Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-zzh7m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T17:25:02.580Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Language and cultural capital in the discursive maintenance of Japanese identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2023

Paul Capobianco
Paul Capobianco*
Affiliation:
Nanzan Anthropological Institute, Nagoya, Japan
*
Author for correspondence: Paul Capobianco, E-mail: capobianco@asianethnology.org
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explains how the possession of linguistic and cultural capital, real and imagined, works to “make” people Japanese and reify the boundary of Japanese identity. Drawing on case studies of celebrities with multiple heritage and ethnographic data, this paper shows how discursive associations with possessing cultural capital (re)create boundaries of Japanese identity, incorporating potential out-group members and excluding ostensible in-group members. The paper argues that the possession of native-level cultural capital will become an important way of differentiating “Japanese” from Others henceforth. These discursive processes apply old hegemonic ideologies in novel ways, allowing for the perpetuation of extant identity discourses and cultural institutions to be reproduced with new faces. It also argues that cultural capital is a more practical way of categorizing Japanese people from Others than identity constructions such as race and ethnicity. In doing so, it also demonstrates how Japanese people possess multiple understandings of Japanese authenticity, which both facilitates and hinders the absorption of potential Others into the collective.

Keywords

DiversityethnicityidentityimmigrationJapan
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , July 2023 , pp. 739 - 756
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adachi, Nobuko (2005). “‘But It's Our Mother Tongue!’: The Japanese Language as Spoken in a Japanese Brazilian Community.” Japanese Language and Literature 49:2, pp. 453–83.Google Scholar
Aikyo, Koji (1998). “Okinawa Asks: What is the Nation-State?” Social Science Japan 14, pp. 6–7.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict (1991). Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Barth, Frederik (1969). “Introduction.” In Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference, ed. Barth, Frederik, pp. 9–38. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar
Befu, Harumi (2001). Hegemony of Homogeneity: An Anthropological Analysis of Nihonjinron. Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1984). Homo Academicus. Translated by Peter Collier. Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre (1986). “The Forms of Capital.” In Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. Richardson, John G., pp. 241–58. Westport: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Burdelski, Matthew (2010). “Socializing Politeness Routines: Action, Other-Orientation, and Embodiment in a Japanese Preschool.” Journal of Pragmatics 42, pp. 1606–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, Christopher (2008). “(Re)Constructing Boundaries: International Marriage Migrants in Yamagata as Agents of Multiculturalism.” In Multiculturalism in New Japan: Crossing the Boundaries Within, eds. Graburn, N., Ertl, J. and Tierney, R. K., pp. 64–81. New York: Berghahn Books.Google Scholar
Capobianco, Paul (2017). “Transfiguring Identity: Social Relationships and Intercultural Communication between Foreign ‘Children’ and Japanese ‘Parents’.” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 10:4, pp. 324–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dale, Peter N. (1986). The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness. New York: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
DeCarvalho, Daniela (2003). Migrants and Identity in Japan and Brazil: The Nikkeijin. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DiMaggio, Paul (1979). “On Pierre Bourdieu.” American Journal of Sociology 84:6, pp. 1460–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donahue, Ray T. (1998). Japanese Culture and Communication: Critical Cultural Analysis. Lanham: Univ. Press of America.Google Scholar
Fackler, Martin (2015). “Biracial Beauty Queen Challenges Japan's Self-Image.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/world/asia/biracial-beauty-queen-strives-for-change-in-mono-ethnic-japan.html.Google Scholar
