Abstract

This article examines the different ways Africans present themselves in Japan and considers what these differences explain about the function of ethno-racial categories and discourses in the Japanese context. Specifically, it highlights the importance of cultural factors in shaping the ways Japanese discourses conceptualize and engage categorical difference, as well as the limitations of examining difference in solely racial or ethnic terms. This article considers data from Africans who present themselves as being from places other than continental Africa and demonstrates how these presentations elucidate the dynamic cultural, geographic, socioeconomic, and contextual variables that inform how Japanese discourses construct cultural Otherness. In constructing such Otherness, Japanese discourses project domestic identity ideologies differently onto foreign populations, which simultaneously highlight the functionality of these ideologies. This article suggests that by constructing Otherness in such ways, Japanese discourses are able to reconceptualize notions of domestic Japanese identity in a renewed sense within a global framework.

摘要

本文探讨了非洲人在日本展示自己的不同方式，并考虑了这些差异解释了在日本背景下种族-种族类别和话语的功能。具体而言，它强调了文化因素在塑造日本话语概念化和进行范畴差异的方式中的重要性，以及仅以种族或民族角度考察差异的局限性。本文考虑了来自非洲人的数据，这些人表示自己来自非洲以外的其他地方，并演示了这些演示如何阐明动态的文化，地理，社会经济和背景变量，这些变量会告知日本话语如何构成文化异性。在建构这种“其他性”时 日本的话语将国内身份意识形态投射到外国人群的方式有所不同，这同时凸显了这些意识形态的功能。本文认为，通过以这种方式构建“他人性”，日本话语能够在全球框架内以全新的意义重新构想日本国内身份的观念。