Living Compound Marginality: Experiences of a Japanese Muslim Woman

Abstract

The present article discusses the ways in which ethnic Japanese Muslim women are perceived and treated in contemporary Japanese society, through a case study of one Japanese female convert. It examines the complexity found in her experiences of marginality by highlighting three inter-related modes of marginalization: marginality deriving from being a Muslim, from being a Japanese Muslim and from being a woman. It discusses her responses to these discourses of marginalization and how she establishes her identity as a Muslim, through responding to them. The article first shows that ethnic Japanese Muslims suffer ‘inverted marginality’—marginalization due to belonging to the ethno-cultural majority. It then demonstrates their experience of ‘double marginality’, marginalization by the wider Japanese society and foreign-born Muslims alike. It argues that their experience of double marginality has partly resulted from the absence of a self-sufficient ethnic community of Japanese Muslims. Ethnic Japanese Muslim women experience further marginalization when they become targets for criticism of Islam, such as that Islam is a religion of female subjugation—a notion of gender orientalism that deprives these women of their agency. However, the process of responding to these challenges of marginality helps ethnic Japanese Muslim women consolidate their identity as Muslims.