-citizen’, the idea of semi-citizenship allows us to think of a range of different sets of social positions stretching towards the idealized vision of the ‘full citizen’. We can then start to consider how such social positions are distributed within modern societies, how they are influenced by factors such as ethnicity, gender and physical and mental attributes, and how the distribution changes over time. This approach offers a common ground on which various kinds of marginalization may be related and understood together, potentially providing a basis for collaborative work to create a more equitable Japanese society.

Funding acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council [grant number FL120100155].

Notes

¹ See for example Penney, ‘Racists Go Home!’; Morris-Suzuki, ‘Freedom of Hate Speech’.

² Nussbaum, Women and Human Development, 5; see also Sen, Development as Freedom, Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice.

³ Cohen, Semi-Citizenship in Democratic Politics, 275–82.

⁴ Itō, Hisho ruisan 10, 558–559.

⁵ Ōmura, ‘“Sabetsu Shisutemu” to shite no koseki’, 176; Chapman, ‘Geographies of Self and Other’.

⁶ Satō, Koseki uragae shikō, 155; Chapman, ‘Inventing Subjects and Sovereignty’.

⁷ Kaiho, ‘Kindai Hokkaidō no keisei to minzoku mondai’, 225–30.

⁸ Leupp, Interracial Intimacy in Japan, 197.

⁹ For example, Itoh, Globalization of Japan.

¹⁰ Itō, Hisho ruisan 10, 524.

¹¹ See Unoura, ‘Kindai Nihon ni okeru’; Saiki, ‘Zainichi Chūgokujin keizai shakai’; Lake and Reynolds, Drawing the Global Colour Line.

¹² Oda, Nihon no kyōkishi, 357–62.

¹³ Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, 16, 54–56.

¹⁴ Amos, Embodying Difference; McCormack, Japan’s Outcaste Abolition.

¹⁵ Roth, ‘Political and Cultural Perspectives on Japan’s Insider Minorities’.

¹⁶ Tashiro, Kosekihō chikujō kaisetsu, 795.

¹⁷ Chapman, ‘Geographies of Self and Other’.

¹⁸ Tanaka, ‘Shokuminchi tōchi’, 160.

¹⁹ Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan, 107.

²⁰ Katō, Women’s Rights?, 40–41.

²¹ Underwood, ‘Names, Bones and Unpaid Wages’.

²² Fujitani, Race for Empire.

²³ Matsuda, Senzenki no Zainichi Chōsenjin to senkyōken; Tanaka, ‘Shokuminchi tōchi’, 162; Fujitani, Race for Empire, 66.

²⁴ Australian National Film Board, Whither Japan.

²⁵ Mackie, Feminism in Modern Japan, 120–21.

²⁶ Ōmura, ‘“Sabetsu shisutemu” to shite no koseki’.

²⁷ Takemae, Inside GHQ, 496.

²⁸ Kim, ‘Zainichi Chōsenjin no hōteki chii’; Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan.

²⁹ GHQ/SCAP Legal Section, ‘Legal Comments’; see also Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan, 112–13.

³⁰ Kim, ‘Zainichi Chōsenjin no hōteki chii’; see also Morris-Suzuki, Borderline Japan,

³¹ US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, ‘Ordinance no. 93’.

³² US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, ‘Ordinance no. 125’.

³³ Satō, Koseki uragae shikō, 137–38.

³⁴ Siddle, Race, Resistance and the Ainu of Japan, 149–51.

³⁵ US Civil Administration of the Ryukyu Islands, ‘Ordinance no. 13’.

³⁶ Katō, Womens Rights?

³⁷ Oda, Nihon no kyōkishi, 367.

³⁸ Neary, Human Rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, 147; Neary also notes that the figure for Japan is probably an underestimation.

³⁹ Murphy-Shigematsu, ‘Identities of Multiethnic People in Japan’, particularly 205.

⁴⁰ Kwok, Chan, and Chan, Self-Help Organizations of People with Disabilities in Asia, 26–27.

⁴¹ Ishikada, Living Together, 174.

⁴² Neary, Human Rights in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, 153–54; Neary (at 128) also notes, though, that the UN Principles are regarded by some observers as codifying and justifying the coercive use of medical power, rather than protecting patients from such power.

⁴³ See, for example, Allison, Precarious Japan.

⁴⁴ See, for example, Zielenziger, Shutting out the Sun.

⁴⁵ Sakanaka, ‘An Immigration Stimulus for Japan’.

⁴⁶ The official title of the law is the very cumbersome ‘Law on Special Measures to Reform Immigration Control such as the Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Law and the Status of People who Renounced their Japanese Nationality under the Peace Treaty with Japan’.

⁴⁷ ‘“My Number” Is Dangerous’.

⁴⁸ Bowe, ‘In Japan, National ID Proposal Spurs Privacy Concerns’.

⁴⁹ For details of the new system, see the Ministry of Justice information online at http://nettv.gov-online.go.jp/eng/prg/prg2672.html and http://www.immi-moj.go.jp/newimmiact_1/index.html; foreign residents will normally be given automatic re-entry if they travel abroad and return to Japan within a year. The re-entry system for ‘special permanent residents’ is discussed above. See also Chapman, ‘No More “Aliens”’; Arudou, ‘Embedded Racism’.

⁵⁰ Arudou, ‘Embedded Racism’, 67–68.

⁵¹ Ishihara, ‘Gaikokujin Tōroku Hō’.