Faier, Leiba (2009). Intimate Encounters: Filipina Women and the Remaking of Rural Japan. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goodman, Roger (1990). Japan's “International Youth”: The Emergence of a New Class of Schoolchildren. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Gottleib, Nanette (2005). Language and Society in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, David (2015). “Immigration Perception in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis of Public Opinion.” Asian Survey 57:2, pp. 368–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, David (2017). “Immigrant Perception in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis of Public Opinion.” Asia Survey 57:12, pp. 368–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, David and Kadoya, Yoshihiko (2015). “Contact and Threat: Factors Affecting Views on Increasing Immigration in Japan.” Politics & Policy 43:1, pp. 59–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Paul (2020). “Linking Cosmopolitan and Multispecies Touch in Contemporary Japan.” Japan Forum 32:4, pp. 484–510.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harker, Richard (1990). “Education and Cultural Capital.” In An Introduction to the Work of Pierre Bourdieu: The Practice of Theory, eds. Harker, Richard, Mahar, Cheleen and Wilkes, Chris, pp. 86–108. London: Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendry, Joy (1986). Becoming Japanese: The World of the Pre-School Child. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Hiramoto, Mie (2019). “‘Her Soul is Japanese’: Naomi Osaka, Mediatization, and Intersectionality.” Discourse, Context, & Media 32, pp. 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Htun, Tin Tin (2012). “Social Identities of Minority Others in Japan: Listening to the Narratives of Ainu, Buraku and Zainichi Koreans.” Japan Forum 24:1, pp. 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ishi, Angelo Akimitsu (2008). “Between Privilege and Prejudice: Japanese–Brazilian Migrants in ‘The Land of yen and the Ancestors’.” In Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, and Identity, eds. Willis, David Blake and Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen, pp. 113–34. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ishikawa, Yoshitaka (2012). “Impact of the Economic Crisis on Human Mobility in Japan: A Preliminary Note.” Belgeo 3:4, pp. 129–48.Google Scholar
Japanese Statistics Bureau (2020). Dai ichi hyō: Kokuseki, Chiiki Betsu, Zairyū Shikaku (Zairyū Mokutei) Betsu: Zairyū Gaikokujin. Tokyo: Japanese Statistics Bureau.Google Scholar
Kelly, William (2013). “Japan's Embrace of Soccer: Mutable Ethnic Players and Flexible Soccer Citizenship in the New East Asian Sports Order.” International Journal of the History 30:11, pp. 1235–46.Google Scholar
Kidder, Louise H. (1992) “Requirements for being ‘Japanese’: Stories of Returnees.” International Journal of Intercultural Relations 16, pp. 383–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim-Rivera, Eun Gyong (2002). “English Language Education in Korea Under Japanese Rule.” Language Policy 1, pp. 261–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimura, Keisuke (2021). “Voices of In/Visible Minority: Homogenizing Discourse of Japaneseness in Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan.” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 50:3, pp. 254–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kondo, Dorinne (1986). “Dissolution and Reconstitution of Self: Implications for Anthropological Epistemology.” Cultural Anthropology 1:1, pp. 74–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larmer, Brook (2018). “Naomi Osaka's Breakthrough Game.” The New York Times Magazine. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/23/magazine/naomi-osakas-breakthrough-game.html.Google Scholar
Lie, John (2001). Multiethnic Japan. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Lie, John (2008). Zainichi (Koreans in Japan): Diasporic Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Maegaard, Marie, Milani, Tommaso M. and Mortensen, Kristine Køhler (2019). “Mediatizing Intersectionality.” Discourse, Context & Media 32, pp. 1–4.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Laura (2015). “Introduction to the Special Section: The Politics of Speaking Japanese.” Japanese Language and Literature 49, pp. 383–87.Google Scholar
Miller, Roy Andrew (1982). Japan's Modern Myth: The Language and Beyond. New York: John Weatherhill.Google Scholar
Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen (2000). “Identities of Multiethnic People in Japan.” In Japan and Global Migration: Foreign Workers and the Advent of a Multicultural Society, eds. Douglass, Michael and Roberts, Glenda, pp. 196–216. Honolulu: Univ. of Hawai'i Press.Google Scholar
Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen (2008). “‘The Invisible Man’ and Other Narratives on Living in the Borderlands of Race and Nation.” In Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, and Identity, eds. Willis, David Blake and Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen, pp. 282–304. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Nauck, Bernhard (2001). “Social Capital, Intergenerational Transmission and Intercultural Contact in Immigrant Families.” Journal of Comparative Family Studies 32:4, pp. 465–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oguma, Eiji (1995). Tanitsu Minzoku Shinwa no Kigen. Tokyo: Shinyosha Press.Google Scholar
Okamura, Hyoue (2017). “The Language of ‘Racial Mixture’ in Japan: How Ainoko became Haafu, and the Haafu-gao Makeup Fad.” Asia Pacific Perspectives 14:2, pp. 40–79.Google Scholar
Powell, Jaya Z. (2015). Denying Difference: Japanese Identity and the Myth of Monoethnic Japan. Unpublished BA thesis, Duke University.Google Scholar
Reuters (2019). “Japan Comedy Duo Apologies After Reports They Said Osaka ‘Needs Bleach’.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tennis-osaka-apology/japan-comedy-duo-apologizes-after-reports-they-said-osaka-needs-bleach-idUSKBN1WA0NY.Google Scholar
Rich, Motoko (2018). “In U.S. Open Victory, Naomi Osaka Pushes Japan to Redefine Japanese.” New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/world/asia/japan-naomi-osaka-us-open.html.Google Scholar
Roth, Joshua Hotaka (2002). Brokered Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Migrants in Japan. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ryang, Sonia (2008). “Introduction: Between the Nations: Diaspora and Koreans in Japan.” In Diaspora without Homeland: Being Korean in Japan, eds. Ryang, Sonia and Lie, John, pp. 1–21. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.Google Scholar
Saberi, Roxana (2015). “Being ‘Hafu’ in Japan: Mixed-Race People Face Ridicule, Rejection.” Al-Jazeera. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/9/hafu-in-japan-mixed-race.html.Google Scholar
Sarkar, Pritha (2016). “Tennis-Osaka Falls Short of Acting Japanese Test.” Reuters, May 29, 2016. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tennis-open-osaka/tennis-osaka-falls-short-of-acing-japanese-test-idUSKCN0YI1Q8.Google Scholar
Shipper, Appichai (2008). Fighting for Foreigners: Immigration and its Impact on Japanese Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Siddle, Richard (1996). Race, Resistance, and the Ainu of Japan. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Silver, Rita Elaine (2005). “The Discourse of Linguistic Capital: Language and Economic Policy Planning in Singapore.” Language Policy 4:1, pp. 47–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suzuki, Takao (1980). “Gengo Seikatsu.” In Nihonjin no Ningen Kankei Jiten, ed. Minami, Hiroshi, pp. 346–65. Tokyo: Kōdansha.Google Scholar
Świtek, Beata (2016). Reluctant Intimacies: Japanese Eldercare in Indonesian Hands. New York: Berghahn Books.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Takahashi, Kosuke (2015). Miyamoto Arianasan “Jinken e no Henken, Nihon to Sekai kara Nakushitai” (Misu Uniba-su Nihon Daihyō). Huffington Post. https://www.huffingtonpost.jp/2015/05/07/miyamoto-ariana-interview_n_7229170.html.Google Scholar
Takamori, Ayako (2015). “‘Henna nihongo’ (Strange Japanese): On the Linguistic Baggage of Racial Strangeness.” Japanese Language and Literature 49:2, pp. 485–508.Google Scholar
Tsuda, Takeyuki G. (2003). Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weiner, Michael (1995). “Discourses of Race, Nation, and Empire in Pre-1945 Japan.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 18:3, pp. 433–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Duncan Ryuken (2017). Hapa Japan: Identities & Representations. Vol. 2. Los Angeles: USC Ito Center.Google Scholar
Willis, David Blake and Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen (2008). “Transcultural Japan: Metamorphosis in the Cultural Borderlands and Beyond.” In Transcultural Japan: At the Borderlands of Race, Gender, and Identity, eds. Willis, David Blake and Murphy-Shigematsu, Stephen, pp. 3–44. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yamashiro, Jane H. (2017). “From Hapa to Hāfu: Reconstructing Mixed Race Japanese Migrant Identities in Japan.” In Hapa Japan: Identities and Representations. Vol. 2, ed. Williams, Duncan Ryuken, pp. 29–58. Los Angeles: USC Ito Center.Google Scholar
Yoshino, Kosaku (1992). Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Japan: A Sociological Enquiry. London: Routledge.Google Scholar