Junctures, Ruptures, and Reframings: Exploring Community-building, Integration, and Transnational (Dis)connectivity of the Russian-speaking Migrants in Japan
The 14th Forum of Hakusan Society of Anthropology, 2022
November 26 (Sat.), 2022 (Online)
To apply: CLICK HERE
Presentations' Schedule (JST) and Abstracts:
10:30-10:40 Introduction by Ksenia Golovina
10:40-11:05 Varvara Mukhina
Under the Veil of Silence: Group-based Emotions Experienced by Russian Immigrants in Japan who Disapprove of the Invasion of Ukraine
Colonization, mass killings, and military actions undertaken by one country against another leave deep scars on the mutual group relations. The effects may last for centuries. The recent Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has produced highly complicated feelings in many Russians, who disapprove of it. At the same time, Russian legislation prohibits the public expression of this position. Consequently, many people are left face-to-face with their feelings, deprived of the opportunity to speak them out publicly. Seven Russian female immigrants in Japan were interviewed for this study. The interviews took 94 minutes in average, and addressed the issues of the emotions that the respondents experienced in the early days after the invasion. Women reported group-based shame, guilt, fear and ingroup-directed anger, and contempt. The fact that all the respondents have been living outside of Russia for more than a decade did not reduce their embarrassment. This study shows how important may be the perceived membership in an imagined community for an individual, especially at critical junctures in history.
11:05-11:30 Viktoriya Kim and Ma. Reinaruth D. Carlos
Three-Way Process of Integration in Japan: Migrants and Ethnic Communities During Pandemic Crisis
This paper explores how the COVID-19 pandemic was mitigated by receiving states, individual migrants, ethnic communities and sending countries and how these reflect the three-way integration process in Japan. We contribute to the field of migration and integration studies, as well as diaspora studies by focusing on the mobilization of migrants and communities and roles that host and home countries play using the COVID-19 pandemic as an example. This paper is based on surveys with Filipino and Russian-speaking individuals living in Japan, observation of community activities and textual analysis of Japanese press. The findings reveal that in the absence of actions from the host and sending countries, there is higher possibility for individual actors to generate informal networks. Furthermore, we observed disparities in pandemic responses between Filipino and Russian-speaking communities. Filipinos were supported by local NGOs and individual Filipino migrants, while Russian-speaking communities consolidated via online communication. Finally, we predict that the pandemic led to marginalization rather than integration of ethnic communities in Japan. Such exploration of the crisis response enables examination of present-day social ties among migrants, and how they are built and maintained.*
11:30-11:50 Q&A and Interim Discussion
11:50-12:30 Lunch Break
12:30-12:55 Ksenia Golovina
Cross-border Migrants and Material Objects: Towards Normalizing the State of Disconnectedness
Material objects in the lives of migrants, such as luggage, international parcels, and home décor, have been gaining scholarly attention. These earlier works have vitally brought to the surface the material worlds of migrants and exposed the transnational logic of the migrant engagement in material practices. However, there have been little recognition of the fading, disappearance, or absence of the materially expressed transnational connections. Based on the findings of research into the material lives of Russian-speaking migrants in Japan, this study focuses on the discontinuity and non-existence of transactions involving material objects in migration. The paper aims to question the ubiquity of migrant transnational connectivity as a regular state of being and normalize the mode of being out of touch. Rooted in ethnography and methodological individualism, the study, supported by the cases that highlight the ability of objects to be lacking, to become decontextualized and negated, to deteriorate, to subvert relations, and to promote closure, offers an avenue for reassessment of a transnational perspective as related to migrant connectivity.**
12:55-13:20 Mariia Ermilova
Growing Roots in the Japanese Neighborhood: Green Community Projects and Homemaking lived by Female Russian Scholar in Japan
To understand how young foreign citizens can contribute to community development dynamics, the author conducted an autoethnography of a Russian female living in the Japanese community center (jichikaikan) in the Tokyo suburban city. For seven years, she learnt the Japanese language and local order, interacting with the local community in various statuses: as a student, project collaborator, female, foreigner, artist, and local citizen. A Japanese collaborator helped her to get involved in the research project in the beginning and gradually delegated various tasks to her, as she became more independent and started leading a gardening-based project with local women. The study conceptualizes this process through the model of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The author reflects on what parts of her Russian cultural background helped her build bridges with the local community, along with analyzing the functioning of the roles as a foreigner, a student, and a landscape planner in this process. The study serves for better understanding of migrant integration, intercultural contact, and local community revitalization.
