Japanese Migrants and Indigenous Australians: polyethnic society in the northern Australia

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720401
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology/Folklore
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
• Principal Investigator: YAMANOUCHI Yuriko 東京外国語大学, 大学院総合国際学研究院, 准教授 (50626348)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: オーストラリア / 日系人 / オーストラリア先住民 / 移民 / 歴史 / アイデンティティ / 先住民コスモポリタニズム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This project explores the history of the migration of Japanese workers to the Broome pearl shell industry from the 1870s to 1960s, their interactions with local Indigenous Australians, and the lives of their descendants. By combining ethnographic and archival data from Australia and Japan, this research revealed what could be called ‘Indigenous cosmopolitanism’ among Japanese-Indigenous Australian mixed descendant people, which embraces both sides of identities. This attitude has been developed through the long history of interaction between Indigenous Australians and Asian, including Japanese, migrants in northern parts of Australia, where mixing with, acknowledging and respecting other roots is part of the experience of being ‘Indigenous’

Free Research Field

文化人類学　オーストラリア先住民