Volume 5 | Issue 3 | Article ID 2389 | Mar 01, 2007 The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the 'Myth' of Homogeneity [Indonesian Translation Available] Chris Burgess Multicultural Japan? Discourse and the one which dismisses the popular discourse of ‘Myth’ of Homogeneity [1] ‘homogeneous Japan’ as myth and which draws on ‘factual’ demographic and economic data to [Indonesian Translation Available Here] argue for the inevitability of further migration. This paper examines the discrepancy between Chris Burgess an increasingly negative global discourse on migration and an unwaveringly positive ‘multicultural Japan’ discourse. I argue that a It is not sufficient to fight against myths by destroying one myth and replacing it failure to acknowledge popular discourse as a with another, as in, for example,crucial element in the construction of Japanese criticising the myth of the homogenous social reality can lead to a distorted nation by replacing it with the myth of the understanding of migrants and migration in mixed nation (Oguma 2002: 349) Japan. 1. Nihonjinron and ‘Multicultural Japan’ Introduction In the field of Japanese Studies, one prominent discourse is that of a ‘multicultural Japan’. Recent years have seen a trend towards the Much of this can be traced back to a number of stabilisation of global migration flows (OECD critiques (e.g. Aoki 1990; Befu 1987; Dale 2005: 17/53). One factor behind this trend may 1986; Mouer and Sugimoto 1986; Yoshino be the growing atmosphere of global anxiety 1992) of Nihonjinron, a genre of writing and fear, fuelled by media reports of terrorist discussing Japanese cultural uniqueness. atrocities, bird flu, and nuclear proliferation. Mouer and Sugimoto (1986: 406) define Such an atmosphere exacerbates the process of Nihonjinron as having two central tenets: (a) exclusion, opposition, and hierachisation that is Japanese society is 'uniquely' unique and (b) known as Othering (Cahoone 1996: 16). This is group orientation is the dominant cultural particularly evident in attitudes and policies pattern which shapes behaviour. A central towards migration, specifically in thepremise of Nihonjinron is that the Japanese are imposition of much stricter immigrationa homogeneous people (tan'itsu minzoku) who controls and the emergence of extremist anti- constitute a racially unified nation tan'itsu( immigrant movements in many nations. minzoku kokka). Ironically, it has been pointed out (Revell 1997: 74) that the origins of this Japan, an economic superpower with apost-war discussion on national identity are not sophisticated media infrastructure, has hardly Japanese but rather American, specifically Ruth been immune to these global currents. By Benedict’s (1946) The Chrysanthemum and the contrast, the dominant academic discourse on Sword. Japan has, in general, continued to frame itself in a political ideal of a ‘multicultural Japan’, Although Nihonjinron is a convenient 1 5 | 3 | 0 APJ | JF shorthand, writings are diverse and varied wave of writings in this mould were primarily covering a number of major themes. For by Japanese scholars (e.g. Komai 1992; Oguma example, Fujiwara’s (2005) best-selling ‘Style 1995; Onuma 1993) who were almost uniformly of a Nation’, which emphases, bushido-style, concerned with ‘overcoming’ the ‘myth of the importance ofindividual (rather than homogeneity’ (tan’itsu minzoku no shinwa). In group) feeling or spirit jyocho( ), advertises 1995, two books, both jointly edited by John itself as ‘epoch-making’kakkiteki ( ) Maher (Maher and Macdonald 1995; Maher Nihon(jin)ron. In an often cited 1978 survey by and Yashiro 1995), focussed on the linguistic the Nomura Research Institute, writings on and cultural heterogeneity in Japanese society, national character, desire and satisfaction, combined in Japanese as Towards a New Order: work ethics, saving, time, and even foreigners’ Language and Cultural Diversity in Japan views on Japanese economic activities were all (Maher and Honna 1994). Like the first wave of subsumed under the Nihonjinron labelJapanese writings, Maher’s project was framed (Wikipedia 2006a). Revell (1997: 74) notes that largely as a response to a ‘dangerous’ in the Nomura survey, often used as evidence Nihonjinron: for the pervasiveness of the genre, any book which had ‘Japanese’ in the title or which The purpose of this volume is to discussed ‘obviously Japanese concepts’ was accelerate the burial process that will classified as Nihonjinron (see also Yoshino finish off a chronic dependency on the 1992: 227). In fact, Revell (1997: 74) argues invented tradition of monolingualism that most Japanese are not even aware that and monoculturalism (Maher and they are reading a definable body of literature, Yashiro 1995: 2) and may