No.89 Seminar ： Success at the Margins: Ethnographic Inquiry to Korean Entrepreneurship and Ethnic Economies in Japan
- Sarah S. Kashani (The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research)
- 2014/12/16 4:00pm
- The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research (iCeMS West Wing 2F, Seminar Room)
- English
Summary
The Korean community in Japan, commonly termed the Zainichi Koreans, is by the largest group of non-Japanese entrepreneurs in Japan. How might we understand the forces at work encouraging a high rate of self-employment among a marginalized ethnic community in Japan? In this research, I present an ethnographic inquiry to the paradox of the Zainichi Korean entrepreneurial position, namely considerable economic dynamism combined with social and legal vulnerability. The structure of this research is three-fold: first, I investigate historical circumstances of early postwar Japan which facilitated the emergence of the Korean entrepreneurial class and formation of ethnic enterprises; second, I examine the internal workings and organization of Korean ethnic economies by looking at entrepreneurship as a particular market, embedded in social and cultural relations and practices; and finally, I present actual narratives of Zainichi Korean entrepreneurs and their businesses, revealing the dynamic relationship between capitalist action and ethnic identity. Through recognizing the role of real actors – their intentions, desires, fears, dreams; in short, their agency – in realizing opportunities and living within and/or against structural constraints as well as transforming them, entrepreneurial activity can be understood as a transactional process where Zainichi Korean individuals define and negotiate their ethnic status vis-à-vis the many communities they live in that transcends national, cultural and ideological borders.