The Role of the Intimate Realm on the Transformation of Ethnic Perception

This paper aims to clarify the ethnic perceptions of Japanese wives married to Zainichi Koreans (Koreans permanently living in Japan), and subsequently considers the role of the intimate realm in the change of their perception. Japanese colonial rule over the Korean peninsula and the turmoil that lasted during the decade following liberation in 1945 caused a mass emigration of Koreans to Japan. In this paper, I use the term “Zainichi Korean” to refer to Koreans who immigrated to Japan during that period, as well as to their descendants. The notion that ethnic groups are socially constructed is widely shared, and many studies have argued why that remarkably socially constructed category bears a reality to people. Among others, ethnic studies that rely on a cognitive perspective have linked several different perspectives on the subject. They have clarified how human cognition and people’s interaction, as well as authoritative institutions, such as the 民族認識の変容における親密圏の役割 601 state and media, interrelate with each other to constitute an ethnic reality. Referring to that perspective, I define “ethnic perception” as “the frame of perception used to interpret an event or to interact with others by relating them to social categories based on origin such as race, state, or ethnicity.” According to that cognitive perspective, ethnic reality is constructed when people use that frame of perception within interactions or for the interpretation of an event. However, because that frame is constituted by a collective knowledge socially shared through media representation, state policy, and education, change in the frame is generated by changes in propaganda or representations of ethnicity. In that way, the cognitive perspective presupposes that everyday interaction is not a strong foundation to change ethnic perception. That presupposition is also shared by studies about the intimate realm of Zainichi Koreans. Recently, several studies have pointed out that the public realm newly organized by Zainichi Koreans is transforming ethnic norms shared within their own community as well as in Japanese society. However, studies about their intimate realm presuppose that the ethnic perception in the intimate realm depends on that of the public realm, by pointing out that “changes with the times” allow the diversity of the perception in the intimate realm. On the other hand, Junichi Saito proposes that the intimate realm can be political, transforming the existing order in society. Hannah Arendt claims that only the public realm enables the political action of human beings by generating “the space of appearance.” However, Saito insists that the intimate realm also enables political action, arguing that the intimate realm cannot be separated from physical experience. Therefore, one is inevitably exposed to other people’s needs or difficulties, which generates empathy and acceptance by others. That induces “the space of appearance,” and the intimate realm becomes a foundation to ght against social constraint and the existing social order. (View PDF for the rest of the abstract.)