著者

松谷 実のり

出版者

京都大学大学院文学研究科社会学研究室

雑誌

京都社会学年報 : KJS = Kyoto journal of sociology

巻号頁・発行日

vol.22, pp.49-68, 2014-12-25

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The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the academic significance of studies on the new migration of young Japanese workers and propose a plausible approach to study of such migration. Migrants moving through various channels, having different motivations or lifestyles have emerged under the impact of globalization. This paper focuses on a new type of "locally employed" Japanese workers that are usually hired as local staff by overseas Japanese companies. In order to map this emerging migration in the context of migration studies, I introduce the concept of "middle class migrants." The prevailing image of migrants has been polarized to lower class and vulnerable labor migrants and privileged and freemoving elite migrants. Using the term of middle class migrants, I refer to various types of migrants of relatively affluent background yet not limited to the small number of mobile elites. The middle class migrants are relatively privileged in comparison to the lower migrants. Nevertheless, at the same time, we need to consider the systematic and institutional restrains they have to face as migrants and thus their vulnerability in some aspects as well. Increasing presence of middle class migrants brought by the advancing globalization calls for more empirical studies. Locally employed workers are an adequate example of middle class migrants with double aspects. We can address the lacuna in previous studies on middle class migrants through the empirical research on locally employed workers as both privileged and vulnerable migrants. However, existing literature on middle class migrants prefer to emphasize social or cultural factors rather than testing political or economic frameworks, mainly because of the assumption that they face less problems in political, economic, and institutional spheres. In order to acknowledge and scrutinize both the privileged and vulnerable aspects of their existence, we need to apply a system approach to the migration process.