Mixed Japanese youth identities and multiculturalism in Australia and Japan

Mixed Japanese youth identities and multiculturalism in Australia and Japan

Australia’s multiculturalism and Japan’s tabunka kyōsei are both socio-political concepts that, in theory, unsettle the notion that a nation is bound to a singular ethnic or racial identity and work towards promoting harmonious coexistence across diverse communities. 

In tandem, there is an up-and-coming generation of young people now living in Japan and Australia who have ‘mixed roots’, or in other words, are the children of one ethnically Japanese and one non-Japanese parent. 

Yet, only recently has scholarship begun to analyse mixed identities under the scope of multiculturalism. How do young mixed people navigate their multiple situated identities across and between Australia, Japan, and other countries? To what extent does a sense of ‘multiculturalism’ or tabunka kyōsei influence their identities and belongings?

In this presentation, Aoife Wilkinson will discuss mixed Japanese youths’ interpretations of multiculturalism in Australia and tabunka kyōsei in Japan. Her findings challenge popular rhetoric which positions a multiculturally inclusive Australia opposite to an exclusive and ethnically homogenous Japan. 


Speaker

Aoife Wilkinson is a PhD candidate at the School of Languages and Cultures, University of Queensland. Her research focuses on young people of mixed Japanese backgrounds who live in and in-between Australia and Japan. Her previous work published in New Voices in Japanese Studies is titled ‘Forfeiting Citizenship, Forfeiting Identity? Multiethnic and Multiracial Japanese Youth in Australia and the Japanese Nationality Law.’ She has also published in The Conversation and for Nikkei Australia.