13:20-14:00 Q&A and Discussion
Speakers' Profiles:
Viktoriya Kim, Associate Professor, Ritsumeikan University
Viktoriya Kim, is an Associate Professor at the College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University. In her research, she specializes in international marriage migration, multicultural policies, and integration issues of migrants in Japan. Her current projects involve comparative research on Russian-speaking female marriage migrants in Japan and South Korea, foreign residents and multicultural community building in Japan during COVID-19, along with forced migration of ethnic Koreans in 1930s and integration of third-generation Koreans in Central Asia. She is the lead author of The Politics of International Marriage in Japan (Rutgers University Press, 2022).
Ma. Reinaruth D. Carlos, Professor, Ryukoku University
Ma. Reinaruth D. Carlos is a Professor at the Graduate School and Faculty of International Studies of Ryukoku University. She is working on various topics related to the international migration of Filipino nurses and careworkers in Asia, particularly on their retention in one destination within the framework of international stepwise migration. She has also been busy conducting research projects about Filipino English teachers’ migration as well as the Filipino communities in Japan, specifically on how they perceive and plan about ageing and how the COVID-19 has impacted on their economic conditions and community-building.
Varvara Mukhina, Associate Professor, Sophia University
Varvara Mukhina (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University, Tokyo. Since 2007 she has been researching the Russian-speaking community (predominantly women) in Japan. Her focus has been on the patterns of migration to Japan, modes of integration into the Japanese society, and interactions within the migrant community. She is the author of Cross-national Marriages in Japan: History, Tendencies, and Problems (Apollon, 2007, in Russian) and has published, among others, in International Journal of Social and Cultural Studies and Migration Policy Review.
Ksenia Golovina, Associate Professor, Toyo University
Ksenia Golovina is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Sociology at Toyo University, Japan. Initially trained in Japanese Studies, Ksenia Golovina received her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Tokyo. She is the author of Russian Women in Japan: Migration, Marriage, and Life Crafting (Akashi Shoten, 2017, in Japanese) and has published in a number of journals including Russian Sociological Review, Asian Anthropology, and Housing Studies. Her recent research focuses on the Russian-speaking migrants in Japan with reference to material culture, housing, homemaking, creativity, life cycle, and death.
Mariia Ermilova, Post-Doctoral Researcher, Chiba University Graduate School of Horticulture
Mariia is a multidisciplinary researcher and artist from Russia, currently living and working in Japan. She earned a Ph.D. from Chiba University Graduate School of Horticulture, transitioning from environmental science and her life as ecologist to the field of landscape participatory planning, discovering greenery’s social and cultural sides. Mariia is a dedicated on-location urban sketcher and teaches nature observation at Otsuma Women's university. Her recent publications include a co-authored chapter Action Research in a Tokyo Suburb: Building Community Ties through Collaborative Landscaping Projects in The City is an Ecosystem - Sustainable Education, Policy, and Practice (Routledge, 2022).
Funding:
* This study received funding from the following research projects: “Community-Building Among Foreign Residents During Crises and Its Implications on the Host Society: The case of Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic” (JSPS Research Grant C No. 21K12385, FY 2021-24 ), PI: Dr. V. Kim; “South-South and South-North International Labor Migration in East Asia: The case of Philippine-born English teachers in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam and Myanmar” (Ryukoku University Socio-Cultural Research Institute, FY2020-21), PI: Prof. M.R.D. Carlos.
**This study was supported by the JSPS Kakenhi (Research Grants 18K12591[2018-21] and 22K01082[2022-25]), Rep: Dr. K. Golovina.
The Forum is held under the co-sponsorship of The Inoue Enryo Memorial Grant Project, Toyo University, FY 2021-23 “A Comparative Study on Social Reintegration of Returned Immigrants who Once Worked in Japan,” Rep: Prof. Dr. Kazufumi Nagatsu.