need reminding. Thus, what one expert (Befu, 2001: 14) characterises narrowly Michael Weiner (1997), in Japan’s Minorities: as a species of cultural nationalism which is The Illusion of Homogeneity, continued in this presumably found everywhere,[2] has, for vein, challenging the ‘dominant paradigm’ of academics and publishers, come to broadly homogeneity by emphasising the diversity that encompass almost any text – rarely state- exists in Japanese society. Weiner (1997: xiii) originated, sometimes academic or pseudo- argued that Japan was home to diverse academic, mostly popular, occasionallypopulations despite “a master narrative of crackpot – on Japanese society or identity. As ‘racial’ and cultural homogeneity which Clammer (2001:10/66) points out, Nihonjinron precludes the existence of minorities.” We are has come, for better or worse, to berarely told who has actually said that Japan is representative of all indigenous thinking; homogenous, as evidenced by the lack of almost all Japanese social thought has come to references. Yet, today, writers queue up to be seen through the lenses of Nihonjinron and debunk the ‘myth’ of homogeneity, which has "anything remotely nativist is immediately come to represent a straw man par-excellence. classified as (in a negative sense) Nihonjinron." From the mid-1990s, a number of books about Although typically referred to as a ‘discourse’, migrant settlement in Japan began to appear Nihonjinron appears to lack the unity or (e.g. Komai 1995b; Miyajima and Kajita 1996; internal coherence to qualify as a single system Weiner and Hanami 1998). Soon after, the of knowledge. Nevertheless, the publication of word ‘multicultural’ became quite common in the Nihonjinron critiques listed above was writings on Japan. In a volume which promised followed by a large number of books placing to offer a ‘multicultural perspective’ on themselves in direct opposition to – and seeking ‘Nihonjinron at the end of the Twentieth to refute – the Nihonjinron ‘discourse’. The first Century’, Mouer and Sugimoto (1995: 242), the 2 5 | 3 | 0 APJ | JF first to critically examine the Nihonjinron genre Graburn et al.’s (forthcoming) edited volume systematically, titled a section of their paper which looks at the ‘growing and contested ‘Multicultural Japan’. Although they seemed to forms of multiculturalism’ as newcomers be pointing to nothing more than the existence transform Japan at the grassroots level. Here, of social variation in Japanese society, it multiculturalism refers not so much to a state marked the start of a ‘multicultural Japan’ of society but rather to ‘the adoption of an ideal boom. For example, in 1996, Denoonet al form of public policy’ (Graburn and Ertl published Multicultural Japan, a book which forthcoming) in response to increased numbers purported to challenge the ‘conventional’ view of foreign workers and other migrants. Below, I of Japanese society as being monocultural and analyse the two senses in which ‘multicultural homogenous (McCormack 1996). Like Mouer Japan’ is used, namely as variation, which has and Sugimoto, the term ‘multicultural’ was always existed (1.1) and as a new political ideal used in order to stress the variation and (1.2). diversity present in Japanese society, a diversity which, they were keen to stress, had a 1.1 ‘Multicultural Japan’ as Social long history. Sugimoto (1999: 93) defines the Variation ‘multicultural paradigm’ as one that: The idea that social variation exists in Japanese embraces all ethnic minorities of the society is uncontroversial. As Morris-Suzuki underlying Japanese(1998: 156/192) notes, if culture is taken to population…Multiculturality mean the possession of the same knowledge, here…comprises the so-calledvalues, and experiences then any national subcultural groupings, including for society is by definition multicultural: culture is example, female culture, part-time always ‘multi’ by its very nature. Nevertheless, workers’ culture, physicallythe focus on difference, which has always handicapped people’s culture, youth existed in Japan, can perhaps be taken too far. culture, homosexual culture and so on. Ryang (2005: 10/201) calls for caution in what she calls the ‘recent and powerful trend of The problem was that while some writers (e.g. representing Japan from a…pluralistic angle’ Sugimoto 1997: chapter 1) continued to use with its ever-increasing celebration of diversity, ‘multicultural society’ as a simple shorthand for marginals, and minorities. In the first place, the variation in society, which has always existed, overriding concern withethnic minorities others began to use it to describe thetends, as Clammer (2001: 7) points out, to emergence of the kind of political ideal in Japan occlude other dimensions of difference