Living in a Segmented World

Abstract

Many studies about migrants in Japanese urban settings have been written by using qualitative methods and ethnographical descriptions to search for the complex social power relations and various practices as resistance against severe discriminative situations in detail. These studies have been presented some research objects and areas, for example the once colonized areas like Korea and Taiwan and the peripheral areas in modern Japan. Okinawa and Okinawans in the mainland Japan have become important issues for geographers, sociologists and historians. We can see fairly large number of studies about the history of integration the Okinawa archipelago into Japan as a modern nation state, the resistant movements of Okinawans who resided in the mainland Japan, and so on. However, there have remained some issues to solve even now.This paper shows the relationship between Okinawan identities and their each individual practices for everyday lives in a certain concentrated place of Okinawans in Osaka metropolitan area. The notion of place here is related not to the monolithic site for resistance but to the intricate realities that are hoeld by each inhabitants who have expanded their own personal networks within and without their place in their survival practices, even if others represent the place as a single negative. At least in this case study, because each vulnerable people has need to use various means for there lives, it has been difficult to express Okinawan ethnicity as a political tool against the discriminative situations.