Dr. Akira Shah (JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow, Kyoto University) has published a Japanese journal article in volume 54 of Gendai Shisō (Contemporary Thought), titled "Bunkateki nashonarizumu to howaitonesu wo koete: mainoritika riron kara miru ‘kikokushijo’ to ‘gurōbaru eigo’ no kyakkanka" (English translated title: "Transcending Cultural Nationalism and Whiteness: The Objectivization of 'Returnees' and 'Global English' as seen from Minoritization Theory").
Akira's article further builds on his theory of identity minoritization (published Open Access in Japan Forum) by examining its relationship with both Japanese cultural nationalism, and his more recent work on the social force of whiteness (published Open Access in Anthropology & Education Quarterly). Through the former power, he explores how the category of so-called "kikokushijo" ("Japanese returnees") has been structurally imposed as "objective fact" by the education sector and mainstream Japanese society. The latter influence is then used to illustrate a colonially apologetic, yet determined pressure by internationalist actors to embrace Anglo-American English as “global language” within Japanese higher education.
Produced in print by Seidosha, Akira's paper, along with the latest volume can be found here.
A copy of this volume will also be made available at the Bodleian Japanese Library, located inside the Nissan Institute.
Akira is Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University. He is also Research Affiliate at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, and a former doctoral student at the Nissan Institute.
