‘Children of Kinegawa’ and the transformation of the ‘buraku identity’ in Japan

Abstract

The present article explores the way children engaged with the buraku issue in Japan shape the collective discourses concerning the ‘buraku minority identity’, and re-design the ‘Otherness’, through being rooted in non-ethnic and universal standards, such as local attachment, socioeconomic values, community and family-based relationships. The author illustrates this by introducing the various social fields in which children participate in the representation of the ‘buraku culture’, with a focus on children in Kinegawa and surroundings, in Tokyo.