The Changing Implications of ‘Tabunka Kyōsei in Regional Societies’: The Confused Reformation of Official Concepts of Multicultural Co-Living in Japan in the 2010s

Abstract

ABSTRACT While ‘multicultural co-living (tabunka kyōsei) in regional societies’ was established in the mid-2000s as the principle justifying public policies for foreign residents in Japan, it was often criticized for espousing a logic that hides foreign residents’ lack of participation in Japanese society. Responding to such criticism, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) and an academic advocating ‘tabunka kyōsei 2.0’ tried to reform the concept to promote community cohesion and foreign residents’ social participation by introducing the values of interculturalism and inclusion. In the same period, however, through the development of ‘regional empowerment (chihō sōsei)’ policies, another interpretation of ‘tabunka kyōsei in regional societies’ emphasizing the utilization of ‘foreign human resources’ to compensate for declining populations and economies in local areas emerged. It became the dominant logic justifying the Japanese government’s new ‘society of kyōsei with foreign nationals’ principle until the end of the 2010s. The MIC’s interpretation of tabunka kyōsei in regional societies was marginalized due to its internally confused logics. This article critically examines the complicated intertextual reformation process of concepts and principles around tabunka kyōsei in Japan in the 2010s through detailed text critiques of numerous official documents published by the central and local governments.