Infrastructural casualties: educational intermediaries and casualization of Nepali student workforce in Japan

ABSTRACT

This article explores the mutual restructuring of migration infrastructure and international student mobility in contemporary Japan. Through ethnography in an emergent Nepali migrant community, specifically, the experience of student-workers, the essay elucidates the joint effect of migrant labor subordination and casualization of student workforce. Using the case of former and current Nepali students enrolled in Japanese language schools (nihongo gakko) and vocational colleges (senmon gakko) and employed as part-time workers, the essay zooms into the role of educational intermediaries in reproducing and restructuring migration infrastructure in Japan. It shows how foreign student recruitment from low-income countries like Nepal is self-disciplined to enter low-wage labor shortage sectors through Japanese language socialization, legalization experience, and discourse surrounding educational aspirations.

KEYWORDS:

• Migration infrastructure
• international student immobility
• labor
• educational intermediaries
• Japan
• Nepal

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. I have been conducting interview with several Nepalis who had either attended JSL at one point or knew students taking classes there.

2. Shogo Kodama, “Tokyo keen to draw foreign workers to rural Japan”, Nikkei Asia, June 10, 2019. https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Tokyo-keen-to-draw-foreign-workers-to-rural-Japan; Yusuke Yokota and Yuki Fujita, “Japan bumps into challenges welcoming overseas workers”, Nikkei Asia, April 29, 2019.

3. The English-language online news media specifically highlighted the problem of longstanding immigration system deliberately admitting foreigners under limited-term training or educational programs, notorious for exploitation and labor-rights violation. See, for instance, “Foreigner workers in Japan hit record in 2020 despite COVID-19”, The Asahi Shimbun, January 30, 2021, http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14149062; “Japan’s foreign workers hit hard by pandemic despite record number” February 3, 2021, https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2021/02/5629f78d04d6-japans-foreign-workers-hit-hard-by-pandemic-despite-record-number.html; Menju Toshihiro, “COVID-19 and the Crisis in Japanese Immigration Policy”, Nippon, May 27, 2020, https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/d00572/

4. Tomoya Onishi, “Vietnamese migrant workers fall sharply amid COVID-19 pandemic”, Nikkei Asia, May 31 2021, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Vietnamese-migrant-workers-fall-sharply-amid-COVID-19-pandemic2; “Foreign workers in Japan seek help as pandemic worsens job situation”, September 4, 2020, https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/foreign-workers-in-japan-seek-help-as-pandemic-worsens-job-situation/; Yosuke Suzuki and Hikakiro Yazaki, “Foreign students in Japan face grim job picture in COVID-19 era”, Nikkei Asia, July 18, 2020, https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Japan-immigration/Foreign-students-in-Japan-face-grim-job-picture-in-COVID-19-era; Kamino Takehiro”,Dumped from dream job and abandoned at the station”, NHK World-Japan, November 6, 2020, https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/1361/

5. For discussion on “middle space of migration”, see Johan Lindquist, Biao Xiang, and Brenda Yeoh, “Opening the Black Box of Migration: Brokers and the Organization of Transnational Mobility”, Pacific Affairs 85, no.1 (2012): 11. See also Tina Shrestha and Brenda Yeoh, “Practices of brokerage and the making of migration infrastructures in Asia”. Guest co-editor, Special Issue Journal, Pacific Affairs, 91 (4): 665–674. Alice Kern and Ulrike Muller-Boker, in “The Middle Space of Migration: A Case Study on Brokerage and Recruitment Agencies in Nepal”, Geoforum 65 (2015): 158–169, adopt the concept of “middle-space” to illuminate the specific work of migration intermediaries and middlemen in Nepal.

6. Since 2010 the Ministry of Justice’s Immigration Services Agency (ISA) in Japan started direct screening and authorization of nihongo gakko, institutionalizing their role and operation into immigration enforcement while significantly expanding their regulatory framework.

7. Binod Ghimire (2015, July 28). “Foreign degree seekers hit record number”. Kathmandu Post. Retrieved from http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2015-07-28/foreign-degree-seekers- hit-record-number.html

8. Stated by Uttam Pant, the president of International Education Representatives’ Initiative of Nepal (IERIN), in an interview with the Kathmandu Post, 2015.

9. Throughout this paper, I use international and foreign students interchangeably.

10. According to the Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), Annual Survey of International Students in Japan 2018 report.

11. According to Sato et al. (2020), one of the key concerns confronting these student-recruits from the so-called “non-Kanji zone” countries, like Nepal and Vietnam, is their relatively slower progression to attain Japanese language proficiency compared to their counterparts from the “Kanji-zone countries”, like Korea and China.

12. JLPT-N4 level is required to apply to a Japanese language school, process student visa application and, if successful, ultimately obtain Certificate of Eligibility (CoE) by the school that are then submitted to the Japanese embassy in Nepal. The embassy will issue the actual student visa after a physical interview, which is separate from the interview that schools in Japan may (or may not) conduct during the final stages of the recruitment.

13. JASSO, Embassy of Japan in Nepal, and the Japanese Universities Alumni Association, Nepal (JUAAN) jointly organized and hosted “Study in Japan Fair 2018 Nepal”.

14. Many conversations quoted here were initially in Nepali (given that I was born in Nepal and speak Nepali fluently) and were translated and transcribed by me for this paper. Pseudonyms are used throughout the paper to protect the privacy of research informants.

15. Under the joint supervision of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Justice and Foreign Affairs, the Japanese government established the Association for the Promotion of Japanese Language Education (APJLE) in 1989. Chaired by the two ministries, APJLE provided authorization and membership for nihongo gakko, regularly screened, monitored, approved, and renewed their license based on quality of educational activities and services.

16. https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180924/p2a/00m/0na/012000c

17. Half of my respondents corroborated that several of their “unlucky” peers experienced similar situation during and in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic as the following case highlights: Shimpo, Kahoku “Woman’s plight puts Japanese-language school cancellation fees in spotlight”, The Japan Times, March 14, 2022. Available at https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/03/14/national/japanese-language-school-visas/; See, for instance, the ongoing high profile case of Wishma Sandamali, language student from Sri Lanka, who, upon overstaying her student visa, was detained and, three months later, died in the custody of Japanese immigration authorities: Nakagawa, Akari. “Cause of death of detainee revealed for the first time, family says”, The Asahi Shimbun, September 1, 2022. Available at: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14708342

18. In their study, Sato et al. (2020) discuss how nihongo gakko are authorised by the Japanese Ministry of Justice to sponsor prospective international students for the Student (ryūgaku) visa required for study in Japan.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.