Japan’s Underclass JAPANESE SOCIETY SERIES General Editor: Yoshio Sugimoto Lives of Young Koreans in Japan Yasunori Fukuoka Globalization and Social Change in Contemporary Japan J.S. Eades, Tom Gill and Harumi Befu Coming Out in Japan: The Story of Satoru and Ryuta Satoru Ito and Ryuta Yanase Japan and Its Others: Globalization, Difference and the Critique of Modernity John Clammer Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron Harumi Befu Foreign Migrants in Contemporary Japan Hiroshi Komai A Social History of Science and Technology in Contempory Japan, Volume 1 Shigeru Nakayama Farewell to Nippon: Japanese Lifestyle Migrants in Australia Machiko Sato The Peripheral Centre: Essays on Japanese History and Civilization Johann P. Arnason A Genealogy of ‘Japanese’ Self-images Eiji Oguma Class Structure in Contemporary Japan Kenji Hashimoto An Ecological View of History Tadao Umesao Nationalism and Gender Chizuko Ueno Native Anthropology: The Japanese Challenge to Western Academic Hegemony Takami Kuwayama Youth Deviance in Japan: Class Reproduction of Non-Conformity Robert Stuart Yoder Japanese Companies: Theories and Realities Masami Nomura and Yoshihiko Kamii From Salvation to Spirituality: Popular Religious Movements in Modern Japan Susumu Shimazono The ‘Big Bang’ in Japanese Higher Education: The 2004 Reforms and the Dynamics of Change J.S. Eades, Roger Goodman and Yumiko Hada Japanese Politics: An Introduction Takashi Inoguchi A Social History of Science and Technology in Contempory Japan, Volume 2 Shigeru Nakayama Gender and Japanese Management Kimiko Kimoto Philosophy of Agricultural Science: A Japanese Perspective Osamu Soda A Social History of Science and Technology in Contempory Japan, Volume 3 Shigeru Nakayama and Kunio Goto Japan’s Underclass: Day Laborers and the Homeless Hideo Aoki Social Stratifi cation and Inequality Series Inequality amid Affl uence: Social Stratifi cation in Japan Junsuke Hara and Kazuo Seiyama Intentional Social Change: A Rational Choice Theory Yoshimichi Sato Constructing Civil Society in Japan: Voices of Environmental Movements Koichi Hasegawa Deciphering Stratifi cation and Inequality: Japan and beyond Yoshimichi Sato Social Justice in Japan: Concepts, Theories and Paradigms Ken-ichi Ohbuchi Advanced Social Research Series A Sociology of Happiness Kenji Kosaka MODERNITY AND IDENTITY IN ASIA SERIES Globalization, Culture and Inequality in Asia Timothy S. Scrase, Todd Miles Joseph Holden and Scott Baum Looking for Money: Capitalism and Modernity in an Orang Asli Village Alberto Gomes Governance in Asia: Developmental State, Asian Values and Third-Wave Democracy Takashi Inoguchi and Chung-Si Ahn Japan’s Underclass Day Labourers and the Homeless Hideo Aoki Translated by Teresa Castelvetere Trans Pacifi c Press Melbourne First published in Japanese in 2000 by Akashi Shoten as Gendai Nihon no toshi kasō: Yoseba to nojukusha to gaikokujin rōdōsha This English language edition published in 2006 by Trans Pacifi c Press, PO Box 120, Rosanna, Melbourne, Victoria 3084, Australia Telephone: +61 3 9459 3021 Fax: +61 3 9457 5923 Email: info@transpacifi cpress.com Web: http://www.transpacifi cpress.com Copyright © Trans Pacifi c Press 2006 Designed and set by digital environs, Melbourne. www.digitalenvirons.com Printed by BPA Print Group, Burwood, Victoria, Australia Distributors Asia and the Pacifi c UK and Europe Kinokuniya Company Ltd. Asian Studies Book Services Franseweg 55B, 3921 DE Elst, Utrecht, Head offi ce: The Netherlands 38-1 Sakuragaoka 5-chome, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo Telephone: +31 318 470 030 156-8691, Japan Fax: +31 318 470 073 Telephone: +81 (0)3 3439 0161 Email: [email protected] Fax: +81 (0)3 3439 0839 Web: http://www.asianstudiesbooks.com Email: [email protected] Web: www.kinokuniya.co.jp USA and Canada International Specialized Book Asia-Pacifi c offi ce: Services (ISBS) Kinokuniya Book Stores of Singapore Pte., Ltd. 920 NE 58th Avenue, Suite 300 391B Orchard Road #13-06/07/08 Portland, Oregon 97213-3786 Ngee Ann City Tower B USA Singapore 238874 Telephone: (800) 944-6190 Telephone: +65 6276 5558 Fax: (503) 280-8832 Fax: +65 6276 5570 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.isbs.com Australia and New Zealand UNIREPS University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia Telephone: +61(0)2-9664-0999 Fax: +61(0)2-9664-5420 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.unireps.com.au All rights reserved. No production of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Trans Pacifi c Press. ISSN 1443–9670 (Japanese Society Series) ISBN 1-876843-24-1, 978-1-876843-24-3 (Hardcover) ISBN 1-876843-25-X, 978-1-876843-25-0 (Paperback) Contents Contents x