Refugee Flows into Japan: Asylum Seekers’ Circuitous Path through a Historically Closed Nation

David Slater (Sophia University, Tokyo)

Recording

Abstract

Japan has positioned itself in paradoxical ways relative to refugees. Despite the image of a relatively closed nation, last year it has contributed more than 150 million USD to the UNHCR, the fourth largest behind just the US, Germany and the EU. Closer to home, between 2010 to 2017, the numbers of refugees who have made it all the way to Japan seeking asylum has increased 1,600% with almost than 20,000 applications received last year. For some in Japan, refugees are considered a valuable source of labour, a chance to address the dramatic workforce and population decline from which Japan is suffering. And yet, in 2017 Japan granted refugee status to only 20 people, for a refugee recognition rate of 0.2%. Against this background, this paper is a first attempt to explore some of these paradoxes through extended oral narrative interviews with current asylum seekers in the Tokyo areas who are part of a larger project on a refugee support group at Sophia University. Using digital video from our interviews, I will show the circuitous path asylum seekers, especially the relatively elite and educated from Africa and the Middle East, take as they navigate the arcane immigration and support systems, try to find and keep work, endure incarceration in the detention centre, and struggle with the vagaries of community connections and political positionality.

The events are free and open to the public. Registration is not required. For further information please contact ah92@soas.ac.uk or pn4@soas.ac.uk