Japan in 2050 : An Anthropological Imagination of Japan's Future through the Dreams of Filipina Migrants(JASCA Award Lecture 2010)

<p>What will Japan look like in 2050? By 2050, Japan's current population of 127 million will decline to 91 million, due to its low birth rate. The number of people aged 65 or more will increase to 40.5 percent of the total population by 2055. This is an ultra-aged society never experienced before in human history. Within such a demographic framework, some argue that Japan needs to "import" foreign labor for the survival of its economy. Therefore, some presume that Japan will have 10 million foreign residents by 2050, accounting for 11 percent of the total population, as compared with 2.2 million, or 1.7 percent, as of 2008. That necessarily leads to the scenario of Japan becoming multicultural. Against the background of such a future socio-demographic change in Japanese society, this paper examines transnational migration into Japan and the Japanese way of living together in a multicultural environment. Particularly focusing on the dreams of Filipina migrants, the paper discusses the cultural politics of migration, including the issues of citizenship and human rights, and seeks the possibility of establishing a public anthropology toward the future Japanese society. There are four major transnational migrants groups in Japan. In 2008, Chinese, the largest group, numbered 655,377. Most of them are newcomers, though there are longer-established communities of Chinese in such cities as Yokohama and Kobe. Koreans, the second largest group (and the largest until 2006), numbered 589,239, including approximately 400,000 Korean-origin Zainichi Kankoku-Chosenjin, whose presence in Japan was originally a result of colonial labor migration. There are approximately 200,000 newcomers as well. The third, Japanese Brazilians (Nikkei), number some 312,582, most of whom moved to Japan thanks to a 1990 immigration law that admits them as unskilled laborers. The fourth are 210,617 Filipino residents, of whom about 80 percent are female, working largely in the entertainment sector, particularly in bars and nightclubs. Within that framework of multiethnic Japan, the emerging concept of tabunka kyosei ("multicultural coexistence"), which is often considered a Japanese version of multiculturalism, has been analyzed rather critically, especially concerning the lack of clear governmental policy toward Japan's multicultural future on the national level. On the other hand, the transnational realities in certain local communities sometimes go beyond the Japanese nation-state. As an example, this paper examines the Okubo district of Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. As of 2010, Tokyo has 418,116 registered foreign residents. The ward in Tokyo most densely populated by foreigners is Shinjuku, which has 35,211 foreign residents, accounting for 11 percent of its total population, approximately the same percentage that Japan would have if it receives 10 million transnational migrants by 2050. The foreign population ratio of the Okubo district is even higher, at some 35 percent. In that multicultural context, the paper examines the case of Filipina migrants to Japan. As noted above, they work mainly in the entertainment sector, particularly in bars and nightclubs. As a result of their interactions with Japanese customers, there are many intermarriages between Japanese men and Filipina women as well. Such couples numbered over 100,000 by 2009. One problem affecting Japanese-Filipina marriages involves the children. Japanese-Filipino Children (JFC) now number over 200,000. The paper analyzes the dreams of such children and their parents, and discusses them in what Ghassan Hage has called "a hope-sharing society" toward the future Japanese society, where they want to live as "ordinary" Japanese people. In that relation, the paper draws special attention to a newly-emerging area of anthropology known as public anthropology. According to Robert Borofsky, "public</p><p>(View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)</p>