Figures xx Tables xx Introduction xx 1 A Framework for Urban Underclass Research X Section I: The mode of existence of the urban underclass 2 The Urban Underclass and Kamagasaki XX 3 The Urban Underclass and Kotobukichō XXX 4 The Urban Underclass and the Homeless XXX 5 The Urban Underclass and Foreign Workers XXX Section II: The urban underclass’ world of meaning 6 Methods of Researching the Urban Underclass XXX 7 Yoseba: Discrimination and Meaning XXX 8 The World of Meaning of the Winter Struggle XXX Conclusion XXX Notes XXX References XXX Index XXX Figures 1.1 Global urbanization and class differentiation XXX 1.2 The process of segregating the people at the very bottom of urban society XXX 1.3 Movement within the urban underclass XXX 2.1 A rough map of Kamagasaki and its environs XXX 3.1 A rough map of Kotobukichō and its environs XXX 3.2 Changes undergone by the urban underclass and the lower classes within yoseba XXX 4.1 Decline in occupation status XXX 5.1 The departure/arrival process for foreign workers XXX 5.2 The multi-layered labor market XXX 5.3 The stratifi ed structure of the construction industry XXX 5.4 Relations between different ethnic groups in Japanese society XXX 5.5 Ethnic group relations in construction work settings XXX 5.6 Ethnic group relations in employment settings XXX 5.7 Ethnic group relations in work settings XXX 5.8 The location of the city of Osaka and related administrative wards XXX 5.9 Korean work and living spaces XXX 6.1 Four perspectives in life history research XXX 6.2 Yoseba research (researcher) types XXX 6.3 Yoseba cultural sub-types XXX 8.1 The process of the winter struggle XXX 8.2 The ranking of the living and the dead XXX 8.3 Sacred spaces – Kamagasaki (a rough sketch) XXX 8.4 The ranking of sacred spaces XXX viii Tables 1.1 Global urbanization and class differentiation XXX 2.1 Percentage of employees by industry XXX 2.2 Percentage of employees by occupation XXX 2.3 Numbers of people in casual and day work by industry XXX 2.4 Day labor employment service (Tokyo) XXX 2.5 Young people’s employment choices and the reasons for them XXX 2.6 Percentage of people sought for daily employment (cash) by industry XXX 5.1 The transfer of foreign workers XXX 5.2 The process of employing foreign workers XXX 5.3 Changes in the Korean population in Japan XXX 8.1 Two worlds of meaning XXX ix x Introduction Friends! Yesterday, Fuyuki was cremated. We feel indescribable fury, regret and anger seething within us. Because this is not a problem that Fuyuki alone just happened to encounter; it is a problem forced daily onto friends who are compelled to sleep rough . Friends who are forced to sleep rough! Friends who live by gathering empty cans and cardboard! When we are useful to them, they mercilessly work us hard and then, when they no longer need us, they throw us out onto the streets! This is how the capitalist system has always been. Then, they follow this up with ‘appeasement’ and ‘isolation’. Let’s put a stop to it! Fuyuki did not die because he intervened in a quarrel between friends. He was killed by the government which threw him out onto the streets and which forced him to sleep rough in parks, on footpaths and in countless other places! This is a passage from the memorial service address, found in a Kamagasaki Day Labor Union leafl et, for Fuyuki (aged forty-three at the time of his death) who died as a result of being beaten up one night, when he attempted to mediate a quarrel between homeless friends in a tent in a park (Nagai Park in Osaka) (Kamagasaki Hiyatoi Rōdō Kumiai (Kamagasaki Day Labor Union), 24 February 2000). Fuyuki, the youngest of eight children, was born in a farming family in Ehime Prefecture. After graduating from high school, a succession of jobs took him to San’ya in Tokyo in 1977. For the next twenty years he came and went between yoseba1 and construction camps as a construction worker hired on a daily basis. Fuyuki was a ‘young man’ who, with his continued attachment to the ideals of childhood, had a strong sense of justice; who was active in the day laborers ’ movement; and who loved literature. In San’ya, he took the lead in mounting a counter-offensive against the violence by gangs of thugs. In his last years, with his health failing and unable to fi nd work, he pitched a tent and spent his days as a homeless person. The 26th of February. A memorial chapel. Right front – a micro- phone. By the incense holder on the right, a photograph, the mortuary xi Japan’s Underclass urn and a bouquet of fl owers. Mourners take the microphone one by one to talk about Fuyuki’s life. An elderly homeless man bows down his head. The funeral march trickles along. People offer incense sticks as a tribute to the deceased.